The article is hard to plod through because it is a grab-bag of unrelated statistics, faulty reasoning, and jumping to conclusions with inadequate evidence.
The main sentence which seems to be resonating is the following:
“Higher recent rates of unemployment mean the lifetime risk of experiencing economic insecurity now runs even higher: 79%, or 4 in 5 adults, by the time they turn 60.”
This sloppy sentence reminds me of how my weakest students, and often worst writers, were journalism majors. (The best: engineers)
First, recent unemployment rates have been falling, not rising. Yes, there are huge measurement problems, and other well-known employment measures that are worsening, but these are not mentioned by the author. Second, how does the author so precisely conclude that 79% of adults will be “experiencing economic insecurity” by the time they reach 60? Where, by the way, is “economic insecurity” even defined? And finally, what is so bad about feeling some economic insecurity in the four decades of living and working up to age 60? Economic insecurity just might teach one how to budget and plan, educate oneself properly, move to where the jobs are, and improve one’s employability…kind of the American way. Lots of successful people, including us Piggs, had rough patches and bad luck and took the tough measures to overcome them.
