ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Jan. 07 2010

The upside of a rough-and-tumble decade
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

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.