Many older Americans are living a desperate, nomadic life

Marketwatch.com ^ | March 10. 2018 | Richard Eisenberg

[ilovesarah2012]

In her powerful new book, “Nomadland,” award-winning journalist Jessica Bruder reveals the dark, depressing and sometimes physically painful life of a tribe of men and women in their 50s and 60s who are — as the subtitle says — “surviving America in the twenty-first century.” Not quite homeless, they are “houseless,” living in secondhand RVs, trailers and vans and driving from one location to another to pick up seasonal low-wage jobs, if they can get them, with little or no benefits.

[Svartalfiar]

We saw in the 1980s a shift from pensions to 401(k)s; that was a raw deal for workers. These retirement plans were marketed as an instrument of financial freedom, but they were really transferring risk from the shoulder of the employers to the backs of the workers.

"Financial freedom" was the problem as well as the selfish employer refusing to take care of its employees for life.

Huh? How does the employer not paying someone for life, make them selfish? Before the wage controls of the early 1900s, most employers didn't offer many extra benefits. Do you know how expensive it is to pay someone for not doing any work? Several decades of free pay, times multiple employees, will put most employers out of business fast. Plus, most people nowadays don't stay with one company like they used to. And most companies don't award even partial pension benefits until you have 15 or (maybe) ten years at the company. In which case, getting some benefit - 401k - is much better than nothing.

[neefer]

I was making fun of the article and attempting to be sarcastic.