"Everyone sits around and bitches, why don't they get out there and do something?"
We've all heard that. But what about the people who bitch about the people who bitch? Why aren't THEY getting out there and doing something? Why are they spending all their time sitting around and bitching about that?
Have they forgotten the importance of discourse? There would be fairly little doing of anything if people weren't talking-- evaluating, debating, believing, changing. This is the stuff of humanity. For myself, I know that I have, do, and will make a difference in this world in my own unique way.
And I reserve my right to bitch.
Like these observations, for example.... I've been looking at some numbers lately. How stable will our generation be when we reach retirement age? What does our economic picture mean for women? We really need to be looking at this stuff.....
Every couple of years the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the 10-year employment projections. Of the top 10 occupations with the rosiest projections, seven are by and large poorly paid: retail (596,000 new jobs by 2012), customer service (460,000), food preparation (454,000), cashiers (454,000), janitors (414,000), waiters and waitresses (367,000), and nursing aides (343,000). And the BLS numbers don't distinguish between full-time jobs with benefits and part-time or temp work. In other words, there will be plenty of jobs, but far fewer careers.
Combine this phenom with the increase of the income of the very top upper crust. According to Business Week, from 1990 to 2002, workers' income has increased 46%. CEO pay has increased 279%.
According to the Levy Economics Institute, a wealth of information (heh), the top 5% owns almost 60% of the wealth in this country.
It also reports that the top 10% own a whopping 79% of the investment products- stocks, mutual funds, retirement accounts. The top 1% of that group owns 42% of the investment stake. Those are shocking numbers. We don't have the financial education or security we need. We are not planning.
We've got to start. There has been a wave of financial services these past few years that has made financial planning much more accessible to the masses. You don't have to have a lot of money to have a financial advisor. The financial services industry is actually changing for the better. It used to be that you had some schmuck who didn't know anything who would try to sell you some product, get his commission, and be done with it. But commission-based products are going by the wayside. Now, it's all about fee-based advising. Meaning, out of all your money that your advisor touches, they take out a small percentage every quarter as their fee. So it serves them to make you money. They're now being trained to be real advisors, form real relationships.
I hope that women, in particular, will take advantage of this.
There are over 70 million women in this country right now between 19 and 54. That is a huge portion of our population. Nearly half of these women are unmarried. Now, this doesn't mean that they are necessarily living in a single-income household... but some other stats are intriguing...
According to the 2000 census, roughly two-thirds of women who had babies that year were employed. So whether or not these women are married or co-habitating or are single mothers, they are not staying at home full time with their children. Yet, it's still increasingly difficult to be financially stable.
According to the 2003 National Association of Realtors survey of buyers and sellers, 21% of home purchases made in 2003 were by single women, up from 18 percent in 1997. Nationally, the home ownership rate for households headed by females hit 53% in 2000, up from 48% in the early 1980s, according to census data.
So women are doing a hell of a lot more on their own. I find this awesome. But I'm also worried.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the savings rate for single women is 1.5% compared to 2.1% for single men. This is, I'm sure, partially attributable to their having children, many of them on their own. Also because of what they earn.
Women still earn 74 cents for each dollar a man earns, which qualifies them for less Social Security and pension. That isn't good because over 70% of the United State's four million elderly poor people are women; 48% of this group are widows. This makes sense since women live longer. But they have so little security, which is alarming because of that 70 million of younger women who will be reaching old age in the coming decades.
Just some thoughts.
