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The Upside of a Rough-and-Tumble Decade
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Posted: Thursday, January 7, 2010

ARTICLE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Publication Date: January 7, 2010

They have been dubbed the "Zilches," the "Uh-Ohs," even the "Awful Aughts." Whatever you call them, the last 10 years -- and, especially, the last two -- have been undeniably rough on many Americans and their pocketbooks.

From skyrocketing rates of home foreclosures and bankruptcy filings to slashed incomes and vanishing nest eggs, Americans from all walks of life have felt the pinch of the Great Recession. Add anxiety over the ever-present threat of terrorist attacks, two foreign wars and a federal government that seems more adept at creating problems than solving them, and it's no wonder that so many pundits are musing about the "Terrible Teens" to come.

Judging from the end-of-the-decade angst emanating from talk show perches and op-ed pages since we ushered in 2010 last week, it would seem that the 2000s were the worst of times in every way. But it's not all doom and gloom. As we welcome a new year and a new decade, it's worth pondering the positive effects of a recession that has forced us to reevaluate our priorities -- spending and otherwise.

Consider our newfound national focus on frugality. Congress may not have gotten the memo, but the spend-now-and-pay-later attitude that got us into our current fiscal mess is so last decade. Today, it's hip to be thrifty. "Staycations" and home-grown, home-cooked meals are in; designer diaper bags and spa days for Fido are out. So are maxed-out credit lines: Consumer borrowing declined precipitously in 2009, falling by the largest amount in dollar terms since 1943.

That's not news most retailers want to hear, but it bodes well for the long-term prospects of a nation suffering from an addiction to overspending. After decades of profligacy, saving is making a comeback. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, which tracks Americans' personal saving rate by subtracting what we spend from what we earn, found that our saving rate rose in May to its highest level in a decade and a half. And these belt-tightening times may have a lasting effect on the next generation: A new survey from Fidelity Investments found that more than four in 10 workers between the ages of 22 and 33 believe that living through this economic crisis has made their generation more fiscally conservative.

That sense of sobriety extends beyond economics. According to "The State of Our Unions 2009," an annual study directed by sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia's National Marriage Project and co-published by the Institute for American Values, marital stability has become a happy by-product of our unhappy economic times. Divorce rates have fallen since 2007, a drop that the study's researchers attribute to a new appreciation among American couples "for the economic and social support that marriage can provide in tough
times."

What's true for family also may be true for faith. In a recent study of Protestant church attendance over the past four decades, Texas State University economist David Beckworth found a correlation between economic hard times and church growth, at least for evangelical congregations. Another study, by the Alban Institute and the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, found that more than two-thirds of American congregations surveyed had fundraising receipts that increased or remained the same in the first half of 2009 compared to 2008, despite a worsening recession.

The aughts gave Americans plenty of reasons to fret. The teens surely will give us more. But the tough economic times of the 2000s also have given us an opportunity as a nation and as individuals to reconsider what really matters, to rethink what we can live with and what we can't live without. For all the losses of the past decade, that's a gain worth celebrating.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.