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    Young Americans Can’t Keep Funding Boomers and Beyond

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    You know the expression “OK, Boomer”? Better said as “Boomer OK.” That’s because the social safety net in the United States is increasingly favoring the old over the young. And this affects our political views and the security of future generations.Younger Americans have valid reason for disgruntlement: Big shifts in income and wealth are dramatically favoring their elders. Under almost every president since 1980, 80 percent of the real growth in domestic spending has gone to Social Security and health care, with Medicare the most expensive health program, according to calculations based on federal data. As a share of GDP, all other domestic outlays combined have declined.Our current tax system also largely does not help Americans, most of whom are younger, pay for their higher education. That wasn’t as big a deal in the 1960s or 1970s, when the average college graduate most likely had little or no student debt. Today, the average taken out each year is about seven times that in 1971, in part because state governments have stripped colleges and universities of funding. This is happening at a time when owning a house is increasingly out of reach. The median price has risen from about 3.5 times median annual income in 1984 to 5.8 times in 2022.So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that today, younger generations are more likely to fall into lower-income classes than their parents or grandparents. Nearly a half century ago, it was the reverse. And in 1989, the median net worth of Americans aged 35 to 44 was nearly 75 percent of those aged 65 to 74. By 2022, that ratio had fallen to one-third.The why is simple. Unlike most other spending, Congress effectively designed Medicare in 1965 and Social Security in the 1970s in such a way that outlays would increase forever faster than our national income. That’s partly because Medicare costs keep rising along with medical prices and new treatments and because Social Security benefits are designed to increase for each new generation along with inflation and wages. And we’re living longer, which means more years of benefits.Today, tax revenues are so committed to mandatory spending, largely for older Americans, and to interest on the national debt (which has quadrupled as a share of G.D.P. since 1980) that few revenues are left for everything else. So, unless we borrow to pay for it, there’s little for education, infrastructure, environment, affordable housing, reducing poverty, or the military.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      GDP Gain in First Quarter Revised Downward in U.S.

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      Consumers eased up on spending in the face of rising prices and high interest rates, Commerce Department data shows.Economic growth slowed more sharply early this year than initially estimated, as consumers eased up on spending amid rising prices and high interest rates.U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from 3.4 percent in the final quarter of 2023 and below the 1.6 percent growth rate reported last month in the government’s preliminary first-quarter estimate.The data released on Thursday reflects more complete data than the initial estimate, released just a month after the quarter ended. The government will release another revision next month.The preliminary data fell short of forecasters’ expectations, but economists at the time were largely unconcerned, arguing that the headline G.D.P. figure was skewed by big shifts in business inventories and international trade, components that often swing wildly from one quarter to the next. Measures of underlying demand were significantly stronger.The revised data may be harder to dismiss. Consumer spending rose at a 2 percent annual rate — down from 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter, and 2.5 percent in the preliminary data for the last quarter — and measures of underlying demand were also revised down. An alternative measure of economic growth, based on income rather than spending, cooled to 1.5 percent in the first quarter, from 3.6 percent at the end of 2023.Still, the new data does little to change the bigger picture: The economy has slowed but remains fundamentally sound, buoyed by consumer spending that remains resilient even after the latest revisions. That spending is supported by rising incomes and the result of a strong job market that features low unemployment and rising wages. There is still no sign that the recession that forecasters spent much of last year warning about is imminent.Business investment, a sign of confidence in the economy, was actually revised up modestly in the latest data. Income growth, too, was revised up.Inflation, however, remains stubborn. Consumer prices rose at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, slightly slower than in the preliminary data but still well above the Federal Reserve’s long-run target of 2 percent.In response, policymakers have raised interest rates to their highest level in decades and have said they will keep them there until inflation cools further. The modestly slower growth reflected in Thursday’s data is unlikely to change that approach.The Fed will get a more up-to-date snapshot of the economy on Friday, when the government releases data on inflation, income and spending in April. More

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      U.S. Economy Grew at 3.3% Rate in Latest Quarter

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      The increase in gross domestic product, while slower than in the previous period, showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s upheaval.The U.S. economy continued to grow at a healthy pace at the end of 2023, capping a year in which unemployment remained low, inflation cooled and a widely predicted recession never materialized.Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from the 4.9 percent rate in the third quarter but easily topped forecasters’ expectations and showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s economic upheaval.The latest reading is preliminary and may be revised in the months ahead.Forecasters entered 2023 expecting the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of interest-rate increases to push the economy into reverse. Instead, growth accelerated: For the full year, measured from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, G.D.P. grew 3.1 percent, up from less than 1 percent the year before and faster than in any of the five years preceding the pandemic. (A different measure, based on average output over the full year, showed annual growth of 2.5 percent in 2023.)There is little sign that a recession is imminent this year, either. Early forecasts point to continued — albeit slower — growth in the first three months of 2024. Layoffs remain low, and job growth has held steady. Cooling inflation has meant that wages are again rising faster than prices. And consumer sentiment is at last showing signs of rebounding after years in the doldrums.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      More Than Words: 10 Charts That Defined 2023

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      Some years are defined by a single event or person — a pandemic, a recession, an insurrection — while others are buffeted by a series of disparate forces. Such was 2023. The economy and inflation remained front of mind until the war in Gaza grabbed headlines and the world’s attention — all while Donald Trump’s […] More

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      Robert Kennedy Jr. Reports Income of $7.8 Million

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      The presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist made nearly $1.6 million from consulting work for a law firm known for litigation against pharmaceutical companies, a filing showed.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion and prominent vaccine skeptic who is challenging President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, reported an income of $7.8 million in the year leading up to his entry into the race, including nearly $1.6 million from his consulting work for a personal injury law firm known for litigation against pharmaceutical companies.The details came in a financial disclosure form filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission. It shows that Mr. Kennedy earned $5 million at his environmental law firm, Kennedy & Madonna, and a $516,000 salary and bonus as chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group he formed that has campaigned against vaccines. (The disclosure says he has been on leave from the organization since April, when he announced his campaign.)Mr. Kennedy, a leading skeptic of vaccinations and prescription medications, has gained a foothold in the race even as he has contorted facts about vaccine development and public health authorities and increasingly embraced conservative figures and causes.His support among Democrats has reached as high as 20 percent in polls, although a more recent Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll in June put his Democratic support in New Hampshire at 9 percent. He has also appealed to prospective voters outside the party: A Quinnipiac University poll in June found that 40 percent of Republicans viewed him favorably, compared with 31 percent of independents and 25 percent of Democrats.Friday was also the final day of campaign fund-raising for the second quarter for the presidential race. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign sent out solicitations asking donors to help him meet a $5 million goal by the end of the day. His campaign highlighted a $1 million haul in the 24 hours leading up to Friday’s final push.Official numbers will be available in two weeks, when the campaign files reports with the F.E.C.On his disclosure form, Mr. Kennedy reported nearly $1.6 million in consulting fees from Wisner Baum, a Los Angeles-based personal injury law firm formerly known as Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman. The firm’s website lists him as co-counsel on ongoing litigation over Gardasil — an HPV vaccine manufactured by Merck — as well as lawsuits over Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer and California wildfires.Mr. Kennedy also reported $150,000 in consulting fees from the Marwood Group, which describes itself as a health care advisory firm based in New York. And he reported $125,000 from Skyhorse Publishing, which publishes his books and, according to the disclosure, pays him as a consultant.Dennis Kucinich, the former congressman and Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager, said the disclosure “speaks for itself.” More

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      Greek Youths, Shaped by Debt Crisis, Plan to Vote for Stability

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      Many children of Greece’s traumatic years of economic collapse have opted for pragmatism over radicalism and say they will back a conservative on Sunday.Days before this Sunday’s election in Greece, three young women with piercings and ironic T-shirts who sat outside a hipster coffee shop in an Athens neighborhood best known as a hub of anarchist fervor said they wanted stability.“Money is important — you can’t live without money,” said Mara Katsitou, 22, a student who grew up during the country’s disastrous financial crisis and one day hoped to open a pharmacy. “There’s nothing that matters to someone more than the economy.”As a result, she said, she would cast her vote for Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, the square, conservative prime minister who graduated from Harvard, who is fond of riding his bike and who, polls suggest, will win convincingly on Sunday in a second national election. With Mr. Mitsotakis — who is also the son of a former prime minister — Ms. Katsitou said, she had “definitely a better chance.” About a third of young voters like her feel the same, polls indicate.After spending impressionable years amid so much panic, desperation and humiliation during the decade-long financial crisis that erupted in 2010 — and which collapsed the Greek economy — many of Greece’s depression-era children have grown up to say they have no interest in ever turning back.In many quarters, youthful radicalism has given way to unexpected pragmatism, a yearning for prosperity and a steady hand, and an inclination to overlook or at least mute outrage over any number of scandals that have dogged Mr. Mitsotakis.Young Greeks have expressed no interest in going back to the realities of the 2010s. At the peak of the crisis, nearly one in three Greeks were jobless, and many struggled to buy food and pay bills.Byron Smith for The New York TimesIn recent days, a shipwreck that killed possibly more than 600 migrants has raised new questions about the Mitsotakis government’s hard-line measures to curb arrivals of migrants. The wiretapping of an opposition leader by the state’s intelligence service and Mr. Mitsotakis’s consolidation of Greek media has prompted concerns about the erosion of democratic norms. A train crash that killed 57 people in February revealed the shabby state of key Greek infrastructure, for which he apologized.But for Greeks, including an increasing number of younger Greeks, polls show that all of those issues pale in comparison to the country’s economic stability and fortunes.Mr. Mitsotakis’s government has spurred growth at twice the eurozone average by cutting taxes and debt, and by increasing digitization, minimum wages and pensions. Big multinational corporations are investing in the country. Tourism is skyrocketing. The country is paying back creditors ahead of schedule, increasing the chances of rating agencies lifting Greece’s bonds out of junk status.“It’s all about jobs, about, you know, raising disposable income and bringing in a lot of investment and about growing the economy much faster,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in a recent interview. “This was always my bet, and I think that we delivered, if you look at the numbers.”A bus stop with a campaign poster for Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this month in Athens.Byron Smith for The New York TimesGreece’s 2010 debt crisis was a searing national catastrophe. Humiliating bailouts connected to seemingly endless austerity measures slashed household incomes by a third and sent unemployment skyrocketing as hundreds of thousands of businesses collapsed.At the peak of the crisis, in 2013, nearly one in three Greeks were jobless, and many were disheartened after years of violent protests, in which demonstrators clashed with the police in the streets of Athens and other cities in clouds of tear gas. Scenes of the most desperate people trawling through bins for food — once unheard-of — shocked the majority of Greeks who struggled to make ends meet.“We still have a deep sort of legacy of 10 years of a crisis,” Mr. Mitsotakis acknowledged in the interview. “Not many people appreciated how painful the crisis was — we lost 25 percent of our” gross domestic product.Mr. Mitsotakis, the standard-bearer for the New Democracy party, has won over a sizable share of the generation that grew up in that time, increasing his support among voters aged 17 to 24 by three points, to 33 percent.Just as telling, support among young voters for his leftist opponent, former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Syriza party, has collapsed, falling to 24 percent from 38 percent since the 2019 elections, when Mr. Mitsotakis defeated him.In an initial election in May, Mr. Mitsotakis’s party thrashed Syriza by 20 points, but it was not enough of a majority to lead a one-party government. Instead of cobbling together a coalition, Mr. Mitsotakis opted for another election. With a new, more favorable election law that gives a bonus of seats to the leading vote-getter, he now hopes to win a landslide victory that will allow him to govern alone.Overall, Mr. Tsipras is trailing Mr. Mitsotakis by more than 20 points.Support for Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the left-wing Syriza party, among young voters has fallen since he was defeated by Mr. Mitsotakis in the 2019 elections.Byron Smith for The New York TimesThat is despite his efforts to depict Mr. Mitsotakis as an undemocratic, arrogant and unaccountable strongman who he says has overseen a “massive redistribution of wealth from the many to the few” in his four years in power.Not all young voters, of course, are behind Mr. Mitsotakis. Many complain that the prosperity that is supposed to kick-start their lives is making things so costly that they cannot move out of their homes.Not all of the economic indicators are good, either. Greece still has the European Union’s highest national debt, and it is the second-poorest nation in the European Union, after Bulgaria. Tax evasion is still common.Mr. Tsipras has tried to convince young voters that, in fact, he, not Mr. Mitsotakis, is not only the true agent of change, but also of stability. He has promised financial relief, including better health benefits, though it remains unclear how those would be funded.“We’ll fight so that hope for justice and prosperity for all is not lost in this country, for a fair society and prosperity for everyone,” Mr. Tsipras said this week at a campaign event in the western city of Patra.Some voters, suffering under rising prices and exponentially increasing rents, support him.“The crisis isn’t over; it’s still here,” said Grigoris Varsamis, 46, who said his record shop’s electric bills were through the roof and that he would vote for Mr. Tsipras.An information booth for former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras this month in Athens.Byron Smith for The New York TimesBut there is little doubt that Mr. Tsipras, a former Communist firebrand who governed in the latter years of the financial crisis, has been tainted by a lasting association with the pain of that era.In 2015, under his leadership, Greeks voted to reject Europe’s draconian aid package, and Greece was nearly ejected from the eurozone. Social unrest returned and talk of “Grexit,” referring to Greece exiting the eurozone, mounted. Many young Greeks who grew up during that time feel scarred by the Syriza experience.Grigoris Kikis, 26, an award-winning chef at the restaurant Upon in Athens, remembers that the financial crisis coincided with his trying to break into the world of restaurants as a 13-year-old volunteering in kitchens after school.As restaurants closed and his father fretted about paying his workers, the chefs around him worried about the budgets for produce, meat, plates and glasses. When they wanted to try out a new dish, they could afford to test it only once.Today, Mr. Kikis runs a popular bistro in Athens with a 300-label wine list, in-house coffee-roasting machines and an eclectic menu with plates tried 25 times before they make the cut.“The restaurant is full every day,” he said, explaining that he would vote for Mr. Mitsotakis to keep it that way. “Many people my age care most about the economy. They say there is more opportunity and higher salaries, and maybe people will come from abroad and want to work in Greece because things changed for the better.”Grigoris Kikis, a chef in Athens, said people his age felt strongly about the future of their country’s economy.Byron Smith for The New York TimesThe same is true for Nikos Therapos, 29, a sustainability consultant. When he was 16, he said, the drastic cutting of the public budgets cost his mother, a kindergarten teacher, her job. His father’s company, in the hard-hit construction industry, shrank, too.“I remember very clearly about not being so optimistic about my professional career,” he said.In 2015, when he was studying business in Brussels, Greece was embroiled in intense political and social upheaval, and, Mr. Therapos recalled, his fellow students shunned him in working groups.“I was regarded as the lazy Greek, even though they didn’t know anything about me,” he said. “It was really unfair for me and my generation.”But in the past four years, Mr. Therapos said, there had been a change.“I cannot say we are back to normality for the simple reason that I have never known normality,” he said. But for the first time, he said, he felt “confident in our future.”Many of his more leftist friends had also shifted to Mr. Mitsotakis, Mr. Therapos said, because they want a “stable and sustainable economic system.”Unsurprisingly, Mr. Mitsotakis agreed.“At the end of the day,” he said, “Greece is no longer a problem for the eurozone. I think this offers a lot of people relief.” More

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      Yang’s Rivals in the Mayoral Race Co-opt His Signature Idea

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the RaceAndrew Yang’s Candidacy5 TakeawaysWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYang’s Rivals in the Mayoral Race Co-opt His Signature IdeaAndrew Yang favors a modified version of universal basic income that would provide payments of about $2,000 to a half million of the poorest New Yorkers. Andrew Yang officially announced his bid for mayor of New York City on Wednesday.Credit…James Estrin/The New York TimesJan. 14, 2021Updated 9:50 p.m. ETUniversal basic income was Andrew Yang’s signature issue in his 2020 presidential run, and it will be a centerpiece of his New York City mayoral campaign, which he officially began Wednesday night with a launch video.But during the months Mr. Yang spent contemplating a run for mayor, his competitors preemptively made his issue their own.Carlos Menchaca, a progressive city councilman, is planning to introduce legislation that would create a targeted universal basic income program in New York City. Eric Adams, Brooklyn’s more centrist borough president, wants to explore universal basic income, too. So does Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive running to the far left.In a race of more than a dozen Democratic candidates, with many trying to out-progressive one another, pushing for a guaranteed income program could be viewed as a form of virtue signaling to the left.But it also shows how an issue that was Mr. Yang’s signature talking point on the 2020 campaign trail has gained enough acceptance to be co-opted by other candidates — a development that threatens to undermine Mr. Yang’s central argument for running.The candidates’ embrace of guaranteed income doesn’t mean that a broad-based program is a particularly viable idea for New York City, given the battering its economy has taken in the pandemic, its yawning budgetary needs and the amount of money needed to guarantee income to the city’s adult population of roughly 6.6 million.Mr. Yang acknowledged as much in his campaign rollout. His proposal for the “largest basic income program in the country” is by no means universal. He would target annual cash payments of about $2,000 to a half million of the poorest New Yorkers, in a city of 8.4 million.Mr. Yang said his proposal would cost the city $1 billion a year — a daunting sum given that the city faces budget deficits in the billions of dollars in coming years. He says further expansion of the program would be dependent upon “more funding from public and philanthropic organizations, with the vision of eventually ending poverty in New York City altogether.”His plan for the country was more far-reaching: He had envisioned giving every American citizen over 18 years of age $1,000 a month in guaranteed federal income, or $12,000 a year, a no-strings-attached dispensation he said was made necessary by the increasingly widespread automation of jobs.“I’m identified with universal basic income for a reason,” he said in a recent interview. “I think it’s the most direct and effective thing we could do to improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans who are struggling right now, and anything I do in public life will be advancing the goal of eradicating poverty in our society.”In the interview, Mr. Yang swatted away the notion that his future opponents were trying to steal his signature issue from him. He adopted a more-the-merrier posture.“Frankly, any mayoral candidate who is not making it part of their platform is missing the boat,” Mr. Yang said.Critics argue that a guaranteed income could discourage people from working. Still, the fact that several of the candidates vying to run the economic and cultural capital of the United States are exploring the notion of a guaranteed income does suggest that the concept has gained some momentum.There are now guaranteed income demonstration projects underway in Jackson, Miss.; Santa Clara County, Calif.; and St. Paul, Minn. The terms “universal basic income” and “guaranteed income” are sometimes used interchangeably, but they differ. Many pilot programs are not universal but, like Mr. Yang’s proposal, instead would supply income only to the poorest members of society. Unlike many existing social assistance programs, they would not dictate how recipients spend the money.Natalie Foster, a co-chair of the Economic Security Project, which advocates a guaranteed income, said she has had conversations with more than one New York City mayoral candidate on the topic.“It’s exciting to see it being an issue in the race and not surprising at all, given the momentum across the country,” Ms. Foster said.As a presidential candidate, Mr. Yang advocated giving people a guaranteed basic income of $1,000 a month.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesThe other candidates touting universal basic income in the mayoral race are largely doing so in less specific terms.Mr. Menchaca said he hopes to include a pilot program in this year’s budget that targets cash grants to low-income New Yorkers. The details of that program have yet to be hammered out.In a recent radio interview, Ms. Morales called for a “universal basic income for people who need it,” and like Mr. Menchaca, suggested the question of how to fund it was something of a red herring, one that often gets asked “when we start talking about prioritizing the needs of the neediest New Yorkers.”She said she would take a look at some of the city’s budgetary “bloating,” including at the New York Police Department, and expressed hope for state aid. In a subsequent email, her spokesman said Ms. Morales thinks a “local basic income” should be funded through a wealth and luxury tax on the “superrich that phases out and does not sacrifice the safety net.”At a recent mayoral forum, Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said universal basic income could be an important tool “to get people over this very difficult time, particularly low-income New Yorkers.”Asked for specifics, a spokesman declined to provide further details.Other candidates, including Scott M. Stringer, the city’s comptroller, and Kathryn Garcia, its former sanitation commissioner, said they would prefer to see some version of the idea implemented at the federal level instead.Mr. Yang quit the presidential race in February after failing to gain ground in the New Hampshire primary, but he succeeded in making himself a political celebrity — and casting a klieg light on universal basic income. In various forms, the concept has been implemented in small pilot programs around the country, one of which his nonprofit organization, Humanity Forward, is helping to fund in the Columbia County city of Hudson, N.Y.The general idea of a guaranteed income goes back centuries. Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent, and early, proponent of the idea in the 20th century, and his son, Martin Luther King III, has continued pushing for it in his father’s stead.“It’s really immoral for us to have people living on the streets in the United States,” said Mr. King, the co-chair of Mr. Yang’s campaign.A new group, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, is pushing for a federal guaranteed income and counts more than two dozen mayors as members, including Ras Baraka of Newark, N.J., Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta.By Ms. Foster’s count, there are more than 10 pieces of legislation in Congress that would guarantee an income for families until the current economic crisis is over.“And that is political warp speed,” she said.One of the most prominent universal basic income pilots in the United States — the first program spearheaded by a mayor — is now wrapping up in Stockton, Calif. Since February 2019, the privately funded program has given 125 Stockton residents $500 a month. Recipients like Tomas Vargas Jr. will receive their last payments on Jan. 15.Before he joined the program, Mr. Vargas was working as a U.P.S. supervisor. The monthly checks gave him enough financial security and confidence to start looking for a better job. Now he works as a case manager at a Stockton nonprofit. Instead of living paycheck to paycheck and constantly looking for additional ways to make ends meet, he has time to read stories to his young children at bedtime.The no-strings-attached approach is “the beauty” of the program, he said. “It treats you like a human.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More