Why do people think Boomers had it so good?

[Anonymous]

I'm Gen X, not a Boomer so I have no dog in the Millenials vs Boomer fight, but I find it fascinating how history is totally lost with what Boomers had to deal with when they were young.

Inflation in the past few years is nothing like it was in the late 70's/early 80's when there was double digit inflation year after year. Same with Mortgages. In 1981 it was 18%. It also used to be much harder to qualify for a mortgage, There were no creative repayment terms or 3% down. It was straight up 30 year mortgage with 20% down. They also had to deal with severe gas shortages and a draft. How is it Millenials don't realize this?

[Anonymous]

Don't fall for the generation wars, OP. Only a few, very stupid people actually think previous generations had it better. They're the ones who ignore the medical and technological progress of the past 20 years.

My first born was a micropreemie. He wouldn't have made it out of the NICU in such good shape 50 years ago. My friends have benefited from new cancer treatments - their minor children would be orphans today if we had the same old chemo we had back then.

Remember old people criticize young people and vice-versa. Ignore all the negative weirdos. Enjoy life. You never know when it's going to end.

[Anonymous]

The TLDR version is that millennials were behind boomers on a lot of different metrics by age in their 20s though the gaps mostly closed or even flipped in their 30s.

[Anonymous]

I purchased my first home in 1986 with a mortgage rate of 11%.

[Anonymous]

I don't know, my greatest generation grandfather worked for less than years of his life and retired on a full pension in his 40s. My father worked from 22 to 62 and retired on a full pension. Both played golf and lived very well. Same with his side of the family--his father retired at 50 and lived a full comfortable 40 years collecting his pension. My spouse and I have worked since we were 22 and won't ever retire even though we are better educated than both. There is no pension but the money we tried to save since we were 22.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know, my greatest generation grandfather worked for less than years of his life and retired on a full pension in his 40s. My father worked from 22 to 62 and retired on a full pension. Both played golf and lived very well. Same with his side of the family--his father retired at 50 and lived a full comfortable 40 years collecting his pension. My spouse and I have worked since we were 22 and won't ever retire even though we are better educated than both. There is no pension but the money we tried to save since we were 22.

I'm genX and have been working consistently since I was 12. Yes 12!! I reffed soccer games, then hosted at a restaurant, then waited tables, then worked at a gym, then got a lab job in college, then large corporate job. I hope I don't get laid off from that before I can withdraw my 401k penalty free. I have savings but worked my ass off for everything. I don't think I even know how not to work because it is ingrained in every fiber of my being. This is something passed down to me by the silent generation. My grandfather worked since he was 7 on the family farm, eventually going into the other family business of banking. They were wealthy and forced my father to pay his way through college, which he did. I don't ever remember by father being irresponsible or not working hard until his well deserved retirement at 65.

....I'll probably get laid off before 50 and never find work again, which I fear.

[Anonymous]

It's a hard insight issue and the tricky part is that it's impossible to know if the comparison is fair because not enough time has passed.

Yes Boomers dealt with Vietnam, stagflation, and much more restrictive banking policies that made home ownership more challenging. However that turned around and Boomers then enjoyed perhaps the single most prosperous two decades in the US during their prime earning years. The homes the bought in the early 80s with 12% interest rates and that they had to scrimp and save for to qualify at all, doubled, then ,tripled, then quadrupled in value. Their salaries also increased by multiples. The stock market exploded and they wound up on the ground floor of that rocket.

So yes, in 1982, boomers as a generation were struggling. But in 2024 they are not. They have immense wealth, plus social security is still solvent and medicare is actually functioning better than ever thanks to work on prescription drug prices and supplemental plans. They made it.

Millennials have different challenges. Yes mortgage rates are lower and the rules around mortgages are looser (though not quite as loose as they used to be and that's a good thing). Millennials have more debt starting out thanks to education costs, and unlike boomers they have zero faith their own children will be able to self-fund college. The economy is stronger but the job market is more competitive thanks to globalization and American workers must compete with more highly qualified workers.

Maybe it will all work out like it did for boomers. I hope so! One challenge millennials face is that they continue to lack political power as the political landscape remains dominated by Boomers with a continued focus on Boomer concerns. Key millennial issues (cost of college and cost of housing) still lack consensus and addressing them has been an uphill battle.

To top it off, when millennials advocate for policies that would relieve these key pressures, they are called entitled and whiny and told "hey boomers had high mortgage rates and it was hard to even qualify." But this ignores the fact that *those circumstances changed because they were bad.* Policies shifted to make it easier to buy a home and boomers profited wildly from it. The reason mortgage rules were relaxed and rates brought down over time was not dome gift to millennials. These were policies intended to help boomers. And they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I purchased my first home in 1986 with a mortgage rate of 11%.

For a price that reflected that mortgage rate. You were then able to refinance multiple times; that's how a lot of people created wealth. Meanwhile prices today have not fallen as mortgage rates rose

[Anonymous]

Millennials see them as pigs at the trough. Lived in 4000 sq ft homes 30 miles each way from work and drove ford expeditions to commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I purchased my first home in 1986 with a mortgage rate of 11%.

For a price that reflected that mortgage rate. You were then able to refinance multiple times; that's how a lot of people created wealth. Meanwhile prices today have not fallen as mortgage rates rose

It's true-- housing prices today are somewhat divorced from the normal market factors like rates and availability of mortgages. They are based on availability (especially if single family homes) and the desire of sellers to get good ROI. And the latter factor is related to both the low rates of yore (sellers are less motivated to sell due to their own incredibly low rates) and the fact that many family's net worth is heavily invested in real estate.

It's an extremely different market in every way from the early 80s and definitely not easier or better fur buyers (except those with a lot of capital).

[Anonymous]

Boomers always point to housing interest rates because it's the only metric that they can bring up to show hard financial times. College was basically free.
Retirement was taken care of for you as long as you punched in on time. All you had to pay for was a house and whatever your hobbies were.

But the resentment is much more about how public policy supported middle class people through Boomers' youth and early professional lives, they benefited from those policies, and then voted in landslides to reverse them and allow all the wealth to be hoarded at the top of the distribution chart so that they could save 3% on their personal taxes. Then when their kids and grandkids get out of college and look around like "how exactly am I supposed to save for retirement *and* my kids' college *and* a down payment??" Boomers' reaction is to pretend like those very real and overwhelming concerns are symptoms of entitlement and a result of Millennials' personal choices like toast toppings and not Boomers' decades of selfish votes.

Since you asked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a hard insight issue and the tricky part is that it's impossible to know if the comparison is fair because not enough time has passed.

Yes Boomers dealt with Vietnam, stagflation, and much more restrictive banking policies that made home ownership more challenging. However that turned around and Boomers then enjoyed perhaps the single most prosperous two decades in the US during their prime earning years. The homes the bought in the early 80s with 12% interest rates and that they had to scrimp and save for to qualify at all, doubled, then ,tripled, then quadrupled in value. Their salaries also increased by multiples. The stock market exploded and they wound up on the ground floor of that rocket.

So yes, in 1982, boomers as a generation were struggling. But in 2024 they are not. They have immense wealth, plus social security is still solvent and medicare is actually functioning better than ever thanks to work on prescription drug prices and supplemental plans. They made it.

Millennials have different challenges. Yes mortgage rates are lower and the rules around mortgages are looser (though not quite as loose as they used to be and that's a good thing). Millennials have more debt starting out thanks to education costs, and unlike boomers they have zero faith their own children will be able to self-fund college. The economy is stronger but the job market is more competitive thanks to globalization and American workers must compete with more highly qualified workers.

Maybe it will all work out like it did for boomers. I hope so! One challenge millennials face is that they continue to lack political power as the political landscape remains dominated by Boomers with a continued focus on Boomer concerns. Key millennial issues (cost of college and cost of housing) still lack consensus and addressing them has been an uphill battle.

To top it off, when millennials advocate for policies that would relieve these key pressures, they are called entitled and whiny and told "hey boomers had high mortgage rates and it was hard to even qualify." But this ignores the fact that *those circumstances changed because they were bad.* Policies shifted to make it easier to buy a home and boomers profited wildly from it. The reason mortgage rules were relaxed and rates brought down over time was not dome gift to millennials. These were policies intended to help boomers. And they did.

Thanks! Like

[Anonymous]

The oldest boomers were getting their first job and getting married in early to mid 60s. The 1970s were hard for working families. I am old enough to remember thinking the lines at gas stations and grocery stores were normal. I remember living in a house, but didn't think it was odd that the rooms weren't furnished for years, and "shopping" at garage sales to find a bed. My dad build my desk out of found materials. We wore clothes re-made out of material scavenged from Goodwill clothing. We made our curtains, grew and canned food, kids were sent on "adventures" into the woods to forage for berries, crab apples, and mushrooms. And we were privileged. We knew we were not poor, as my parents had good white collar jobs, and we lived in a nice middle class neighborhood, but all the money went into that home ownership, food, and gas so my parents could carpool to work. We were mostly latch key feral kids in our neighborhood (my mom was a non-contract teacher (so not pension eligible) so everyone ended up at our house after school); no one had nannies or after care or camps or club sports. No one went to restaurants. Vacation was camping (using Dad's old GI gear). No one had or needed multiple cars or electronics or giant metal mugs or fancy tennis shoes or cable TV or the myriad other things we think of today as "necessities." There was no extra money to be saving from age 22 on, and no, these boomers didn't have pensions either.

Is that how your white collar life is right now? Would you be willing to live that way to get the house of your dreams? Because that's what a lot of Boomers did.

I think the people who complain about Boomers must come from truly wealthy and privileged families. Further to a PP's pension story, my uncles retired with healthy pensions too, until the companies let the pension funds go bankrupt and left them with literally nothing to live on (pre-1974 PBGC). They and their wives did not go golfing, they went job hunting in their late 60s-early 70s. Not everyone had it as easy as your family. And not a lot of jobs had pensions in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boomers always point to housing interest rates because it's the only metric that they can bring up to show hard financial times. College was basically free.
Retirement was taken care of for you as long as you punched in on time. All you had to pay for was a house and whatever your hobbies were.

But the resentment is much more about how public policy supported middle class people through Boomers' youth and early professional lives, they benefited from those policies, and then voted in landslides to reverse them and allow all the wealth to be hoarded at the top of the distribution chart so that they could save 3% on their personal taxes. Then when their kids and grandkids get out of college and look around like "how exactly am I supposed to save for retirement *and* my kids' college *and* a down payment??" Boomers' reaction is to pretend like those very real and overwhelming concerns are symptoms of entitlement and a result of Millennials' personal choices like toast toppings and not Boomers' decades of selfish votes.

Since you asked.

Now we have to 'reform' the programs that boomer politicians systematically defunded which largely means keeping benefits intact for boomers and reducing them for everyone who follows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The oldest boomers were getting their first job and getting married in early to mid 60s. The 1970s were hard for working families. I am old enough to remember thinking the lines at gas stations and grocery stores were normal. I remember living in a house, but didn't think it was odd that the rooms weren't furnished for years, and "shopping" at garage sales to find a bed. My dad build my desk out of found materials. We wore clothes re-made out of material scavenged from Goodwill clothing. We made our curtains, grew and canned food, kids were sent on "adventures" into the woods to forage for berries, crab apples, and mushrooms. And we were privileged. We knew we were not poor, as my parents had good white collar jobs, and we lived in a nice middle class neighborhood, but all the money went into that home ownership, food, and gas so my parents could carpool to work. We were mostly latch key feral kids in our neighborhood (my mom was a non-contract teacher (so not pension eligible) so everyone ended up at our house after school); no one had nannies or after care or camps or club sports. No one went to restaurants. Vacation was camping (using Dad's old GI gear). No one had or needed multiple cars or electronics or giant metal mugs or fancy tennis shoes or cable TV or the myriad other things we think of today as "necessities." There was no extra money to be saving from age 22 on, and no, these boomers didn't have pensions either.

Is that how your white collar life is right now? Would you be willing to live that way to get the house of your dreams? Because that's what a lot of Boomers did.

I think the people who complain about Boomers must come from truly wealthy and privileged families. Further to a PP's pension story, my uncles retired with healthy pensions too, until the companies let the pension funds go bankrupt and left them with literally nothing to live on (pre-1974 PBGC). They and their wives did not go golfing, they went job hunting in their late 60s-early 70s. Not everyone had it as easy as your family. And not a lot of jobs had pensions in the first place.

Sure, a lot of Boomers had to work hard and sacrifice in their early years. Still I know so many that are able to retire at 60-65 after having only normal middle class jobs, with even a single earner family, thanks to pensions and massive real estate gains.