During the past generation, the American middle-class family that once could count on hard work and fair play to keep itself financially secure had been transformed by economic risk and new realities.
Young and old converge on one key point: Overwhelming majorities of both groups said they believe it is harder for young people today to get started in life than it was for earlier generations.
By this time, write John and Mary Gribbin, you would have been hard pressed to find a geologist or meteorologist who regarded the model as being anything more than an historical curiosity.