All of my life I’ve heard jokes about the “Depression era-grandmother” who stuffed her cash in a mattress because she didn’t trust banks. People swap stories about their grandparents and great-grandparents hoarding money and broken possessions that they might be able to reuse someday. These anecdotes, and other artefacts of the Great Depression, are even printed in textbooks: Hoover Flags are empty pockets turned out to demonstrate one’s lack of money, and “Brother Can You Spare A Dime” was the hit song about panhandling in 1931. Books like The Grapes of Wrath and TV shows like Carnivale capture what life was like during and after the Great Depression. In short, stinginess has become a byword for an era when nothing was secure.
A recent story caught my eye: “The Hidden Homeless: Families in the Suburbs,” by Bob Young, for The Seattle Times. It was shared on Robert Reich’s facebook page, and it wasn’t the story that shocked me as much as the comments (on Reich’s post – the posts on the Seattle Times page are another thing). I already knew that the West Coast was experiencing a crisis in mass homelessness. What I didn’t know is that it was happening all over the country. People from Boston, Denver, and Florida were commenting on the sudden uptick of family homelessness in their communities.
The crisis of homelessness confirmed something to me: the Recession isn’t over. Even though things are looking up from 2008, they aren’t looking up enough or moving fast enough. I won’t bother citing them all, but you can probably find a dozen studies on the internet that demonstrate that people think young people aren’t engaging with consumerism enough. In my own life, I find this to be true. No matter how many ads are on a website, I don’t give a shit about any of them. No matter how good a commercial is, it doesn’t make we want to buy that product (probably because the only really good commercials are for baby products). When I started earning more than enough to squeak by, I started saving aggressively. All of these seem like good habits, right?
Well… if my friend’s band is playing, I don’t go if there’s a cover charge. I only have a set amount of money to spend on entertainment every month, and I usually raid that metaphorical piggy bank when unexpected expenses come up. I don’t really go to the movies. I don’t go on fancy dates with my wife, like we used to before we were saving. When I hosted a Bead For Life party, hardly anyone bought anything because they’re all watching their money closely, too. I haven’t owned a car for 7 years and I don’t intend to unless it’s an absolute necessity. I also haven’t tried to buy a house because I can’t yet afford one that allows me to continue living car-free.
Aside from my student loans, I have no debt (trust me, those are enough). I don’t care about the systems that keep capitalism going – credit, consumption, etc. I care about the systems that keep me afloat. I worry that I won’t have enough saved for retirement. I watch the older people around me juggle their many expenses, and remember how hard my parents struggled to keep us afloat (and how vocal they were about it). I have one friend who, despite being a Millennial, has taken advice from family and bought the line that she needs a new car every few years and all the fancy kitchen gadgets. For years she has consistently earned more than me (I just pulled ahead of her in 2016), yet she always seems to be in debt. Her revolving credit card balances astound me. She is a single, independent woman with a decent paycheck and her own apartment – a rarity in our area – yet she struggles because she can’t seem to curb her spending. I’ve seen it in action, too, so I know it’s pretty extreme. I *love* shopping but she lives shopping. I mention her because she seems to me an example of how people used to spend, before everything was insecure.
Which brings me back to the article about mass homelessness. Obviously, what our country needs is massive public investment in living-wage jobs; affordable housing, meaning housing across the income spectrum, not just luxury condos and so-called “tiny-house” shelters for the homeless (they’re sheds); equitable food systems that bring health and wealth into our communities; and policy, lots of policy, to protect us all from the tragic mess we’re in becoming the default. All of this will cost money. Specifically, it will cost taxpayer’s money. Supposedly, Bernie Sanders is running on steam generated by Millennial voters, but in my own experience, it’s 40-60-somethings who are the most vocal and virulent in their support. Young people might be excited about making these changes, but are they going to be thrilled when their paychecks are even smaller? Are we too stingy to rescue ourselves?
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