Why do people think Boomers had it so good?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I was born in the 70's. My brother and I wore hand me downs. My parents had one car, and that was a stretch. A holiday was a once per year visit to the grandparents. If we did extra curricular activities they were the free ones in the community. My parents lived in the same house for 30 years.

Some millennial would have a panic attack at wearing hand me downs as a teenager. No big holiday - what?? Or parents of young kids running to every activity going. So many are unwilling to make the sacrifices it took to get Boomers where they are. They want everything NOW. The new house, 2 new cars, multiple big screen tv's etc. Then they wonder about retirement.

It’s this. I think a lot of younger people truly have no idea how different their daily lives and lifestyles are from Boomers at the same stage of life. I’m GenX and this post resonates with me so much. This is how all of our friends lived too. We rarely went out to eat, our parents didn’t renovate the house top to bottom to stay trendy, and vacations were to visit family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Help this old man out here. Yes, we bought a house in the 80s (with a 12% mortgage) and it has appreciated tremendously since then. So we sell it and get a windfall. Then what? The so-called windfall is not enough to buy another house, even a small one. And the rental at senior living / assisted living facilities is way out of line. And we should know how corrupt those places are. So we decide to stay here until we drop.

You bought at 12% for a low price because of that 12%. You should have refinanced multiple times to cut the interest rate which should have given you an extremely low mortgage payment. That money had had 40 years to grow

You didn't answer my question: What would we do with the windfall we make if we sell the house? Where can we afford to live during old age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This made me chuckle. Sure, they dealt with the ravages of war but it's NBD. Such a millennial post.

My dad is a Boomer. Served during the Vietnam era. I don't think he'd shrug it off so lightly. My grandfather was greatest generation and served in WW2. He came back deaf and a changed man. I don't think younger generations quite understand the long-lasting effects that these wars had on these generations - particularly those that served, which constituted a huge portion of the population.

Millennials only focus on how much money they believe Boomers have now - in their retirement. And no, they're not looking at struggling boomers in middle-America but their own white, wealthy parents. My darling millennials - your worldview is skewed. Of course white, wealthy boomers have money now after 50 years of savings. You, too, will have more money after investing for 50 years. This is basic math.

But lucky you that you will likely never have to serve in war as every generation before you, and you have significantly more physical, food, and political security than any prior time in history. I know that they don't believe that but just open a history book to any random year in the 19th/20th century and do a side-by-side. Plus, most of what I hear complaints about are not buying a 3500 sq ft house. Ok. Check avg housing size in 1950 and then get back to me.

Imagine thinking Vietnam was the last war. Who do you think went to Iraq? Afghanistan? Those silly millennials who have only known peace, I guess.

Vietnam was the last war to have a draft. Being drafted for a war and electing to pursue a military career are two very different paths. Plus, 1 out of 10 servicemen in Vietnam died. There were nearly 60K US deaths with only 4K in Iraq. You cannot compare the two, or their impact on the general public.

Back to millennials not understanding basic US civics.

Plus, Iraq War was 2003 to 2011. That's GenX

Millennials were born between 1986-2011.

Someone born in 1986 was 17 years old in 2003, and 25 in 2011. There were definitely millennials in Iraq.

Also, US service members were dying in Afghanistan as recently as 2021-even Gen Z were killed.

Do you honestly believe that there were more deaths in Iraq than Vietnam? It's mind-boggling to me that millennials are trying to argue that Iraq was more impactful on the population at large, or more deadly. Or that it was a millennial war instead of a GenX or even Boomer war. Millenials have serious main character syndrome and I'm not sure how they get out of it. A book maybe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I was born in the 70's. My brother and I wore hand me downs. My parents had one car, and that was a stretch. A holiday was a once per year visit to the grandparents. If we did extra curricular activities they were the free ones in the community. My parents lived in the same house for 30 years.

Some millennial would have a panic attack at wearing hand me downs as a teenager. No big holiday - what?? Or parents of young kids running to every activity going. So many are unwilling to make the sacrifices it took to get Boomers where they are. They want everything NOW. The new house, 2 new cars, multiple big screen tv's etc. Then they wonder about retirement.

It’s this. I think a lot of younger people truly have no idea how different their daily lives and lifestyles are from Boomers at the same stage of life. I’m GenX and this post resonates with me so much. This is how all of our friends lived too. We rarely went out to eat, our parents didn’t renovate the house top to bottom to stay trendy, and vacations were to visit family.

I'm late GenX. Never went to Europe with the family, or some big blowout fancy vacation. We went to the Midwest to visit family in their tiny small town. Our home was never painted or renovated, and I only just took the 80s wall paper off my parents home in 2019. Yes, I had to remove it myself. I didn't do any extracurriculars, sports outside of school, or fancy enrichment. My dad had a car with the ceiling caving in, and a tiny TV with antennas on the top. Millennials/GenZ could never make that sacrifice. What would they post on social media otherwise?

[Anonymous]

My boomer dad was born into poverty, had private college fully covered by state grants, and bought a home in MoCo for $60k in the mid-70s. He retired from his government job at a reasonable age with a pension of 90% of his salary. My brother and I have been fortunate to do even better than he did thanks to choosing more lucrative careers, but our younger sister is the typical beleaguered millennial who has been hit by layoffs, unaffordable housing, and her husband’s student loan debt. I see my dad as someone who had some luck with timing due to being a smart white male, but it was not without tradeoffs. For someone like my sister the tradeoffs are harder to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I was born in the 70's. My brother and I wore hand me downs. My parents had one car, and that was a stretch. A holiday was a once per year visit to the grandparents. If we did extra curricular activities they were the free ones in the community. My parents lived in the same house for 30 years.

Some millennial would have a panic attack at wearing hand me downs as a teenager. No big holiday - what?? Or parents of young kids running to every activity going. So many are unwilling to make the sacrifices it took to get Boomers where they are. They want everything NOW. The new house, 2 new cars, multiple big screen tv's etc. Then they wonder about retirement.

It’s this. I think a lot of younger people truly have no idea how different their daily lives and lifestyles are from Boomers at the same stage of life. I’m GenX and this post resonates with me so much. This is how all of our friends lived too. We rarely went out to eat, our parents didn’t renovate the house top to bottom to stay trendy, and vacations were to visit family.

I'm the pp you quoted. Also, my dad fixed the car when it was needed, or things around the house. Lawn care was on all of us. There was a garden in the back yard. My brother and I had to help with it on weekends. My brother had a paper route for spending money and I babysat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This made me chuckle. Sure, they dealt with the ravages of war but it's NBD. Such a millennial post.

My dad is a Boomer. Served during the Vietnam era. I don't think he'd shrug it off so lightly. My grandfather was greatest generation and served in WW2. He came back deaf and a changed man. I don't think younger generations quite understand the long-lasting effects that these wars had on these generations - particularly those that served, which constituted a huge portion of the population.

Millennials only focus on how much money they believe Boomers have now - in their retirement. And no, they're not looking at struggling boomers in middle-America but their own white, wealthy parents. My darling millennials - your worldview is skewed. Of course white, wealthy boomers have money now after 50 years of savings. You, too, will have more money after investing for 50 years. This is basic math.

But lucky you that you will likely never have to serve in war as every generation before you, and you have significantly more physical, food, and political security than any prior time in history. I know that they don't believe that but just open a history book to any random year in the 19th/20th century and do a side-by-side. Plus, most of what I hear complaints about are not buying a 3500 sq ft house. Ok. Check avg housing size in 1950 and then get back to me.

Imagine thinking Vietnam was the last war. Who do you think went to Iraq? Afghanistan? Those silly millennials who have only known peace, I guess.

Vietnam was the last war to have a draft. Being drafted for a war and electing to pursue a military career are two very different paths. Plus, 1 out of 10 servicemen in Vietnam died. There were nearly 60K US deaths with only 4K in Iraq. You cannot compare the two, or their impact on the general public.

Back to millennials not understanding basic US civics.

Plus, Iraq War was 2003 to 2011. That's GenX

Millennials were born between 1986-2011.

Someone born in 1986 was 17 years old in 2003, and 25 in 2011. There were definitely millennials in Iraq.

Also, US service members were dying in Afghanistan as recently as 2021-even Gen Z were killed.

Do you honestly believe that there were more deaths in Iraq than Vietnam? It's mind-boggling to me that millennials are trying to argue that Iraq was more impactful on the population at large, or more deadly. Or that it was a millennial war instead of a GenX or even Boomer war. Millenials have serious main character syndrome and I'm not sure how they get out of it. A book maybe?

Do you really not know how to read? It's mind-boggling that you would quote my post and then just make something up. I never said there were "more deaths."
I'm Gen X, not Millennial, and so is my husband who did two tours of Iraq. Many of the people he served with over there were (yes, WERE) Millennials.

[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.

Were they Boomers? My 76 year old Boomer dad worked till he was 70. Very few boomers I know retired before 65.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Huh? I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, prime child rearing years for boomers, and no one was living in 4000 sf houses. 70’s and 80’s houses were much more modest than they are now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could have 1 person working, multiole kids. And still own a house and pay college tuition by working summers.

And they lived much more modest lives than the now standard middle class family who lives in a 3000sf house, has kids in travel sports, and takes expensive Disney trips each year.

The “typical” middle class lifestyle is way more cushy than how the middle class lived when I was a kid in the 70’s/80’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m older GenX and this is my experience too. I think many of the complaints about Boomers really are from people with privileged backgrounds. I grew up solidly middle class and most neighbors were blue collar. The white collar jobs were squarely middle level. When people went on vacation it was literally once a year to visit their grandparents. Maybe one Disney level trip their entire childhood. As adults, they bought smaller, non updated homes and lived without updating them for years, if at all.

The younger people I see now buying their first homes are buying things our parents would have bought closer to retirement. Then they renovate immediately and have parental help either with their home purchase or private school or both. They also take grand vacations every year, as evidenced by many posts on this board.

Times are different and it’s really not an apples to apples comparison.

Bingo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This made me chuckle. Sure, they dealt with the ravages of war but it's NBD. Such a millennial post.

My dad is a Boomer. Served during the Vietnam era. I don't think he'd shrug it off so lightly. My grandfather was greatest generation and served in WW2. He came back deaf and a changed man. I don't think younger generations quite understand the long-lasting effects that these wars had on these generations - particularly those that served, which constituted a huge portion of the population.

Millennials only focus on how much money they believe Boomers have now - in their retirement. And no, they're not looking at struggling boomers in middle-America but their own white, wealthy parents. My darling millennials - your worldview is skewed. Of course white, wealthy boomers have money now after 50 years of savings. You, too, will have more money after investing for 50 years. This is basic math.

But lucky you that you will likely never have to serve in war as every generation before you, and you have significantly more physical, food, and political security than any prior time in history. I know that they don't believe that but just open a history book to any random year in the 19th/20th century and do a side-by-side. Plus, most of what I hear complaints about are not buying a 3500 sq ft house. Ok. Check avg housing size in 1950 and then get back to me.

Imagine thinking Vietnam was the last war. Who do you think went to Iraq? Afghanistan? Those silly millennials who have only known peace, I guess.

There was no draft for those other wars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Were they Boomers? My 76 year old Boomer dad worked till he was 70. Very few boomers I know retired before 65.

My father - Boomer - is still working at 78.

[Anonymous]

I think there are many ways to look at the issues that show the challenges. I'm early GenX. My grandparents' generation had one earner who topped out at a GS-12 and was able to support a family and buy a single family house in Silver Spring. My parents generation had it a little less good, but you could get a quick summer job to pay for a year at college, and a degree wasn't really needed for most jobs. My mother still did not have to work for us to afford a single family house in a better part of Long Island. I went to an Ivy League and I probably couldn't have paid for all of it with a summer job, but my middle class parents were able to pay for it for me except for about $10k in loans which we paid off in about a year once I got a job.

I'm a topped out GS-15 single parent, and I live in a townhouse that I can afford mostly because I got on the property ladder about 15 years ago and I had taken assignments where my housing had been paid for and I banked all of that rent for a downpayment and I got a boost from the grandparents. I have one kid approaching college age, we have about $200k saved, and I still can't afford to pay for a private university for them and we're in the FAFSA bubble (and I don't really want them burdened with tens of thousands in loans). I"m more fortunate than many because I still have a full pension coming for me, but that's because I got on the LEO retirement FERS plan. I also had to fund a Thrift plan, but it's not as critical as most of my friends who have to sock it all away themselves

It's also getting harder to find smaller starter houses inside the beltway (see my GS-12 previous generations) that aren't immediately scooped up and torn down to build something huge.

So it really isn't about the avocado toast (although Millenials and GenZs could do a bit more tempering of expectations, especially about being fresh out of school and getting an apartment on your own -- even in my generation many people stayed in roommate situations until they got married) but what it is reasonable to expect you can get at certain milestones in your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This made me chuckle. Sure, they dealt with the ravages of war but it's NBD. Such a millennial post.

My dad is a Boomer. Served during the Vietnam era. I don't think he'd shrug it off so lightly. My grandfather was greatest generation and served in WW2. He came back deaf and a changed man. I don't think younger generations quite understand the long-lasting effects that these wars had on these generations - particularly those that served, which constituted a huge portion of the population.

Millennials only focus on how much money they believe Boomers have now - in their retirement. And no, they're not looking at struggling boomers in middle-America but their own white, wealthy parents. My darling millennials - your worldview is skewed. Of course white, wealthy boomers have money now after 50 years of savings. You, too, will have more money after investing for 50 years. This is basic math.

But lucky you that you will likely never have to serve in war as every generation before you, and you have significantly more physical, food, and political security than any prior time in history. I know that they don't believe that but just open a history book to any random year in the 19th/20th century and do a side-by-side. Plus, most of what I hear complaints about are not buying a 3500 sq ft house. Ok. Check avg housing size in 1950 and then get back to me.

Imagine thinking Vietnam was the last war. Who do you think went to Iraq? Afghanistan? Those silly millennials who have only known peace, I guess.

Vietnam was the last war to have a draft. Being drafted for a war and electing to pursue a military career are two very different paths. Plus, 1 out of 10 servicemen in Vietnam died. There were nearly 60K US deaths with only 4K in Iraq. You cannot compare the two, or their impact on the general public.

Back to millennials not understanding basic US civics.

Plus, Iraq War was 2003 to 2011. That's GenX

Millennials were born between 1986-2011.

Someone born in 1986 was 17 years old in 2003, and 25 in 2011. There were definitely millennials in Iraq.

Also, US service members were dying in Afghanistan as recently as 2021-even Gen Z were killed.

Do you honestly believe that there were more deaths in Iraq than Vietnam? It's mind-boggling to me that millennials are trying to argue that Iraq was more impactful on the population at large, or more deadly. Or that it was a millennial war instead of a GenX or even Boomer war. Millenials have serious main character syndrome and I'm not sure how they get out of it. A book maybe?

Do you really not know how to read? It's mind-boggling that you would quote my post and then just make something up. I never said there were "more deaths."
I'm Gen X, not Millennial, and so is my husband who did two tours of Iraq. Many of the people he served with over there were (yes, WERE) Millennials.

Which is still irrelevant to the point at hand. Vietnam was a more impactful war - hands down - on society, national psyche, and by way of total death count. Iraq War, while terrible, did not have the same impact. Did Millenials serve? sure, I guess the older ones. But it did not impact the generation in the same way. One of the many reasons being that the generation was not up in arms over being drafted - against their will - for 1 in 10 to return dead.

You are arguing a totally unrelated point that - per your argument - really has no relevance to the issue at hand.