Various things - the Social Security piratization debate, KO's excellent front page post on the Great Depression, a novel I just finished (
The Corrections - I highly recommend it), and learning yesterday that my younger sister just applied for food stamps, has me wondering: is the American Dream still at work? Are we better off than our parents?
My folks were doing a lot better at age 38 than I am doing at age 38, but they're doing awfully poorly now, in their late 60's. They don't plan to retire for several more years and when they do, their main economic base will be their SS checks. Yet they raised us in a house 3 times the size of the one I live in; they had 5 children, spoiled us rotten, sent us all to college. And here we are - one of us is truly financially secure, 3 of us are treading water, and my sister just applied for food stamps.
So I'm wondering how everyone else out there is doing, and I may even attempt my first poll. Here goes: