From Ring of Fire Radio -- Papantonio: Generational Income Gap Is Destroying Young People Financially: Unlike the "Don't Tax Me" Tea Party, the members of the Occupy Movement tend to be young adults who are struggling to find work. And
November 23, 2011

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From Ring of Fire Radio -- Papantonio: Generational Income Gap Is Destroying Young People Financially:

Unlike the "Don't Tax Me" Tea Party, the members of the Occupy Movement tend to be young adults who are struggling to find work. And there's a reason why this generation is becoming increasingly angry at corporate America. Studies show that young Americans are now falling way behind in income, while the older generations hold almost half of all the wealth in America. Mike Papantonio discusses the generational income gap with Alternet editor and senior writer, Josh Holland.

Pap and Joshua discussed Holland's article at AlterNet here -- Pew Report on Young-Old Wealth Gap is Misleading and Divisive; Could Fuel Intergenerational Class War:

Those gunning for Social Security are already using the study to divide the "other 99 percent."

A new study purporting to show that older households are doing much better than younger ones in terms of wealth and income threatens to spark an intergenerational class war, pitting Americans of different ages – people who have all been devastated by the crash caused by Wall Street's recklessness -- against one another. But there are serious flaws in how the research is being interpreted.

The analysis, by Pew Research, is being spun as evidence that the government “spends too much” on the elderly while leaving younger Americans hanging out to dry. It's already becoming another weapon in the corporate right's long-running battle against Social Security.

There's no doubt that this economy is especially grim for young people. Unemployment among young adults continues to hover around 18 percent, and a report by the Federal Reserve found that full-time undergraduate students are borrowing 63 percent more for school than they did a decade ago. (Outstanding student-loan debt broke the trillion-dollar mark for the first time this year.) Young people have few prospects for decent jobs. This bleak situation is clearly a driving factor behind the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement; studies suggest that the “occupiers” skew young, don't have a lot of income and suffer from a much higher rate of unemployment than the country as a whole.

Much more there so go read the rest. It reminds me a great deal of this segment by Chris Hayes on his new weekend show earlier this month -- Chris Hayes on the Generational Warfare Being Waged by Republicans.

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