Children, adults and the elderly in the Great Recession: an economic atlas of the US by age

The United States is still in the midst of the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. Impacts have not been uniform across demographic groups, however, with important differences by age. While there is much research already about the age impacts of the Great Recession, it largely focuses on just one particular age group or just one aspect of economic life. To get a complete understanding of the generational nature of the Great Recession requires more comprehensive tools. The National Transfer Accounts (NTA) framework provides a more complete perspective, allowing us to examine the age dimension of production, consumption, transfers, and saving. In this paper, I will show age profiles of all of these economic activities for the full age range, from pre-recession years through 2011. The results indicate that all ages have been hurt by the recession, but to different degrees. The coping mechanisms employed to deal with these difficulties have also varied significantly by age and socioeconomic status.