Declining fortunes

About this book

American society has reneged on its promise to the baby-boom generation. Young people for the first time find themselves unable to duplicate, let alone surpass, their own parents' standard of living. Although the media are filled with images of high-living yuppies, the realities for this generation of adults are far bleaker: home ownership rates are falling precipitously, pink slips cascade from corporate headquarters, and costs of raising a family rise threateningly. How are Americans coming to grips with declining fortunes? Based on years of probing research and candid interviews with postwar suburban parents and their baby-boom children, this book provides an unblinking look at the damage that economic decline has done to the people of America - damage reflected in taxpayer revolts, anger at the urban underclass, and fury at the nation's political elites. With insight and sensitivity, Katherine S. Newman explores all the disturbing implications of a trend that shows every indication of being a long-range phenomenon. She discusses the pressures on young mothers to stay at home - pressures that they can scarcely afford to indulge - and the frustration (often mixed with disdain) of elderly parents unable to see why their children can't "make it" as they did, "pulling themselves up by the bootstraps." She examines the growing xenophobia toward affluent Asian newcomers. And she points out the rift between counterculture baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s and those who grew up in the "me decade" of the 1970s, revealing that the baby-boom generation is a generation divided against itself. Here is a book that sheds new light on the driving issue of our day: downward mobility and the politics of resentment.