Below is a transcript of a story which originally aired on American Public Media’s Marketplace Money
My bank account has never seen “disposable income” – I use everything I make, and then some.
I’m a college graduate. And I work. Still, I pay for meals with loose change. I calculate the price per ounce in the cereal aisle to ensure the best deal. Apparently, this makes me part of a new trend you have probably read about: being frugal. But there’s nothing new about it to me. I’ve been living in my own personal recession since before the real one started.
My financial life is, well, first I pay rent, and then my bills for the month. Health insurance is a luxury. I haven’t had insurance for almost two years. DayQuil is my doctor. I can’t afford to think about a more serious illness or a medical emergency or even paying for antibiotics out of pocket.
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Once this recession is over we're gonna get right back to normal, right? It'll be My Super Sweet 16, Cristal, and Escalades all over the place. A do-over of the "Roaring Noughties" we were promised instead of the lame Aughts they turned out to be.
Right?
Not so fast. It looks like recessions make a lasting impression on those who come of financial age when they hit. New York Times writer Alina Tugend took a look at the work of UCLA economics researcher Paola Giuliano for a piece on "Recession Resolutions":
Examining information from 50,000 individuals, Professor Giuliano found that those who were 18 to 25 years old when the recession occurred — no matter what part of the country they lived in — were more likely to believe certain tenets than those who didn’t live through a severe recession, or those younger or older. They are more likely to believe that luck, as opposed to hard work, is the key to individual success, and that more government intervention is necessary to provide safety nets, even if that means higher taxes. Yet they also have less confidence in government.
Prof. Giuliano's research partner pointed out to Tugend that the deep kind of changes brought about in behavior by the Great Depression came about over 15 years, not the one or two year long recessions the U.S. has experienced since then.
