The Real Entitlement Generation
What an absolute hoot that some Baby Boomer bosses are calling the current crop of young kids the Entitlement Generation (bolds are mine):
The Entitlement Generation: Are Young Workers Spoiled or Simply Demanding a New Kind of Work Life?
CHICAGO (AP) — Evan Wayne thought he was prepared for anything during a recent interview for a job in radio sales. Then the interviewer hit the 24-year-old Chicagoan with this: “So, we call you guys the ‘Entitlement Generation,’” the baby boomer executive said, expressing an oft-heard view of today’s young work force. “You think you’re entitled to everything.”
Such labeling is, perhaps, a rite of passage for every crop of twentysomethings. In their day, baby boomers were rabble-rousing hippies, while Gen Xers were apathetic slackers.
Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too — as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company.
“We’re seeing an epidemic of people who are having a hard time making the transition to work — kids who had too much success early in life and who’ve become accustomed to instant gratification,” says Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrics professor at the University of North Carolina Medical School and author of a book on the topic called “Ready or Not, Here Life Comes.”
While Levine also notes that today’s twentysomethings are long on idealism and altruism, “many of the individuals we see are heavily committed to something we call ‘fun.’”
He partly faults coddling parents and colleges for doing little to prepare students for the realities of adulthood and setting the course for what many disillusioned twentysomethings are increasingly calling their “quarter-life crisis.”
The finger is definitely pointed in the proper direction when the schools are brought into play. But who ruined them? Boomer parents coddling their kids, who (shock!) now feel “entitled.”
But look at the NOdometer on the left side of this page. We Boomers are pushing, by current count, $1.72 trillion onto future generations, representing what we’re going to try to force them to pay us while we are in our “golden years.” And that’s just Social Security–there’s Medicare, prescription drugs, Medicaid…you start to see how if nothing is done, future generations will face confiscatory taxes and lowered living standards.
And now that it’s crunch time, which generation is saying “I want my Safety Net” (Business Weak link may require paid subscription)? Hint–it’s not the current crop of young people:
While many members of Safety Net Nation have nothing against investing and choice, they’re worried that the country’s web of public and private social protections is fraying. They believe in more, not fewer, safeguards against downward mobility in a world that’s already pulsing with economic uncertainty. Safety Netters include plenty of card-carrying Republicans and independent swing voters, and the group may represent a broader swath of America than the White House imagines.
A Sept. 2-5, 2004, survey by the Civil Society Institute, a Newton Centre (Mass.) nonprofit group, found 67% of Americans think it’s a good idea to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27% dissenting. Support for a government-directed universal insurance system is strong, despite GOP warnings about socialized medicine. Similarly, a Feb. 3-5 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 47% of respondents believe the government ought to guarantee a minimum standard of living for retirees, vs. 35% who felt that was an individual’s responsibility.
But who is going to pay for all of this? Boomers are expecting subsequent generations to fund what is by far the greatest intergenerational redistribution of wealth and income in human history. Remind me again: Which generation should be called the “entitlement generation”?
Don’t be surprised if the children and grandchildren of Boomers decide that they are “entitled” to not pay the bill.
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UPDATE: This post is a proud participant in the Beltway Traffic Jam.
UPDATE 2: Welcome to Betsy’s Page readers, and now the smooth, linky goodness of Anchoress (whew).
Y’all can call me Tom. To get a flavor for what this blog generally covers (subject to change based on whims of the moment), consider checking out this (on shareholder suit corruption), this (on Hollywood’s slump), this (on possible blog software hogging), and this Instalinked blast from the past on business reporting bias.
