Where has all the money gone?

Benefits for the elderly have gotten more generous and there are more old people than ever.

America can afford its choices — but it should be honest about what they are. (Photo by Halfpoint Images)

Russ Greene wrote a fun piece late last year bemoaning Total Boomer Luxury Communism, which is an entertaining turn of phrase. I broadly agree with Scott Alexander, though, that the effort to forge some kind of new anti-Boomer populism is factually misguided and pragmatically unlikely to succeed.

But without casting aspersions or judgment, I think the factual points that Greene is making are important and often overlooked.

Looking back on the final days of Bill Clinton’s administration, the largest category of spending was supporting the elderly. And over the course of the 21st century, the share of the population that is elderly has risen steadily, while the benefits paid to the elderly have become more generous on a per person basis. During this time, many state and local governments have adopted policies to give seniors preferential treatment in various forms of tax policy.

It is completely okay to approve of these policy developments if you like them on the merits. Clearly, one reason that public policy has evolved in this direction is that voters seem to feel good about spending money on the elderly.

That being said, if you get what you want politically, then I think you have something of an obligation to be happy about it. And my read of the political situation is that almost nobody is happy about this trend.

We’re living through a period of intense negativity about the state of the economy and politics, with dueling populist narratives blaming either immigrants or billionaires for all the ills of the world. And when I look at the stated goals of both Democrats and Republicans, “ever-larger transfer payments to old people” doesn’t line up very well with either party’s nominal agenda. Yet if the share of the population that is elderly rises and per person benefits also rise, that necessarily makes it challenging to pursue other agendas.

Perhaps all things considered, people actually do think it’s more important to spend money on senior citizens than to promote fertility or reduce poverty or tackle whatever other problems they’re considering. But if that’s a choice that we want to make, it’s a choice that we ought to make consciously and resolve to feel good about. Instead, it seems like something that mostly gets ignored — neither politicians nor pundits are taking victory laps. Because I do think that if most people looked at it in detail, they would conclude that, on balance, the current course is not really what they favor.

The safety net for old people has gotten more generous

The trend toward upward-ratcheting benefits for elderly Americans has been largely bipartisan and, as a result, it’s been somewhat under-discussed in a political media environment that tends to emphasize conflict.