America's Social Recession

[Bubba_Switzler]

Forget Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of expansion (“growth”) or recession–what really matters is the social recession, which continues to deepen in America. The term social recession has two distinct meanings: around 2000, the term was used to describe the erosion of social cohesion via the decline of institutions such as marriage and the rise of social problems such as teen pregnancy.

Many commentators pinned the responsibility for this erosion of social constraints and bonds on rampant individualism and overstimulated consumerism, while others pointed to urbanization, the commodification of child care, women entering the workforce en masse and similar trends. Poverty was explicitly rejected as a causal factor, hence the term “social recession.”

charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2013/08/americas-social-recession-five-years.html