By and large, Dale Kleber had a pretty straightforward trip up the economic ladder. He went to law school and worked his way up to general counsel of a major food distributor in Chicago and then chief executive of a dairy trade organization. He is putting his third and fourth kids through private college.
“Our generation was pretty spoiled,” said Kleber, 60. “We had it good. The economy was in a huge growth spurt. Some dips here and there, but nothing severe.”
But a couple of years ago, Kleber hit a roadblock. He’d left the dairy group and started looking for another job; he and his wife didn’t have quite enough saved to retire comfortably. He didn’t think he’d have trouble finding work.
Scores of applications later, with few callbacks and no offers, Kleber is close to admitting defeat — and admitting that age discrimination might be one of the biggest challenges his generation has faced.
One job posting, from a medical device company called CareFusion, seemed to suggest Kleber’s lack of success wasn’t just due to a tough job market: The ad called for a maximum of seven years of legal experience. He applied anyway and, after being passed over, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging age discrimination. The case is in the discovery phase in federal court in Illinois.
“They expressed concerns with an older person being less likely to take supervision from someone that’s younger than they are,” Kleber said, paraphrasing the company’s response to his suit. “If I felt like I was going to be dissatisfied in the position, I wouldn’t be pursuing it.”
That disagreement goes to the heart of the awkwardness that baby boomers are now feeling as they enter the last years of their working lives. Often needing to stay in jobs longer than they anticipated to shore up savings depleted during the Great Recession, or simply wanting to remain active further into their lengthening life spans, they’re coming up against a strong preference in America for youthful “energy” and “innovation.”
That bias is so common we frequently don’t recognize it. Todd Nelson, a psychology professor at California State University at Stanislaus, has singled out birthday cards for portraying advancing age as something to be ashamed of, with a tone that would never be used with race or religion. (“ ‘Ha-ha-ha, too bad you’re Jewish’ … wouldn’t go over so well,” he noted.)
Internet memes like the “Scumbag Baby Boomer” and “Old Economy Steve,” which lambast boomers for transgressions from failing to adopt technology to causing the wars and recessions that millennials have weathered, channel resentment against an entire category of people in ways that might not be tolerated if they were members of another protected class.
At a time when conditions have vastly improved for women, gay people, disabled people and minorities in the workplace, prejudice against older workers remains among the most acceptable and pervasive “isms.” And it’s not clear that the next generations — ascendant Gen Xers and millennials — will be treated any better.