RightChange: Obama’s Economy Causes Seniors To “Work ‘Til They Drop”

Before Barack Obama took office, the baby boomer generation had a chance at retiring at a descent age.  When the recession hit, almost everyone over age 50 began pulling money from the account they worked their entire lives saving for to make ends meet.  The stock market crashed and those accounts began to shrink to disturbing levels. Obama pledged to Seniors that he would ensure them a “secure and dignified” retirement by implementing all of the policies he said would turn the economy around -we all know how that ended.  Now the economy is failing to grow and the dreams of retirement are shattered.

Candidate Obama released the ad, “High and Dry,” in Iowa pledging to save Seniors from their retirement woes:

Turns out, Obama didn’t look out for Seniors like David, or Paula:

“When Paula Symons joined the U.S. workforce in 1972, typewriters in her office clacked nonstop, people answered the telephones and the hot new technology revolutionizing communication was the fax machine.

Symons, fresh out of college, entered this brave new world thinking she'd do pretty much what her parents' generation did: Work for just one or two companies over about 45 years before bidding farewell to co-workers at a retirement party and heading off into her sunset years with a pension.

Forty years into that run, the 60-year-old communications specialist for a Wisconsin-based insurance company has worked more than a half-dozen jobs. She's been laid off, downsized and seen the pension disappear with only a few thousand dollars accrued when it was frozen.

So, five years from the age when people once retired, she laughs when she describes her future plans.  "I'll probably just work until I drop," she says, a sentiment expressed, with varying degrees of humor, by numerous members of her age group.”

One of the main reasons for this is because the economy is not growing.  Instead of making the tough choices, President Obama has settled for a monetary stimulus policy i.e. printing money.  Interest rates may be low, but the economy is not growing.  This is one of the main reasons why the stock market is down.  The best cure for a diminished 401(k) is a healthy stock market and a growing economy.  It doesn’t help at all that Obama’s big spending policies have borrowed from Social Security in order to shift money around.  We saw this recently with the “payroll tax cut.”  Now Seniors are living solely off Social Security instead of their 401(k).

There were plenty of promises made to the American public. This is just another story of a broken campaign promise that left another American high and dry.

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