Title: Generational Warfare – Reason.com
Headings: Generational Warfare
Generational Warfare
Old-age entitlements vs. the safety net
Gourmet Cat Food
Entitlements Forever
The Myth of Mandatory Spending
Who Pays?
Underfunding the Future
Old vs. Young

Content: we would do what we needed to do to try to provide the resources they required to stay above poverty, to live as comfortably as we could afford. And that would cause a lot of difficult decisions in our lives, wouldn't it?" This rhetoric about entitlements freeing the young ignores the fact that they are hit with the cost of supporting their elders in every paycheck. Furthermore, when repurposing lines first uttered a half-century ago, today's politicians are also ignoring some very good news: The oldest among us are in remarkably good shape compared to graybeards of previous generations. Using consumption data, economists Bruce Meyer of the University of Chicago and James X. Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame have shown that people 65 and older have much lower poverty rates than most other demographic groups and that these rates have fallen sharply over the past 50 years. Writing for the New York Times website in November 2011, Meyer reminded us that "even over the past 10 years, those 65 and older with the lowest income are now living in bigger houses that are much more likely to be air conditioned and have appliances like a dishwasher and clothes dryer." Eighty-three percent of elderly households own a home, and 86 percent own a car. Seniors have more stuff and more wealth. According to 2010 combined data from 15 federal agencies on population trends, economics, and health issues, seniors' average net worth as of 2007 had increased almost 80 percent during the previous 20 years.