THE “GRAYING” & “BROWNING” OF AMERICA IS IN FULL SWING

…A statistical look at the “Graying of America”.

 Some implications of these changes are not looking good.

It is becoming well know that today, the “Graying of America” is now in full swing.  With all the Baby-Boomers retiring, and fewer children being born over the past decades, America is definitely aging.  But it’s not just a bunch of Boomers getting gray hair.  It’s also the “Browning” of America.  Not only is the nation getting older, its younger generations are also less white.

For such an immigrant nation, there are those that say “so what?” and those that fight these changes.  But there are also other changes that come with both “Graying” and “Browning”, and they aren’t looking good for the country.

The reality is that regardless of our ethnicity, many older Americans may not empathize with today “American Kids”.  Statistically. voters actually become less sympathetic to spending on young people over time.  Today, with so many older Americans, we may be systemically under-investing in an entire new generation of Americans.  The Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam emphasized this issue in his new bestseller, “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis.”  Poor kids and young adults, both white and ethnic, he argues, are the innocent victims of a widening “opportunity gap.”

Some say that this attitude is all because of the government’s commitments to aging Americans, such as Medicare, Medicaid and public pensions, these threaten to crowd out funds for other programs.  But that’s not the real reason.

The reality is that research suggests that older Americans generally do not support government spending on the young. One famous study by MIT economist James Poterba, found that a rise in the share of elderly residents in an area, also correlated with a significant reduction in per-child educational spending.  Poterba also found that the reduction is especially big when elderly residents and the school-age population are from different racial groups.

The data also agrees with other economic and historical research.  The research shows that greater ethnic and racial fragmentation, independent of age, is associated with lower rates of social spending in productive public areas such as education, roads and infrastructure. This pattern has been documented both across the United States and in other developed countries.

The fact is that younger Americans are increasingly likely to be nonwhite.  About half of all American children born today are of racial or ethnic minorities. As of last fall, America’s public schools were already classified as “majority-minority,” according to government data.

To put it bluntly, older Americans just don’t like spending money on young Americans.  In addition, when a population becomes more diverse, US voters are less supportive of social spending…period.

So, if our next generation is supposed to help us stay at the top of the heap, what are we “gray-beards” supposed to be doing?

The best answer to this is to get more young Americans into the voting booth.

One of the reasons the graying is so perilous to the young is that older voters are becoming more numerous.  They are also more politically engaged and tend to vote more than their younger counterparts.

But an even more pragmatic issue is that all these older people need a thriving, full-potential-achieving next generation to pay for these oldster’s Medicare and Social Security.  These achieving young Americans will then be asked to pay for the care for these older Americans while growing their economy and thereby improving everyone’s living standards.  But also, just as important, some will then have a good enough income to eventually buy all the homes of these older Americans.

Hopefully, all this personal self-interest of the graying Americans, (rather than the moral arguments for nurturing the next generation), will convert more of the older generation to the equal-opportunity causes for all these younger Americans.

However, I would personally hope that it’s not all a total “Graying” self-interest issue.  Having some compassion for that younger group would also be a hopeful sign for the future.

Copyright  G.Ater  2015