A few decades ago, Leslie McIntire thought she was doing everything right for a comfortable life. She was a tax accountant in Washington, D.C., and co-owned a not-for-profit bookstore. “I had good savings,” she says. “I was quite happy, quite frankly, and I was preparing to go back to school.”
Then a car accident dislocated her hip and jaw, left her psychologically rattled and derailed her career.
McIntire held on in her rent-controlled apartment for a while, even after she was forced to go on disability and started burning through savings. She eventually realized she needed more help, but then had to endure a three-year wait to get into the federally subsidized senior housing where she now lives.
“And by the time I got in here, I was seriously considering going into a shelter,” she says. “I paid my rent, my utilities. I had SNAP benefits for food. And I had $25 left over. And you just can’t live on that in the long run.”
McIntire is 69, part of the baby boomer generation that is entering older age amid a historic affordable housing shortage and rising wealth inequality in the U.S.
The debate in the comment section is always the same when comparing generations, and the problem is people flip flopping. You cannot cite examples of general patterns for one part of your point, then anecdotal specific people’s experience for the other. Pick one or the other, and sadly your anecdotal points are basically useless.
I am sure you mom / dad / aunt / uncle / grandma / grandpa are all nice people who don’t deserve the hardships they are going throw. The difference is that the younger generations are there as well, and they didn’t even have the chance to “prepare” with savings, or a chance to vote, campaign, protest, strike or anything else related.
I am almost 40, and I am dreading the day my kid questions me about “what did your generation do to help the future” and I have to say absolutely fucking nothing because they sat at home, feeding on crumbs tossed to us and had no backbone to stand up for them when they couldn’t, myself included.