I recently turned 60 and I've been grumpy for an entire decade, most of which was spent working as a state employee in a public university where the already low pay scale was frozen from any increase for 6 of the 8 years I worked there. So, no, this boomer isn't hogging resources. I'm a renter and will have to move should I ever be able to retire to find an affordable residence.
Aren't Genernation Grumpy known as Generation X?
"For both genders, however, older workers — especially the rapidly growing pool of boomers over age 65 — are holding a growing share of the high-paying jobs."
As noted, Boomers are hogging resources that would otherwise allow productive lives. But we learn to do more with less... an art form of its own. And this problem will seem insignificant once global warming hits the fan.
1
I'm not saying that these are not difficult times, they are, but realize many Boomers are and have been dealing with the same issues.
3
As I sit here in my cubicle with at age 53 with a 25 year career under my belt and the offices surrounding me are still inhabited by baby boomers in their late sixties who when they finally retire will enjoy pensions that were discontinued for new workers when I began my career, you bet I'm grumpy! It's like waiting for a table at a restaurant. It's getting later and later, the people at the tables have long since been given their checks but they won't pay and leave and soon the restaurant will close!
12
I would do a poll of public workers in my state as they seem quite happy. Those in police and fire retire as early as age 50 with six figure inflation adjusted pensions and full medical benefits for life. The other public workers retire at age 55 with equally generous benefits. Who knew the path to riches was to party all through high school and graduate with a 2.3 GPA and then head off to the Fire Academy. Or for the non-physically fit head off to Cal State Nobody and get a sociology degree while spending most of your waking hours at the sorority house and then retire after 30 leisurely years as an assistant city manager with 120K per year for life.
5
This problem is much more than simply being “grumpy”. In 2015 Nobel Winner Angus Deaton and Anne Case reported on the rising annual death rates due to an epidemic of suicides and afflictions that come from alcoholism, heroin and opioid addictions. It is particularly acute among poorly educated American whites. They are dying at such a high rate that the life expectancy of this group is actually declining. These people are not “grumpy”, they are seriously and tragically depressed! https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/11/02/453192132/in-revers...
And this depression may now be affecting white females https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/04/20/cdc-lif... and is continuing to rise and remains most acute for poorly educated males 45 to 54. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-23/white-working-class-d...
6
I read somewhere middle aged men (such as myself) are typically the grouchiest people on Earth.
I think if you find yourself grouchy you probably need more social time out in the world. It probably doesn't make any difference what your financial situation is, unless you're destitute, say.
3
It would seem that the 25-34 age group has, for the entire time period covered, been "dissatisfied". They should take heart in the fact that the group which reflected their views back in 1985, became the 55-64 age group polled in 2015 . . . quite an improvement in satisfaction. "Satisfaction" isn't quantitative but qualitative. While the 25-34 age group experiences certain financial stressors, their expectations might also require examination and budgetary adjustment.
1
Thank you NYT for paying attention to our demographic. The Baby Boomers have been the beneficiaries of the biggest booms in the U.S. economy. Think back to what the interest rates were on simple bank accounts in the 70s and 80s. Our generation has been the victims of the biggest busts in the U.S. economy, plus corporate "right-sizing," etc. And now we have all three branches of government dominated by Boomers, who have largely been born on third base, economically, but act as if they have hit a triple.
12
um...some of those Boomers are actually in the Silent Generation. Diane Feinstein, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Orrin Hatch, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Grassley, Richard Shelby, Jim Inhofe, Pat Roberts, the list goes on.
"As people get older, they tend to become more at peace with their finances, survey research shows."
There have been other generations in America's history that have had to work past their prime to support themselves. There have been generations shaped by periods of great financial insecurity, and that have had their retirement nest-eggs wiped out by tragedies.
The difference now is that unless there is a political (or some other kind of) revolution in the future, then, from here on out, the vast majority of Americans are never going to be financially secure during their entire lives, period. Not now. Not later. Not possible.
The long-term trend is clear, brutal, and statically provable: Unless an American has a very large amount of independent wealth, an atypically secure income, very substantial and professionally diversified investment holdings, and strong connections with wealthy family and friends, their lives will be bleak and desperate.
There's a tipping point after which probability becomes near certainty. The wealthy get wealthy, the non-wealthy become desperate . Fewer Americans will go up and over to the 1% The once middle-class will be increasingly manipulated by means of our financial insecurity. We will live as indentured serfs to corporations, or starve. Prediction? Look around more.
For if a person is no longer able to help make a billionaire more billions, what is their life worth? The overhead of their existence exceeds their added value, if any.
8
My husband and I are in the grumpy generation. Why are we grumpy? It's no mystery. Our pension was stopped when we were in our mid-40's leaving us to start over retirement savings with less than 20 years left to work and invest. Our 403B took a huge hit in 2008 and will likely take another if the majority of economists are correct about the new tax law. This will probably happen just as we are getting ready to retire. The investment in our house tanked in 2008 and our mortgage is still underwater. We are paying our children's college tuition knowing that universities and colleges colluded while we were students yet only got a slap on the wrist. Our children are priced out of the schools we went to. Now they will be taxed on any tuition grants they receive in upcoming grad school thanks to the new tax law so we will end up paying their tax bill. Basically the rules of the game our parent's generation played has been switched every step of the way to make sure we are screwed.
23
We are grumpy in part because we have seen this coming and almost could not believe it.
The Boomers got this swell treehouse, and then slowly but surely have pulled the ladder up after them. It started with Proposition 13 in CA and continues relentlessly today.
And let me tell you, I feel even worse for the Millenials and the subsequent generation! They see it too! My generation, Gen X, got caught with our jaws dropping to the floor at the mendacity and piggishness the Boomers kept voting into office. We were all kind of shell-shocked.
The Millenials might not prove so easy to run over. I regularly deal with 20ish high-achievers, and they are getting angry that the goalposts keep moving, the American Dream keeps shrinking, and the hoops they have to jump through get more and more arduous.
We Gen X'ers got caught and were paralyzed at the spectacle. I would warn our leaders: the subsequent generations will not be as pliant.
14
Most of us graduated knowing that the system had liquidated our future. Most of us have come to terms with that by age 30. The only profound disappointment I've seen is with millennials who were sheltered and showered with empty promises, only to be thrown to the wolves once they got out of school. We at least were left alone growing up to gain survival skills. We learned to adjust, but those who came after use are particularly resentful, hence the rise in extremist ideology. Oh, and you're welcome for the availability and veriety of ramen that exists in the market today.
7
Uh, why are we ignoring the fact that we the grumpy have lived through two major financial recessions? And no, not caused by leftist big government but the greed of the wealthy. Think that might have something to do with it?
20
Meh. Whatever. Nevermind. Sure, we're grumpy, sandwiched between the two most entitled generation of avaricious consumerists in US economic history. Had to hear about how wonderful the 60s were AND how wonderful it is to be a millenial (with its throw away economics, disposable and shallow music, virtue signaling, etc). I fit the mold, but I also break it. As long as I have my yoga, meditation, decent food, good-close (non-digital/virtual) friends, family, a roof, occasional travel, a panoply of books then I'm good. I'm more focused on the inner landscaping. The boomers and millenials can fight all they want for the scraps of late stage consumer capitalism. They shouldn't forget to thank the right people though. The boomers have the US military and post-war industriousness and saving of their "square" parents. The millenials have Xers to thank for inventing all of the gadgets and applications they use to make having sex, eating, and buying more productive...passing off thumb exercises as intelligence. Now, they can both rejoice in a haze of legalized marijuana. I'll just plod along, observing through the cannabis haze, two generations that got everything they ever wanted. "Be careful what you wish for...."
2
Perhaps you'd be less grumpy if you partook
in some legalized m.j.
3
Nonsensical piece. It addresses ghost numbers and tries to pin them on a certain demographic. I always say anyone who generalizes is most certainly a fool. I"m right in the midst of those who you write about. Finances can always be better, but I"m always happy. This piece with all of it's fantastical numbers fails horribly in discussing a few things regarding economics which is really the bottom line here. One thing not expressed of course, as you've been lied to by media and government that inflation is never present, when in fact they have reworked the numbers for decades and inflation has been on a horrible pace, especially with Food stuffs and eating out, inflation is and has been alive and ravenous for the past 15 years, this should account for a lot of grumpiness from everyone! It's also really not addressed in force that SS is failing and ever ailing, that should make many grumpy as they age and now have to expect less than those who came before them, a lot less.
As of 7 years ago almost everyone was pretty grumpy for good reason. This article is nonsense, don't generalize it paints you for what you are, foolish. Perhaps you should look at different numbers, perhaps we're not the "Grumpy" gen as you so poorly try and point out, but more to the point, we're the gen that speaks out, two different things, though, a fool could see them both as the same.
3
Because the kids won't stay off the darn lawn, that's why!
5
It's worse for the millennials. Baby boomers need to go.
3
Frank ,there are quite a few of us out here in boomerLand..where shall we go ..perhaps we should que up the Stones..Get offa your Cloud..Secret is to dust off and put your back into it..The rock can be moved...good luck ..
1
Boomers need to get out of the House, Senate, governor's office, presidency, lobbies...
2
Your stats don't match your headline. Per your chart, the "middle" has always been less satisfied than the older cohort, and other than one brief drop, remains happier than younger cohorts.
Relative wealth and income stats have changed because good health and bad economics have persuaded people to work longer. Given the challenges to personal and national finances of 30-year retirements and slowing population growth, working longer is a good thing, on average.
The real story is that all cohorts are less satisfied with their financial condition than they once were, despite 7 years of economic growth. The real issue is economic disparity and decreasing opportunity at all income levels.
4
I'm outside this age group but I can tell you that this group -
and a lot of older workers - worked through THREE recessions (1987, 2000 and 2007), their corporate pensions dwindled into stingy 401ks, and a lot of their jobs got outsourced. Their health care and kids' college (if any) costs went through the roof. They've probably had to retrain a couple of times to stay in the job market, their job got mechanized, automated or off-shored, and this was probably the fastest-changing employment market in several generations. So, yeah, some of them are probably grumpy that they've worked their butts off and have so little to show for it.
11
My dad worked 2 jobs so his children (now aged 53-47) could go to college and live comfortably. I went to a 4 year, public school and my siblings went to trade schools. I'm the only one that even has a retirement account. None of us are living more comfortably than we grew up. My father feels like a failure.
8
None of my friends in the 55-to-64 demographic working for private industry has a pension "generous" enough to retire on without significant financial supplement or fiscal anxiety. Maybe the author knows people with union contracts that feature generous pensions and retiree health insurance at private corporations, but the only people like that I know are in the public sector.
5
I'm age 60 and I feel exactly like the Grumpy Middles described.
I had to invest all my savings into retraining/higher education, now have student debt, cannot afford to buy a house, have to work 7 days a week to break even, have to pay for my own health insurance, and now Trump is going to cut Medicare and Social Security so it probably won't be available by the time I am eligible for it in 5 years!
7
Also, when I graduated college in 1992, it was during what was then called the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Many of us struggled to find jobs--any jobs--and for those of us not fortunate enough to get into the tech industry, our low wages have followed us throughout our careers.
Coming from a poor immigrant family, through scrimping and saving and living beneath my means throughout my life, I have put together a pretty decent retirement portfolio, and there's certainly a measure of happiness in peace of mind. I do feel for those who enjoyed their youth to the fullest but now may be facing an uncertain future. I am not sure which may ultimately be the happier life.
4
When almost every household of college educated professionals (between 45 and 54 years old) on your street has been affected by a job lay-off in the last few years, it is sometimes hard to be positive.
5
This!
In decades past being middle aged meant that while your upward mobility was over, you didn't have to fear losing your job the way you do now.
Even if you are lucky enough to find another job in your profession, there's a good chance it will pay a lot less, so forget about stashing some extra cash into the 401K, you're going to be busy keeping your head above water. Then you get laid off again.
And unlike your dad and your grandfather, you don't have a pension waiting for you, just Social Security and whatever you managed to save. And thanks to near zero interest rates, the annuity you buy with your meager savings won't be paying all that much either.
7
Is this still America? I'm finding it harder and harder to recognize each day.
4
Let's just cut to the chase--let's punish everyone that has worked hard and have a country where everyone is average, makes the same amount of money, dies at the same age, has the same interests. Although I hate the direction our country is moving in, I am sick of people whining about money and being so focused on who has more instead of trying to figure out how to get more themselves. The game is rigged, it's always been rigged--the point is to figure out how to win the game. Changing the rules at a certain point is just entitled laziness.
3
This generation is not just "grumpy" because boomers are keeping them from jobs. The author discounts this shift in sentiment by taking raw survey facts and making his own short sighted and ridiculous conclusions as to why. He is dead wrong. This age group and generation is unhappier because leftist politics are destroying our culture and the nuclear family. Its sowing discord between races and sexes. Its allowed mass illegal immigration of non-assimilated peoples that don't share American values. More gov't wasn't the answer it is the problem. Simply put when we look around, OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT BETTER OFF THEN WE WERE. And this should be taken seriously.
1
The author's steering us readers that MONEY makes us happy. How about was call it, "Being at peace". Us what was it...? Generation Grumpy. I'm NOT at peace for some time now. And it isn't about money. BTW. Spot on.
You’ve got it backwards here. “Leftist politics,” whatever that is (people who vote for equal rights and salaries for women, for instance?) are not responsible for the destruction of “our culture.” I think you should look, instead, to the people who tell you that success is defined by achievement in terms of material goods.
If we have less government, and more of that government is pro-corporation, we will have even more focus on taking from the general population and giving to the wealthy. It is the greed of the wealthy that has deprived middle-class, older workers of their pensions and savings, and forced them to work, rather than retire.
The 2008 crash deprived many aging folks of the ability to retire; the specter of losing their social security and medicare--into which they’ve paid over their entire careers--is keeping them on the job. Our children are not better off than we are because we are not paying, as the Greatest Generation did, to educate our children.
Open your eyes. Stop listening to the rants of the right-wing radio talk hosts (who are also trying only to line their own pockets and protect their own retirements).
6
We all know grumpy is a state of mind that can be changed with a snap of the fingers, that is if you don't want to be grumpy.
1
This unlucky cohort was born during the Uranus-Pluto conjunction that set off all the craziness of the 1960s. They were born with that incredibly disruptive (Uranus--think radioactive uranium--united with Pluto, "Lord of the Underworld") influence imprinted on their psyches. The rest of us got over the Sixties. These unfortunate folks never will. They carry it with them, to one degree or another, wherever they go. I know, no one believes in astrology. But for laughs, Google what we've been dealing with since 2009, a similar Jupiter-Uranus-Pluto T-square. Explains a lot.
1
At 47, I'm in that age range, and all the benchmarks of things we came in just underneath are accurate. Financially, I'm not where I'd hoped I'd be, but I'm in that crossroads of being really happy to have a job that I like and do well and making peace with the money I haven't made because I haven't had a raise since 2005. I'd say I'm resigned and disappointed, but far from what I think of when I think of "grumpy." The asterisk there is that it's harder to jump jobs in search of that better payday now that we're north of 45.
2
I'm earning more than I ever have at the moment, but that is likely to stop in a few years, just as I close in on 50. Managed to stay in one job for almost 20 years now and while I was here, my industry bottomed out. I've been lucky in that my salary has stayed competitive while I see listings for similar positions elsewhere at half what I make now. The place I'm at is staring at possibly going away in the next few years, so I'm milking current salary as long as I can and trying to figure out what skills I'll need to acquire in the meantime for when that day comes, and trying to pay off our house early to lower our overhead for the pending hit. At least I seem to have some time to make a game plan, so I consider myself lucky. I hear some horror stories from friends and their kids.
1
Maybe it's finally time to call the boomer generation what it is - an anomaly.
The age cohort you describe:
* graduated high school into a recession
* graduated undergraduate college into a recession
* wasn't making enough money to take advantage of the tech boom or graduated graduate school into yet another recession.
The 2008 "Great Recession" hit us as what should have been our peak retirement savings years, wiping out a ridiculous amount of our retirement plans.
And the baby boomers have held on long enough that now many of us are too expensive to be promoted while we're answering to people we're old enough to have baby sat (or parented).
Yeah, we're grumpy. We have every reason to be grumpy.
21
Nailed it!
Many baby-boomers had their 401K accounts brutalized by the 2008 crash. Now there is talk of taking away their social security and medicare benefits, for which they’ve paid their entire careers.
Do you really blame them for hanging on as long as possible?
Not giving raises is a technique that corporations are using to keep costs down and to keep paying higher and higher CEO and executive salaries. That is where the money is going.
4
BINGO! As one of those cohorts, you nailed it!
I have long resented the so called "baby boomer" generation for, among other things, their naive selfishness. I don't believe they behave as such out of spite but more out of narrow-minded "whats in it for me" mentality. Boomers have largely benefited from historical anomoly (as a previous commentor suggested) rather than any form of genius or work ethic. In their wake lies the possible wreckage of the American Dream because most of the benefits have flowed to them.
We've suffered in their shadow professionally and continue to trudge behind them economically. Our nascent retirement accounts have been decimated twice in the last 20 years. For me personally, what was left of one employer's generous pension program was destroyed before I could participate and my current employer sees upper level managerial positions dominated by 65+ men too timid and short-sighted to make strategic decisions for the benefit of the business because they're "riding out the gravy train" so they can pay off the lake house.
Now they're doing to us politically as their greed pushes tax cuts for themselves while we increasingly shoulder the burden and bear the inevitable cost increases in things like healthcare, education and infrastructure investment.
You bet we're grouchy about it.
2
We GenXers have been used to getting the short end of the stick for all of our adult lives. We'll muddle through as we always have.
6
Being dissatisfied with your financial situation doesn't make you inherently grumpy. It's merely a reflection of today's reality of wage stagnation. Today's corporations reap obscene profits used to buy back stock and pass a long to stockholders and CEOs instead of raising wages for their employees, and that's a trend that will continue for generations to come.
3
The worst thing at this point would be to let this become the basis of a generational feud. The issue is not Boomers v X v Millennial...it is about the wealthy in this country confiscating more and more wealth from the vanishing middle class and receding working class.
6
I'd guess from your comment, Jeff, that you aren't a Gen Xer. That's OK -- we've been hearing our concerns and issues age-splained to us from the time we were old enough to realize that our generation was trapped between two giant population waves.
1
So, there is a misconception people of my generation (I was born in 1965) have that if you don't make a lot of money then you aren't doing well and you can't be happy. We are the first generation which grew up with more than we needed and we are the most dissatisfied with where we are now. Anyone see the correlation? Money and material things are not what provides contentment, security and happiness. Maybe we need to start looking elsewhere.
1
So when do the rich decide they have enough and quit stealing that which they have not earned from the working class?
3
I applaud your zen like approach to the issue and it is certainly a valid point. Happiness often comes from within. Sadly though, we do live in a society where things cost money and when those things increase in cost while your ability to afford them remains stagnant, something has to give. That said ... we could all do with a little "doing more with less."
This details precisely why raising the retirement age is not necessarily a good idea....it will keep younger workers from moving up or even into the job market.
2
Hogwash!There's plenty of opportunity for younger workers to enter and move up in the workforce. In fact, employers prefer to hire younger workers because they don't have to pay them as much as their Boomers and they know they'll leave in 1-3 years and repeat that advantage.
2
"Younger workers" are not what this article is about. It's about people in their 50s. Younger these days means people in their 20s and 30s and yes, they are paid much less than people over 50,who are considered "older."
1
I depends on what jobs the millenials do. I've met many 20 something engineers who outearn older engineers.
Perspective is a huge part of it, in my opinion.
One trend I feel I've been living as a 55-yr old is the ever-increasing size and cost of housing. I find it insane that people feel like 3-4000 square feet are essential to life, and then they turn around and complain they can't get ahead on what are otherwise substantial incomes.
I learned the hard way. I downsized, moved into a neighborhood where no degreed professional would go (I actually know all my neighbors and yes, I'm the only one!), and my wealth accumulation took a sharp turn upward.
I'm on a 15-year mortgage with big equity in an expensive, desirable city. My little house in my scary-looking (but not actually scary) neighborhood has doubled in value in 4 years. Everything gets paid cash, even fairly substantial emergencies.
There are still ways to check out of the rat-race if you look hard enough.
5
I'm looking to buy my first house when I retire...but houses I might have afforded a couple of years ago have now quickly gone out of reach. Even in the sketchy neighborhoods of where I want to live. And I'm looking for something around 1500' at the most.
3
I suspect that those who are working in high-paying jobs aren't the grumpy ones. Instead it's likely to be people who were downsized (it isn't a statement about a person's work if an entire department) and unable to find new work at similar pay, or perhaps unable to find new work period (just try getting hired at age 50+). If that happens to both earners in a two-income couple, then you go from comfortable to precarious. Who wouldn't be grumpy?
7
Financially, I am set for life.
Providing that I die next week.
19
50-somethings, go ahead and blame your misery on the Baby Boomers, who blamed their misery on the Greatest Generation - but guess what: you will be blamed by the generations behind you.
No generation has all of the answers, all of the problems, all of the opportunities. Life is short. Make the most of yours, without comparing it to who else got what. Why waste your limited time and life energy on that?
6
But the Boomers do seem to have all the money, houses, yachts and Ferrari's now don't they?
Strange not to mention the recession or more specific changes in the cost of housing education and healthcare that have occurred in just the last ten years.
7
Just wait till the trump scam kicks in. They shall be even grumpier
9
Or rapacious Boomers drag netted the landscape, tore the family and social structure to shreds, made greed good and left Gen X a smoldering wasteland.
Whatever, nevermind.
13
Interesting that people who are falling through the cracks through layoffs due to age discrimination are considered 'grumpy.' Interesting that people who have no idea how to pay for health insurance are simply 'grumpy.' So, if we're victims of a mugging and we go to the police to report it, should we be referred to as 'whiners'? The chief trait of narcissism is low empathy. I guess it's contagious these days.
24
Baby boomers misgoverning and ruining American society is what makes me grumpy. That abomination of a tax giveaway bill to rich baby boomers charged to everyone else being the latest example. They cannot get off the stage fast enough to suit me. Please die now so the rest of us can get on with living and governing like adults and making a society that works.
13
And yet your generation thinks Bernie Sanders is a guru of governing? Wait till you find out "free" means YOU pay.
3
Nice generalization. Give us some credit for being a little smarter than that. What you overlook is we are WELL AWARE of the cost of things ... we've been shouldering it for decades. What we want is fairness. For example, Boomers conveniently forget that things like a university education in states like California was nearly free. The state invested in it's CSU system because it recognized the long-term advantages of a highly educated populace, ie- workforce. It's no accident Silicon Valley emerged where it did. However, increasingly the mantra of "tax breaks" broke state budgets forcing cuts in things like secondary education. Consequently tuition @ CSU schools has risen more than 300% in the last 25 years shifting that burden to the parents or students who now leave school more than $22K in debt. Consider this ... I earned a B.S. and left school roughly $15K in debt. Then my two children went to school and I shouldered that burden as well so my kids would start their professional careers without that yolk around their neck. That's hardly free now is it? I would've liked for myself and my kids what the college students in the 70's got, no more, no less.
1
Nothing will make you grumpier than comparing yourself, your wealth, or your situation to that of others.....except maybe buying into a game (literally) and then finding that not only have the rules changed but the game was fixed from the start.
At 52 I'm having a hilariously good time.
I never married, never had kids (though in my youth I threw my hat into the ring by becoming a sperm donor), and didn't bother tying myself to the property ladder which means I've lived all over the world from the US and UK to Australia, Mexico, and Russia though now I live on a boat in Malta and reside (term time) in my RV in the UK as I finish up a Phd I'm doing just for laughs!
..... all this and I've rarely earn more than 25K per year in the past 20 years and haven't had a fultime job since I was 21.
No, if you're my age and you're grumpy.....you simply bought into the wrong game my friends
2
Yours is one approach to life and I like that you challenge the norms of society. But some of us want to have kids and be near family calling it a “game” is insulting.
3
Good point Deb. Calling it a game is cavalier. Understanding that a person can do most anything is liberating especially since we will all meet at the end of the road.
A very good reason to lower the limit for inheritance taxes. The grumpys were laid off while the older generation got dividends and bought back stock from their labors
4
At 56 (1961) Im on the outside edge of the Boomer curve,but never felt like or likened myself as one. I'm a Betweener, prone to respect my WW2 parents, while forgoing their conservative values. I graduated college when the notion of a cradle to grave employer was blown out of the water. When employers got "woke" to the new brand of greed,and began sloughing off middle-level workers for cheaper models, and just embarking on their outsourcing campaigns. Reagan and TrickelDown had crawled out of the swamp, and Greed was now Good, according to the older Boomers who had abandoned their earlier ideals and all become "The Man," they said not to trust. Boomers who could now buy the cool they never had, in favor of looking "cool" on the outside. And spoiling their apathetic children.
Work and try hard I did. I embarked on many a job, hoping to learn from these older (mostly) men, who then turned-on me/us, as they got caught doctoring the books, or running their companies into the ground to fuel their lusts. I started my own businesses, only to be crushed by lying Boomer competitors. Pie sharing is not what Boomers do!
But get up and go at it again I have done. Many,many times, only to find myself with a mess of a resume, now in the "not so desirable age demo". Ive managed under performing teams to success, I've innovated, renovated, and relocated.
I'm caught in Between again. I'm a Betweener. Now these aged Boomers are wrecking things again. All for their twisted ideals.
9
This generation has lived better than 99% of the population on the planet ever. Suburbs full of 3000 square ft homes, think nothing of dropping 40K on a new car, kids all have Apple smart phones and yearly vacations to Florida.
Yet, they cry, cry, cry about how bad they have it. Give me a break. Check out rural India or Africa. How about the most spoiled generation in the history of the world. This is coming from a 54 year old. Do the best at what you have and be grateful.
9
This might help explain supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch.
I have a bigger problem with base ten bundling of age groups between fives than the whole socioeconomics thing of an arbitrary numeration clump. As a dude born in 1962 and 55 I'm straddling the grumpy group and the baby boomer tail enders. The glass is half empty and the water has chunks floating on top. Other than that I'm pretty happy. So the author's thesis is dumb.
4
Materialism. Consumerism. You're all welcome to them. Selling dissatisfaction is a major project of news media, of advertisers, and politicians. Not getting enough? Blame the other lot! Not staying sexy? Use our miracle products. They're guaranteed (to scam you.) Our POTUS says he's bringing back jobs, but he says we have almost full employment. Stats show that there are about 5 million higher-end posts unfilled because of a lack of suitable applicants. Congress goes on issuing about 200,000 H1b visas per year, with up to 20K of those reserved for those with higher degrees. At the same time, Chambers of Commerce have resisted efforts to slow the influx of cheap, undocumented labor. Americans in the middle are caught between cheap, unskilled labor and highly educated foreign labor. Meanwhile, the GOP will not educate all Americans, but insist on training their offspring as doctors, lawyers, MBAs and general thieves. And it's all Obama's fault!?!
5
Very wise Des.
The trickle never reached us.
10
Cheer up! Nobody's happy about turning 50 ... you're not experiencing anything new.
You might be overlooking the fact that you look and feel better than in your entire previous life.
1
I'm nearly 55 & I'm definitely grumpy. I have no idea when I can retire. I'm a career teacher with several young adult children.
My career itself is repeatedly attacked from both the left & the right--the left hurts more because it's supposed to be pro-labor, pro-middle class. It hasn't been for a while now. I watched in dismay when the utterly unqualified Obama pal Arne Duncan repeatedly attacked "the unions" (with the blessings of the NYT) saying things like "Katrina was the best thing that happened to the education system of New Orleans," as 1000s of career teachers, many African American, lost their jobs. The contempt expressed toward middle class educators by Obama, supported strongly by many on the left, coupled with programs like TFA - staffed by upper class kids using teaching literally as a line in their resume - was the first reason this lifelong Dem left the party.
Meanwhile, my kids & I are burdened with college loans larger than car loans; I also lost my house after I took out a second loan & then the housing crash came - forgotten by the upper class. And I have no idea if my pension will ever be paid out given the climate.
Meanwhile according to the media - mostly upper class whites - the chief thing I have to worry about is my white privilege & various isms. The hypocrisy & tone-deafness & unearned self-righteousness is so deafening, I voted for Trump. I'd hoped it would be a message, but they really don't care about my concerns. I feel lost & tired.
10
Sorry Deb wrong choice.
1
If these people were unhappy before the 2017 Republican Tax Gift, they will be VERY unhappy very soon.
Elections have consequences...
2
Believe me, I know it. But I didn't vote for the buffoon and neither did almost everyone I know between the ages of 45 and 54. Not to get in a generational fight but it was the over 55 folks who overwhelming voted for the Republicans. No wonder we "young-uns" are grumpy.
2
After four decades of continuous and escalating wealth transfer from the bottom to the top, there is good cause for middle-agers to be "grumpy".
This wealth transfer has taken place under D's and R's, right and left, blue and red, all of them. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump…..it DOES NOT MATTER. The only constant through all these puppets has been MORE corporate power and wealth for those who already have it.
So for those of you who think voting "D" next time around is the answer to your ills….where have you been for the last forty years? The time has come for a mass awakening and to STOP supporting the political illusion of "choice".
4
World population increased by more than 2 billion during the past 40 years. 300 million Chinese have now gained a middle-class standard of living, famines no longer occur as they used to. Middle class houses have grown to average in excess of 2000 sq. ft.--along with multiple amenities uncommon 40 years ago. These kinds of stats revealing the spread of prosperity make your allegations absurd. The rich 1% did not appropriate all the wealth created during the past 4 decades. Far from it. Most people enjoy more than they ever did in previous decades.
1
We are all confused with "happiness" and "success" according to Dr. Robert H. Lustig, a neuroscientist at UCSF, in his book titled, "The Hacking of the American Mind". He explains that we need adequate quantity of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, in the brain in order to feel happiness, content and importantly to feel for others (sympathy). Monetary success is driven by dopamine, another neurotransmitter, in the brain. The problem of the people driven by dopamine have scarce serotonin in the brain and often encounter occasional withdrawal and then depression from the addictive nature of dopamine and ,at the same time, feel not content and unhappy due to the scarcity of precious serotonin. We can increase serotonin in the brain if we cut sugar, alcohol, dope and of course ambition to success. From his view, we can't have adequate serotonin in the brain if we are driven by the dopamine.
The big winners except for a few who took governments public are public workers and especially teachers. Because of tenure they have the stability to gradually increase their pay and retire at 85-90k(in the northeast) at age 61 with an average year 1 pension of 57,900(conn numbers). That means every teacher has an annuity you would have to pay 1.2 million to Prudential to achieve..they are millionaires. State worker in Ct have lifetime health for self and families..I know 2 widows of state workers whose son's(administering mom's treatment) tell me they have never paid a penny for anything.If you are an engineer in IT(as I am) I have made 100k on a few lucky years, but the downturns esp with outsourcing have put me behind most teachers whose undergrad curriculum and work year are far less taxing. I have family members at 52 who retired as park rangers and now have a 65k pension 4 yrs later, another is a "manager" who worked all day today(Sat) on overtime to catch up. Many professionals work Saturday but dont get paid as they are non exempt. The dissatisfied are the private sector professionals..I just talked to a doctor my age who is retiring as he nets less than he did 15 years ago. Government/Public ed is only 15% of the workforce anthem the other 85% are the ones taking it on the chin. I am working in IT but know it will end soon and at 62 am prepared to get 6 mo unemply then social security and ride off. I wish I had the state worker health care and could go now
4
What is lost in the complaints about public sector employees/pensions is that many people CHOSE to work in the private sector 20-25 years ago because of its high salaries, bonuses and other perks. No one seemed to care that corporations were gutting pensions left and right. If people wanted a pension, they could have taken jobs in the public sector but they apparently didn't want the lower salaries and zero perks. Just as elections have consequences, career choices also have consequences. Don't complain about public workers with pensions when your career choice was a field/industry that didn't offer pensions. There is a short game and a long game to a career and neither can be ignored.
6
Are you kidding me? Teachers these days have to have a minimum of a Master's Degree and take more coursework (on their own dime) yearly to stay "certified". Less taxing? You have drunk the disparage the public school teacher kool-aid that those who seek to privatize education have been dishing out to prepare the public for the destruction of public education. Teachers have an education level that in other fields pays far more, and other fields do not entail dealing with other peoples problem children. Besides the hours spent in the classroom, there's the hours grading, preparing lesson plans, or teacher training seminars. It's a tough job. NE schools have to pay more so teachers can afford to live in their districts, but the starting pay is not great. Other parts of the country the pay is fairly dismal. To make up for low pay compared to education level, teachers get a decent retirement package, but not in all states. They do have some money taken from their checks to pay into the retirement fund instead of social security so when states mis-spend their pension benefits they are left with nothing. The problem is not why do public sectors have benefits, its that private sectors have gotten rid of them. Now that they are getting a big fat tax cut, workers should demand better wages and benefits or this tax cut will be for nothing.
1
I'm remodeling my property to include work for a few women "of a certain age" to share. One friend brought another friend who's looking for a place over to meet me and see the place. During our introduction, I described my vision as creating the perfect place for cranky old biddies to get along.
She scowled in response, "I'm not cranky!" .
She's perfect. Just what I had in mind...
1
I never trusted anyone over 30! Now I'm 70 and can't even trust myself.
Nothing succeeds like hard work and thrift. Be involved in politics but don't let it rule your life. Live beneath your means, save and invest...the rest will follow.
Most crucially, take responsibility for your own life-decisions. Bitterness directed toward society wastes energy which could otherwise be expended on building your personal nest-egg.
Nobody does this work for you. Start now.
1
I've been relatively lucky in my career, and the problems I'm about to cover are minor compared to what many face....but it addresses the grumpiness.
I took a job just over 10 years ago at a Fortune 10 company for slightly less money to acquire the benefits and security of a big company. The financial crisis followed soon after and turned the pension into an enhanced 401(k) that turned into the same old 401(k) over the span of 3 years. My wages didn't increase for a 6 year period in the middle. Earlier this year my position was eliminated by a 35 year old politician who didn't like when his plans were questioned with logic and experience.
I have been blessed with good, hard-working, smart children. Later this month I will pay the final college invoice for my eldest, bringing the 4 year total of education to $250,409 (tuition, room and board; books and misc. not included). My younger child goes to a school that is more expensive. Over a 366 day period this year I will spend over $180k on eduction. That's what i paid for my first house. The gains I rolled into my current house are about gone....as it's worth 80% of what I paid for it 10 years ago. The only thing going up are my soon to be non-deductible real estate taxes.
We take 1 vacation per year (none this year without a job). We don't eat out much. We save as much as possible in the 401(k). I am in the top 2% and I worry every day about being able to retire with any money. No wonder everyone is grumpy.
2
Let's add a quick few extra items to the sources of this 50 year old's grumpiness. Living through two major stock market collapses as we try to save for retirement (with a 3rd on the way in our "prime earning years.")-- reaching the stage in our lives where we need to buy a house to raise a family, just as the housing market hits prices that will never be seen again. even in our teens, Social Security reform raised our retirement ago to 67, and now, it appears the goal posts are to move again before we hit 55 or whatever magic number Paul Ryan will use to assure us that "if you're over that age" you won't see changes to your benefits. Let's not forget entering the workforce into a recession as we finished college in the early 90's. Now, as you point out, we are still working for Baby Boomers after all these years.
7
What makes me grumpy as I approach old age is the fact that some other family members consistently make bad choices, live paycheck to paycheck, have accrued thousands in credit card debt, don't have a dime saved, or even an emergency fund to rely on. Different generation, different values and priorities, and no lessons learned how to manage finances responsibly and live debt free like their parents and grandparents, something even college education can't teach.
2
Perhaps the 45-54 year olds are stuck behind the baby boomers because they can't keep up or compete. Or perhaps because they see jobs as entitlements to be given out rather than earned.
2
Nope, maybe the Boomers rigged the system? Or rather, wrecked it.
2
Maybe it's because baby boomers (whose oldest ones are now 70!) are not retiring when they should and are taking up too much of the cultural, political and economic space. Look at congress! Boomers are such a big generation and they seem to be hanging around too long in positions of influence.
9
I blame the Reagan Years.
Double digit interest rates and waiting for the 'Trickle Down Effect' kept me from owning a home for another 2 decades.
Looks like the Gen X'ers are going to be in the same boat.
4
Reagan?
The double digit interest years were under Carter. I got out of the Navy in 1975 and bought a house with a 14% mortgage. Under Reagan the rates went down enough that I refinanced three times until I was down to 7%. I refinanced only taking on no more additional debt and paid off the house in 18 years thanks to more of the check going to the principal plus extra to that principal.
My son is Gen X and owns a home in Fairfax County, VA which is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. The most expensive county, Loudon is next door.
Not everyone is doing badly. Maybe they're smarter abot how they save their money?
To hear some of the comments saying Boomers “can’t die soon enough “ is chilling. I’m stunned at the vitriol- I would never wish such a thing on the previous generation si I could benefit financially.
5
Mid term Boomer here ('52), which apparently rates me just north of Beelzebub in this discussion. I don't take criticism personally, and know that given some seriois chronic health problems, I'm glad and very grateful to have done as well as I have.
Which is OK, not great. I live in a beautiful area, but don't own a vineyard and am gobsmacked by the amount of money running through this Valley.
But age does give perspective. We Boomers vilified our parents for tolerating racism, sexism and militarism, with the same contempt and anger now exhibited by Millenials toward is.
It will happen to you, too, guys. And then to your accusers. It's the nature of things, assuming that the arguments between Trump and Lil' Rocket Man don't render the whole thing academic.
6
"Try getting out of 6,000 sq ft on 4 acres in the back woods of New Canaan and you will be losing money."
Speaking as a 30 something millennial who lived in a barn/shed eking out a living during the 2007 financial crisis - no, no I don't have sympathy for your "loss".
"We are more likely to end up working in the "gig" economy competing with millennials who are ok with it because they don't know better and are late in taking up adult roles."
We're not okay with it, we're adults and take what we can get.
The entitlement infecting so many of these comments - good grief!
3
Each day we work we need to make enough money to pay for the present (every day living expenses, mortgage, car), the past (student loans, credit card debt) and the future (retirement). The problem is we don't make enough money to pay for the past, present and future all at the same time. Wages haven't kept up.
12
These statistical,arguments are nice, but don’t cut to the real causes of this skewing of wealth and income toward older workers (or away from younger ones).
There are really several forces I can identify that are responsible for this shift:
1) The decline of unions that maintained wages for workers. Much of the decline in unions has fallen in younger workers as older ones protected themselves at their expense.
2) The decline of defined benefit plans that secured the future for workers without requiring them to redirect their salaries toward defined contribution plans.
3) The rise of student debt that has placed the burden of education and training (and debt service) squarely on their backs. Older, baby boomers got a subsidized education and were relatively debt free, resulting in more current cashflow.
4) Globalization has placed more wage pressure on younger people. The Cold War era was more friendly to wage increases.
5) The decline of the public sector, which has removed many employment opportunities with good wages and benefits.
6) The slowing of population growth has resulted in less investment in infrastructure, physical and intellectual. The opportunities to convert those college degrees into better pay have been eroded.
Fixing this will require a larger public sector, more income security, and a growing population which should be encouraged through smart immigration.
14
Labor unions were, overall, an enormous force for good. They are missed.
But they were operated by individuals who made profound mistakes. Reagan succeeded in destroying PATCO and Robert Poli because they were arrogant.Their actions were flatly illegal, and jeopardized public safety. They thumbed their collective nose at a popular new president and the rest of the country, and had no real friends when Reagan counterattacked.
The Teamsters became the financing arm of organized crime and terrified America with even hints of stoppages. In later years, public unions made outrageous demands that feckless politicians caved in to.
The unions had a good thing going, but they stupidly forfeited public support. Greed snd stupidity have never been the exclusive domain of (us) Boomers.
I suspect the grumpy middle will be getting grumpier still. The rapid and soon to be skyrocketing polarization of wealth is one the most potent factors that have put these wage earners in a squeeze. That will only get worse over the next ten years. There may be 45-54 year olds among the winners in Trumponomics, but they will be the few exceptions to the general rule.
Health care costs are likely to increase at an increasing rate with the ongoing Republican assault on the ACA. Similarly, education costs, which have been increasingly borne by students and their families due to plummeting public funding for higher education under Republican state legislatures will continue to impose larger and larger burdens on this age group as their children enter, progress through, and pay for college. Student loan debt, as crushing as it is now, will dwarf ordinary Americans' ability to pay.
The Republican tax scheme, which amounts to little more than a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the rich will squeeze the middle even tighter. And this doesn't take into account that the fallout from the next economic collapse sure to result from Republicans' successful attempts to roll back the few regulations on Wall Street and the limited protections for consumers the Obama administration was willing/able to impose. No, it is not a good time to be middle aged and middle class. It is on the fast track to get worse.
12
This 1961 guy learned early on the value of being financially prudent. Saved/invested lots early on, had such a blast in my 20s - 40s but kept saving/investing. I'm very fortunate to have so far avoided the land mines.
7
I hate to break the news to bcb, but Paul Ryan was born in 1970 and is therefore a Gen X'er. The problem with these articles, and it's quite evident from the responses to this article, is that it sows generational discord. This not to say that there isn't some value in looking at generations and how they're faring (or not). While I am a resentful Gen X'er, I see things also from the perspectives of class, race, and gender. I'm sympathetic to the Boomers who respond, quite correctly and viscerally, to stereotypical denunciations of one generation of another. Taking potshots at Boomers is just silly.
6
Silly until you have lived under their shadow for decades.
Gen X has little to no voting power compared other enormous numbers of the Boomers...individuals may or may not be progressive, but as a voting block, Boomers have one of the title of the most selfish, sociopathic records in the history of the states.
This is not a personal thing, it's statistics. And we have suffered enormously, wedged between two giant generations with no voice.
5
Our gage for happiness is money? We don't even question that any more--we don't know any other way to be happy?
4
As somebody in this age group, I have two kids in college and pay over $130,000 a year to put them through school. We' put some money away for college but not the half a million it would take to cover the costs. I can guarantee you the high cost of education is one of the reasons people in our age range are super grumpy!
15
I was born in 1944 and, despite my career success, the age descrimination that grew rapidly during the 1990s began to affect me. While the quality of my work was known, so was my age as each job application required college graduation and military service dates.
However, I invested well while working in NYC and put together my latent nest egg. It was around 15 years ago when the stock market was getting shakey. But my PaineWebber broker never called to say, "Dave, your account is starting to bleed profusely. Let's move your money into safer investments. Instead, I was told to "let it ride." So I did for a while, losing more than $7,000 per month. By the time I decided to bale out, there wasn't much left to let "ride."
There a millions of Americans, near my age, who have lost big time because of high management fees and little-to-no oversight of needed retirement accounts. Age descrimination is rampant despite EEOC clauses at the bottom of the typical online application.
Some of us are hanging on with part-time jobs to supplement Social Security. Which brings me to the Republican "victory" on their tax giveaway to the rich and powerful.
We are in another Gilded Age. This tax bill will not raise salaries for workers; just raise executive bonuses. It will not create jobs; the money will be hoarded instead.
This will be subjugation by our own oligarchs thanks to our boy-king and the traitorous gangsters in Congress. The future looks bleak.
13
A lot of us who'd saved and had self directed trading accounts lost it taking care of parents. I'd bought a good deal of stocks when they were at their lowest with the idea of selling in a time like now. Instead we were forced to forgo that realization to pay their bills. Every generation is getting the shaft nowadays.
1
Does anyone else get bothered having to read the opinions of some writer that trys to boil down a generations dissatisfaction with the current fiscal and political situation with test tube statistics that only confirm what is common knowledge and is evident in the huge shift in voter sentiment across most of America. We are not going to be better off than our parents and even the winners in this economy have to pay more for everything they have.
Buck the causes are clearly not so evident, because the Trump voters fell for the same old fear mongering. Its not immigrants taking jobs, its those Boomers giving them away, or eliminating them all together in the name of the Free Market Gods.
1
Stay tuned: when old 1% realises that 'grumpy generation', weaned on precarity, student debt, have no jobs, pay no taxes for the rich, the old. Where will government find means to finance countless elderly? lkjljklkjjjObviously, there's no getting blood out of a turnip, so they'll have to choose between either 1) taxing the real estate of the elderly baby-boomers (there's plenty of that to go around), which will make no small number of them have to downsize. This could be a plausible solution, but with their political clout - they are still the demographic majority - it will never fly (e.g. Trump); or 2) they can raise the debt ceiling out to the stratosphere. This choice is interesting, because it will precipitate the decline of the dollar, deftly leaving the US economy into the hands of Chinese bankers. So the fundamental question for babyboomers is : Who do you want to leave it to, folks? You can share it or leave it with your progeny now or, most likely keep it and simply leave the country to the Chinese. I'm sure these latter will find the jobs for the 'grumpy generation' that you were just too busy to create as you left for retirement.
Knowing the characteristic compassion, generosity, foresight & virtue of baby boomers (after all, their generation was all about peace&love, wasn't it?) my bet is they'll take option 2). No worry, the younger generation has become very 'Zen' amidst privations that babyboomers have left them.
They should adapt well to the new regime.
1
Those American kids in this generation were impressionable pre-teens in the Reagan era--and got their expectations set high, 'way out of proportion. It was the beginning of designer-everything. Even Sears invented a "Hunt Club" logo for its bargain wear, which this generation sneered at ...
1
My oldest son will be headed to college in another year, and we are still paying off my wife’s college loan. We bought our house a year before the housing market crashed and it took a decade for home values to return to the amount in our mortgage. By comparison, my parents made tens of thousands of dollars on every home they ever bought. My grandmother used to say “we never bought anything on credit”, but nobody ever offered them credit. These days predatory lenders offer lousy credit cards to students, children, and house pets. Now the Republican tax cuts will explode the deficit which in a few years will give them the excuse they want to cut medicare and social security before I retire. So yeah - grumpy.
6
Grumpy Middle? Could that possibly have something to do with the fact that their parents were the baby boomer generation, a class of citizens that disproportionately benefitted from American success at the time, and have spent the rest of their lives telling their children and grandchildren how they shouldn’t be so entitled, all the while driving the country into the dumpster?! The draft dodgers who “ended Vietnam” with their protesting while their less privileged kin died or were permanently maimed in the jungle? Maybe that, combined with the fact that Gen X grew up at the height of Regans America, and under constant threat of nuclear war, only to enter the workplace and find their wage prospects continually diminished, not the unaffordablility of housing. Meanwhile, the boomers found a way to profit from our increasingly devalued labor, too - in the form of social security, a program that will surely be bankrupt by the time most of the people paying into it now will ever be eligible. The author of this article would do well to put a little more research next time - this piece missed the mark entirely.
4
Generation Grumpy cannot afford two things that should be a right: free or affordable healthcare and college for their children.
6
Stanton's sure-fire twelve-point primer on successful investing for retirement.
1. Be an investor in companies that have been around for many years. Buy and hold common stocks that produce products that people want and need such as food, drugs and oil. Avoid flashy new technology and entertainment companies where the chances for success over the long-term are slim. Boring companies that produce products like chemicals. pharmaceuticals and food are safer and will often do much better in the long run.
2. Favor dividend-paying stocks. Avoid cash, bonds and annuities like the plague they are.
3. Reinvest dividends, whenever possible.
4. Don’t pay other people to handle your investment decisions. That job is yours.
5. Keep informed about the state of your investments, but do not obsess about them.
6. if you cannot tolerate risk, move into a police station. Life is risky.
7. Sell only when all your instincts tell you to. Otherwise hold, hold and hold.
8. Gold can be a good investment. But only in the sense that stocking up on guns, ammunition, canned goods and bottled water can be a good investment.
9. Save early and save late. And then save some more.
10. Live modestly and avoid debt, flashy cars, flashy women and expensive houses and apartments. In the long run, a healthy
stock portfolio will keep you saner than any of those things.
11. Find a man or a woman who agrees with you on these things and marry-up with them.
12. Above all, be lucky.
10
Many good ideas here but I used LOW COST total stock and total bond index funds that cover domestic and international markets. Invest on a regular schedule and don’t touch them. Very simple and effective, ‘set it and forget it.’
4
13. Never have any trauma, like a spouse with mental health issues, drug abuse issues, or be raped, or have children who are raped/abused, and so on.
14. Never have to divorce, or have your spouse die.
15. Never have children with serious health issues. Never have serious health issues yourself, particularly not those covered by insurance.
16. Never get laid off or downsized. Especially when you're over 50.
17. Never live in an area where the real estate crashes & devalues your home by $100,000 or more.
18. Above all, always be healthy, have all your basic needs met all the time, be educated & intelligent, be surrounded by healthy supportive family & friends, be in a community & culture with opportunities, have insider connections for cronyism, be born into an upper class family---aka "be lucky."
4
All of the above can be replaced by
Rule 0: Be born rich.
Pensions, although not entirely safe, are better to retire on than 401ks. 401ks are sheep to be sheared on a regular basis.
4
I agree. Never felt right about investing in 401(k's) or the fact they were subjected to the whims and foibles of the stock market. Just before the crash when Bernanke admitted he "didn't see it coming," I rolled out, and paid a hefty penalty for doing so, but never regretted switching over my savings to my local credit union.
Mid 50's here. Not too happy that the Republicans are about to gut the medicare and SS so called 'entitlement' programs that I've been paying into for nearly forty years. Probably won't make it into retirement, anyway, when obamacare fails. A big middle finger for Paul Ryan.
20
My earlier - non-published -comment included another concern: the use of H1b, L1 and B1 visas, off-shoring and outsourcing as an addition to the gloom. This is a significant factor in STEM careers - 65K to 85K per YEAR of so-called skilled-worker visas has had a huge effect on career advancement and pay levels in the exact cohort that is the subject of this article.
6
The TN visa program under NAFTA is also hurting American citizens, e.g., Canadian pharmacists (originally from India) will work for much less than US born and educated.
3
I see a lot of posts blaming the boomers (I am turning 74 this month, so am a pre-boomer). Yes, let's fight against each other. Blame the older folks and wish they would die off. Blame the younger folks for a host of sins. Let's squabble over crumbs while the 0.1% reduce us all to serfdom.
14
Duh.
If you're in IT or STEM related fields you're sure to have been blocked career wise by the large number of H1b, L1 and B1 visa holders who should not have been admitted to the US. Then, the outsourcing and offshoring.
Concurrent with this is the rise of the MBA, a degree which has a better reputation among employers than the results show in most lines of business. It's been so much fun having a succession of MBA-titled managers and directors, each presenting themselves as being able to cut costs by dropping 10% of staff... not being smart enough to recognize that their past X cohorts claimed and executed the same only to leave a shredded domestic workforce.
When, exactly, will running a business return to the focus on creating, selling and maintaining products and services for a profit with a balance of worker, customer and investor?
Yes, grumpy.
8
You make a grea point. How much further damage can the most selfish generation in history (the baby boomers) do to our country and the broader world for that matter? Most boomers argue why they believe their parents aren’t the greatest generation, but after what the boomers have done, it’s obvious why their parents should be held in such high regard.
These grumpy middle-aged will have a day when most of them will be (at least financially) happy: the day their last surviving parents die. Hear me out. With the historical curtailing and now the elimination of estate tax, this generation of later-stage baby boomers stand to inherit over a trillion dollars of wealth in the next two decades. As their parents who are now 70 to 95 years old pass on, they will leave the accumulated wealth from post-War boom years that drove up all major classes of assets.
So, for your economic sake, Generation Grumpy should lose their frowns and put on your happy face. Your most important job was and is your job as a child to your parents. For vast majority of you, your parents (or, more accurately, your parent) could give you the biggest pay day of your life.
1
Grumpy for good reasons! I make the same wage as a High School teacher here in NYC (when you add up the actual hours at work and home vs salary) as I did working at a fancy restaurant in CT during the 1980s as a bus boy - not even a waiter! And the way things look with this tax bill giveaway for the rich 1% and the big Janus Union Dues case in the Supreme Court coming up next year - with ultra conservative Trump pick and tie breaker Judge Gorsuch on the bench - surely to cast the vote that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back of all unions - there goes my pension and any job security in the privatized corporate take over of public education. The fact is our country will soon be a total oligarchy run by a small circle of the 1% mega-rich who control our politicians like puppets on strings. Our Democracy for and by WE the People is in dire straits. History just repeats itself and we never seem to learn important lessons.
3
I retired recently after 33 years working for government (in the same job the whole time) and made an Excel worksheet with my Social Security earnings listed in a column. Then I calculated the COLA adjusted earnings and discovered that my COLA earnings had peaked in the 1990s - the highest year was 1989! So my COLA adjusted earnings had been generally declining for the last 20 years.
I am still trying to understand why this happened. My suspicion is that there is not enough wage competition. And whereas my COLA adjusted wages didn't really start declining until after my first 10 years or so of employment, for the grumpy middle I suspect some of their COLA adjusted wages (i.e., real wages) started declining almost as soon as they were hired. I would be grumpy too!
3
All of this flows from the strip-mining shortsighted policies pursued in this country over the past 35 years. Boomers are retiring later in compensation for two things: the replacement of pensions with 401k plans which do not inspire confidence as they will often prove to be insufficient, and the need to pay for their offspring's expensive educations. These changes result from initiatives in the 1980s and subsequent decades to cut business and public sector costs by pushing the costs into individuals.
The two factors above have then created a logjam in the labor market with boomers hanging on when the previous generation was vacating the jobs. People have forgotten that a secure retirement plan is also an employment program for the younger generations.
3
Not really. The number of jobs is not finite. Older workers can be as productive as younger ones. And, younger people would be well advised to look into starting businesses that benefit the older, wealthier consumer base who have plenty of disposable income, working or not.
1
If you are 50, you were born in 1967. The Vietnam War, the draft, bombing and Agent Orange spraying of civilians was at a peak. Race riots ripped apart major cities and leaders were being assassinated. Lead was used in gasoline, air and water pollution was rampant and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" about pesticides was 5 years old.
When you were 7, the President resigned and OPEC was delivering successive "shocks" to oil dependent America. When you were 12, the President made his Malaise Speech and "stagflation" described the economy, a hangover from the devastating cost of the Vietnam War. When you were 14, the country was plunged in the Reagan Recession and he fired the air traffic controllers, signalling the start of the long decline of organized labor, pensions and the Rust Belt.
At age 33, your optimism about the dot.com revolution and the stock market was exploded. Likewise at age 40, your confidence in home ownership and financial institutions was shaken.
All of these same events affected the Baby Boom Generation, especially Vietnam vets.
But I have anecdotally noticed a particular cynicism among Gen Xers that especially influences their financial decisions.
And I hope the Millennials take note of the current situation and start voting in far greater numbers.
14
I was born in 1963 and my cohort has always felt we fell in the massive shadow of the massive baby boomer generation. And now, as we watch the Me-generation in Congress destroy any modicum of a financial future or safety net for us, all I can say is, they can't die off fast enough.
36
Yes, the economics of it all appear true, but on top of it all I was deployed three times in my 40s, between 2005 and 2012 as an Army Reserve officer. On top of everything else, that really crushed my career and earning power. I try not to be be grumpy about it. I wanted to serve my country, and I am still doing pretty well when compared to others. And I'm no genius, but my father was and I heeded his advice. Going without some things and saving and wise investments saved me in the end.
7
I am mid-1950s boomer. I found some of the assumptions in the article just that, assumptions. Home ownership was a good investment if you bought the house when you were young and never moved and didn't live in a small or mid-size town (say under 40,000). Appreciation in value was not a given.
Second, many of us are still in the workforce because social security and Medicare are not a certainty and their associated rules have made it more important than ever to stay employed. My age group's continued hold on top jobs has the impact of suppressing the economic opportunities for the next generation. Congress, with new tax cuts that benefit my demographic and by tinkering with social security and Medicare, continue to create imbalances that penalize younger workers who want to work and older workers who want to retire.
13
gopher - "Home ownership was a good investment if you bought the house when you were young and never moved and didn't live in a small or mid-size town (say under 40,000)."
Yet that's not the economy the Boomers created! You forced relocation, and/or oversized every community you could,while also creating commuter communities (on top of reclaimed lands, often polluted) that now have little to no value.
1
I feel like i was sold a bill of goods and I was born in the late 70s. I can't imagine how the generation before me must feel. At least I had a chance to prepare for the new American Dream: "You're on your own, kid."
8
Many interesting points, here are mine:
This age group has experienced change at a dizzying pace, most of it negative. As an 80's college graduate, many lucrative manufacturing jobs and fields vanished, from textiles and furniture to appliances and televisions. Globalization like NAFTA raised the standard of living in other countries while simultaneously lowering ours. Technological advances have allowed 3 people to do the work of 7. The cost of starting a family and buying a home has soared while wages and benefits have not. Many who were succeeding lost it during the Great Recession. Others have fallen prey to more destructive drugs like meth, cocaine, and opiates than recreational marijuana. Divorce rates have remained around 50%, but they have become more expensive to settle and divide. Taking the family to the mall has vanished, as the once thriving retail sector crumbles daily from the onslaight of online shopping. Entertainment options cost far more, from movies to concerts to sporting events, while the focus on gaining a competitive edge has turned youth rec leagues into micro professional sports. We have experienced major acts of terrorism and multiple shootings, from 911 to Las Vegas, in our office buildings, our schools and even our churches.
The Grumpy Generation? No. Try the Crushed Dreams generation instead, it is closer to the mark.
38
Fabulous post, Lambros, American society/economics in a nutshell and how things got so messed up. I re-read your post and it all points to a lack of community and connectedness in our cities and towns; and how the average Joe and Jane have struggled to make it the last 20-30 years.
2
But if you happened to graduate from a top college in the 80s with a degree in computer science, and had some degree of managerial and business skills, many fine companies would welcome you.
1
I was born in 1968, and while I am well-educated, I haven't seen my educational credentials and long working years translate into high wages. At the moment, I toiling away in a regular teaching job with a teacher's salary. I would like a promotion to administration, but that hasn't yet happened. My salary level doesn't fully credit me for all of my years of teaching or my educational credentials, so I am being paid similarly to a less experienced and less educated teacher. It is tiring and discouraging to be continually job hunting, and I would like to have a solid financial cushion to count on, but that hasn't yet happened. Yes, I am "grumpy." Grumpy is a good word to describe my financial attitude.
17
I was born in 1950 and I honestly do not understand why those born 10-15 years after me think my generation did not suffer the exact same problems. I have no pension and my 401K has taken the same roller coaster ride theirs have. In addition we had to watch our friends get drafted and go off to fight a senseless war. My retirement is not cushy - I decided to retire because there seemed no point in continuing to work. So I steeled myself for the "paycut" I was about to receive, and took the plunge. And although I am not as well off as I was while working 60+ hours a week I am content and enjoying the main thing that money can't buy - TIME to do what I want. I too am taking care of an aging parent but since I now have time to spend with her money is not as important - I don't have to pay someone to be her companion as I can fill that role. I spent a lot of my career as a "consultant" (self-employed contractor) so I understand the issues with that. I also did substitute teaching when there were no contracts or full time jobs to be had. The 50-something crowd are not the only ones feeling the pain - boomers are too but I think we are just grateful to have made it this far and take a lot of pleasure in walking the dogs in the morning instead of hitting the rat race. Being a bit poorer is not an awful price to pay for the freedom to enjoy just being alive.
23
I was born in 1967. I was well into working life before I ever even heard of the internet and I got an Iphone 1 for my 40th birthday. My generation had full childhoods and a chunk of adulthood prior to the introduction of this inescapable technology. The world wasn't perfect before the internet, but there's a lot I miss and a lot I regret my kids can't experience. Our generation has had to build careers, create families and raise kids against the backdrop of profound and disorienting transformation. We are the first generation to try to figure out how to set limits, draw boundaries, embrace or reject everything that comes with smart phones etc. This is an important topic of conversation among my friends and the negatives brought by parenting in this environment contributes to a lot of unhappiness and dread.
17
54 here, and I am both more thankful and more worried than grumpy.
Thankful that I had a childhood where there was a general belief growing up that we could afford to follow our dreams and in so doing become successful. It gave me confidence, a willingness to explore a world and a sense of well-being.
I'm also thankful that I received a public education that wasn't plagued with "standards of learning" and all the relentless testing that goes with it. I took lots of fun classes that no longer exist and read a bazillion books for fun.
And I'm really thankful that I grew up in a world without intrusive, addictive technologies that pervade every aspect of our interactions with others, and worse, can capture and share our every move. We were the last generation that grew up knowing freedom. I feel sorry for younger people who don't know what that is.
So, lots to be thankful for as a generational experience.
Going forward though, is simply terrifying.
I'm insanely worried about my future, especially now given today's news that our government just sold us down the river.
I will need Social Security and medical care in old age, but fear that by the time I get there, both will be significantly curtailed due to ballooning deficits.
I also think our government is setting us up for another crash like 2008-09, so anything I manage to invest will be wiped out right abut the time I though I'd retire.
Our generation will not have time to rebuild what we're about to lose.
41
Over the 30-plus years of my working career, I have been repeatedly surprised, both pleasantly and unpleasantly, at how some regulation or another has suddenly made it much easier, or much harder, to make a living. Through it all, I have had to reinvent myself more than once, and roll with all punches. A whole bunch of pluck, and yes, some luck, was involved. Currently I am on the receiving end of some regulatory changes, and I am saving a large portion of my income. My house and cars are paid off, and I don't need granite counter-tops. I have had a few frighteningly lean years, which left their mark.
My mood is usually pretty good, though.
9
There is another reason why so many of my generation (I was born in the early '70s) are "grumpy" today about their earnings. I work in a corporate executive position that can be considered financially very comfortable, yet my earnings have stagnated for several years now, and the same goes for most of the people I know of similar age and education level (post-graduates, MBAs).
The main reason is that for many years all the top corporate positions were blocked by the armies of "baby boomers" who occupied all the available seats, and now that they are finally beginning to retire, we find that we are often being leapfrogged by younger managers in their mid-30s who are considered more "promotable" because of their perceived youth and energy. The sad truth is that we have become too old while waiting for the hated boomers to get out of the way, and now a younger generation is taking over all the posts that we worked so hard for.
Of course this makes us very grumpy. When you see a 37-year old becoming VP or a 32-yr old becoming CEO of a foreign subsidiary of your company, while there are scores of extremely competent, motivated and experienced 45-50 year old executives who have been waiting all their lives for such opportunities, I think we are justified in feeling disgruntled and demotivated.
111
So true in all fields - primary reason being the almighty dollar - get the younger ones for less. Greed is destroying the world.
3
Yes. I think it is more than $. The Baby Boomers see the Millennials as their children and enjoy supporting their careers. Gen X have always been the inconvenient latchkey children.
The Gen Xers who have prospered the most have been the disrupters of Silicon Valley. They did not climb ladders. They made the most of unsupervised playtime. There are some significant gaps in their upbringing in terms of standards of behavior and how to treat others.
7
Blaming a entire generation seems irrational not to mention illogical. What's with this?
" The sad truth is that we have become too old while waiting for the hated boomers to get out of the way, and now a younger generation is taking over all the posts that we worked so hard for. "
I'm a late boomer, a literal CHILD of the 60s who was in 2nd grade a few weeks after Woodstock. After years of wanting my OWN generational title, you're calling us the Grumpy Generation? No thanks. I'll stick with being a late boomer.
Even better. I'm a member of the Obama Generation as I'm a bit younger than him.
Anyway, this article doesn't even mention that we came of age during the AIDS crisis, which put the fear of death into young people way before terrorism was even thought of as a reality in America. The booming 90s were a lot of fun but only if you had a job. And 9/11 shocked us to our core. America was no longer impenetrable.
The Obama years were the happiest of my life. I was able to marry my wife legally. We bought a home. We obtained good jobs (I had changed careers and graduated right when the market crashed in '08, finally landing on my feet a few years later).
Consider the political climate, the upcoming tax bill and the fear that this stock market will "correct" itself and crash soon.
No wonder some people our age may be grumpy!
20
This generation bears the brunt of the shift in the economy. Major expenses are priced for stable, traditional jobs with major benefits, but those jobs are melting away, replaced by a more flexible world centered around a generation that doesn't yet care about long term life costs.
Healthcare is simply impossible to pay out of pocket, because it is priced for employment based insurance and Medicare. Baby boomers who set this system up had the solid jobs with good insurance. They had everything from Viagra to million dollar cancer treatments covered by insurance, then Medicare, and probably will, well into their nineties. We in-betweeners paid for their insurance and defined retirement benefits but most of us will get none of that back when it matters.
We are more likely to end up working in the "gig" economy competing with millennials who are ok with it because they don't know better and are late in taking up adult roles.
All of those really bad job situations in the current environment of outsourcing and "nontraditional employment" work for the millennials for now, because they don't have health care expenses and are often more subsidized by their parents (us) than they spend on their kids.
22
I am 54, with a PhD from an Ivy League school, working in a well-paid administrative position. Anyone who knew my working poor, largely uneducated rural family in the 1970s and 1980s would not look for me where I am. Coming from this background, the most decisive things I had in my favor were grit, and the feeling I had nothing to lose. A true gift that I wish for all young people coming up today.
20
Could it also be this age group is paying exorbitant college tuition rates which are hallowing out any savings they had? And staring into a future of continued work (no retirement at 60...) to make up for that hole and for the lack of pensions?
15
I’m 53 and my whole life felt I’ve lived in the shadow of the older baby boomers and now the younger millennials . When I got my first ‘real’ job that gave benefits and raises, I heard I had just missed the gravy boat years where the company gave out 10-15% raises every year, while for the last 25 years getting 5% raises was the best I could do without changing jobs. Then there was the fact they just started 401k retirement funds and were no long doing pension funds. My older colleagues got both at retirement.
I can see how each successive generation will struggle to reach a comfortable middle-class status. It’s noticeable how my generation had college tuition that could usually be paid off in just a few years after college, and housing in most places was still mildly affordable—both of which aren’t any longer. Plus, having a bachelors degree would yield a higher salary then now. It just seems to go on and on.
We can see the death of the middle class staring us in the face. It’s sad times indeed.
79
I’m 51. My circumstances are truly unique, which I won’t get into. However, I’m desperately trying to prevent the death of my family’s middle class status.
15
As a 1954 Baby Boomer who has worked entry level jobs her entire life and when I turn 66 will be collecting $1100 in Social Security and also working to pay the levels of Medicare, I want to say that there are many of us who quietly labor paycheck to paycheck. We peacefully protested, defended the underdog and supported causes to make the world a better place. Some of us, though uneducated(but intelligent) are lumped into categories or pushed aside. We have just as much reason to be grumpy than the 45-54 year olds, but we are invisible and it is easier to blame a generation than to see people as individuals.
21
And things will not get better, as the rise of the gig economy confirm. As soon as mature adults realise that job creation is NOT the primary centre of interest of employers, resignation and inner peace are soon at hand. I am sure there are policy makers in both the public and private sectors who encourage benign neglect in the form of stagnating salaries, extortionate tuition rate tolerance, and the opiate crisis to lower the numbers of a costly tranche of the US population otherwise facing retirement soon. Don't count on others, that's what I have learned after five décades on the planet...
13
I'm 48, couldn't find a full-time job after college but eventually did. Went down a couple of different career paths and was unemployed for varying periods in my 20s and 30s. Wasn't fun, but I only had to worry about myself. Got a master's in 04 for a career that went nowhere for several reasons and am still paying off. Rebounded and finally settled down and now have a pre-k-aged son. Now I've been unemployed for more than three of the last five years and am fairly confident that part of it is because employers see my experience and figure they can get a cheaper millennial. So, yeah, I am grumpy and depressed, to boot. House? Rented. Trying a new career path with studies for a professional certificate. More student loans. Retirement? Not likely.
30
When I entered the workforce in the 80s, I did notice that the people a few years older were getting the promotions (and would not be retiring soon). Companies were cutting pensions, and "downsizing" was entering the lexicon.
But there have been some silver linings -- jobs with health insurance and 401(k)s were still available with a little luck, and computers were taking up some of the routine work, but not yet completely automating workers out of jobs.
We should acknowledge our grumpiness let it motivate us to do good -- to recognize that external factors can provide headwinds, and do what we can to make sure our children and grandchildren can get their piece of the American dream. Let's make sure their dreams are not dashed by increasing concentration of wealth and power, along with globalization and automation.
11
I'm 55 and had a wonderful career as a chemist until 2007. People stopped high-risk investments and the jobs dried up. I'd taken a year off to hike the Rockies and soon went broke and began taking jobs I'd never imagined I would be doing.
Here I am today graduation #2 in 14 days, finally a science job lined up.
Although I've lived paycheck to paycheck, I learned some life lessons. I began telling myself that everything was going to be all right. Days and weeks and years passed and I began to think its true. Although I struggled with religion and science my whole life, I began to tell myself that God loved me. My happiness attracted wonderful people into my life. More friends than I ever had before.
Budda said "everyone gets sick, everyone grows old, everyone loses everything and everyone dies". Once I made my peace with that, what is there to be grumpy about?
34
Thank you for your post, Nancy. I’m glad you have found peace. Perhaps there is hope for my family and me.
1
And let us not forget that the older generation, having attended school when college was essentially free, pulled the ladder up behind them. Boomer Bill Clinton signed into law draconian college debt collection protocols dreamed up by people like Silent Generation Newt Gingrich.
The consumer protections we take for granted in every other aspect of our financial lives, including bankruptcy, statutes of limitations, and refinancing, were stripped away in the 1990's -- just in time for when we started out in the work force.
45
I'm in that age group. The smartest financial move I ever made was to marry a Baby Boomer and NOT raise any Millennials. I'm doing OK financially. Actually, I'm doing much better than I ever expected.
There were two financial factors that worked in favor of this age group: excess capacity in higher education after it expanded to accommodate the Baby Boom and the tendency of corporate America to replace high-earning, older employees with younger, cheaper ones.
We are the generation that will never have political power. We need to zig while the large generations before and after us zag. Best wishes, fellow travelers!
7
We should have had a generation of Obamas. Shame on the DNC for pushing more Boomers on us like Clinton and Sanders. Actually, Bernie may be from the Silent Generation like my parents. And I felt the Bern but...we need younger leaders! We could have had the next Obama in the White House now.
14
Grumpy because I keep getting the "you're overqualified" line from companies which don't want to pay for experience and knowledge, anymore.
59
Did it occur to you that recently, people over 50 are the first to be laid off and the least likely to ever be hired again in a comparable position? That's a long time under- or unemployed to accrue a decent retirement or qualify for SS benefits. No wonder a lot of them are grumpy.
84
Excuse me but those of us born in and after 1955 are not at all sanguine about our financial situations. Our salaries didn't keep pace with the cost of living. Companies eliminated pensions just as we started working. Instead of pensions we got 401(k)s which are dependent upon the stock market. Many of us are still paying off our college and graduate degrees. Those of us in our 50s are having a hard time finding jobs commensurate with our skills.
The second half of the baby boom generation has not done as well as its parents or the earlier part of boomer generation did. We will have worked hard, maintained our health, kept our end of the bargain with America only to be betrayed by America. Our children will not do well either unless our politicians stop giving away the store to the uber rich corporations and individuals who do not need givebacks.
My regret is that I ever took good care of myself because now, unemployed at the age of 59 thanks to Trump, I doubt I'll find another decent job. But hey, that's part of the 1% message to us: drop dead and decrease the surplus population so we can have more.
60
Don't give up. I was hired for the best (most fun, not most lucrative) job I ever had at the age of 60. I retired from that job earlier this year at the age of 66 1/2 - no pension and a smallish 401K but between medicare and Social Security (and an almost paid off house) I am enjoying not working for the first time in 40 years. The trick is to find something that can be a "gap" job while you wait for that magic hire. I did substitute teaching - it does not pay well but it gets you out there every day (if you are diligent and make yourself available) with young people. If you have any math skills at all you can work nearly every day. And, as I said, the pay is not good but it is quite wonderful to spend 6-7 hours with kids every day and enjoy the freshness they bring to life - and some income is better than none.
7
Of course, the counterpoint to your accurate assessment is that the uber class will gladly share their riches through trickle down economics.
3
conniesz - Thank you for the encouraging comment! It is more helpful than you might imagine to think our best years in terms of earning AND job satisfaction can still be ahead.
I am 57, have invested the max 401k allowance each year, never bought more home that I could afford. Was able to retire early once Obamacare was passed, and didn't have to worry about obtaining health insurance.
Now Trump is obsessed with removing my ability to obtain insurance, so the past several months I have been very grumpy indeed.
Perhaps someone in Washington would realize that the availability of insurance for those past 50 or 55 is not a 'disaster', but instead a way to free up jobs for others.
92
Despite the bad news conveyed by this article, I find myself strangely pleased to have been noticed and put in a category at last by some diligent researchers somewhere. Thank you, researchers. However I would have preferred not to have been called grumpy, which makes us seem ungrateful, as well as old. I'm certainly not ungrateful for what I have, especially when I look around and see (I don't have to look far) so many others doing worse than me. As far as being old goes, we're not quite there yet, and many of us have elderly parents who have a heck of a lot more money than we do. Some of us are also still raising kids. Perhaps a better name for us would have been the in-betweeners. We're not old or young, not rich or poor, but floating along largely unnoticed and getting by somehow. If you're a mid=professional you might be doing okay. If you're a woman and you stayed home to raise kids (how shameful is that) you better hope your husband keeps his job. No wonder it all feels so precarious sometimes.
26
I've waited around 35 years for a good moniker for our generation and Grumpy "ain't" it. However, at least we are being noticed, like you say.
10
Yet look who is running our country. Old man overlords and the uber wealthy, legacy kids and oligarchs.
I'm just glad we encouraged our kids to sprinkle a little grit on top of their "smarts" and have a work ethic. They may make it but as a tail end Boomer who has worked in corporate america for years, forget about loyalty. That's the other message for them.
12
We did this to ourselves. We have a thriving economy after the Great Recession brought to us by the GOP, yet we vote in the GOP yet again.
Soon we'll have another recession, a constantly rising national deficit, and a diminished safety net like Medicare and Social Security
The Grumpy don't learn well.
13
I don't know whether this age group (gen X) voted for the GOP last time around any more than others.
The Fox news crowd is decidedly older and voted for the familiar myths and dog whistles.
Millennials are progressive but they threw a tantrum that day because they couldn't have exactly what they wanted (in this case Bernie).
7
This is not a hard question to answer. Fifty-three percent of voters 45-64 years of age supported Trump, identical to the proportion of voters 65 and up. Only 42 percent of voters 30-44 supported Trump, falling to 37 percent of the youngest voters.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit...
yup. I'm 49. I came out of college to the 1992 recession with loans for law school (unusual in the UK at the time), I finally paid those off in 2000, got hit with mild me/cfs which meant I had to work part time, then in July 2009 work dried up, 6 weeks that christmas, no more roles in what I did til christmas 2011. then in 2013 my me/cfs went severe and my life effectively ended as I knew it. Hell yes I'm grumpy!!!!
My getting on the career ladder was really hard in 1992 recession and getting serious work at a senior level was kyboshed by the financial crisis from 2007 - even without the illness.
Some have been lucky and got the house and the career and the pension. most of us haven't.
14
At least 95 million Americans of different ages not only have a lot to be grumpy about but a very depressing future ahead.
Thanks, Wall Street!
---
Lucky Among 95 Million Losers: Yep! That’s me.
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/01/02/new-year-ruminations-lucky-among-95...
16
Hmm! First we were branded Generation X, and labeled unambitious, now we've morphed into "Generation Grumpy." Hardly seems fair given that we were growing up during the great trickle down experiment, and the shift towards neoliberal economic policy. Anyone following my employment trajectory in prior generations would be sitting much more comfortably than I am as a salaried professional in local government. I barely make median income for my area. I could pursue higher paying work in a more urban setting, but the cost of living would be astronomically higher as well, so no real gain. We're also being told we will have to work longer, with less certainty that we'll get the social security and medicare we've been paying for all our working lives. "Grumpy" implies we're bad tempered for no reason. In fact, I think our frustration is entirely legitimate.
83
Bravo!!!
1
Nailed it. 54 year old here and yes, feeling a bit grumpy. One year out of school I watched the market crash; it was my first lay off. I watched so much of my savings (and kids' 529s) get wiped out in days in the Great Recession and have been slowly climbing back ever since. I'm at a startup and in raising money just laugh at the agism I face. (Actually had a VC say "you have surprising energy for a guy in his early 40s. Hah...had his math been better he would have thought I was Superman.) Yet through all of it I recognize that I'm lucky. I have savings. I can (barley) afford college without my kids going into debt. I live in a nice town with good schools. I've got my health and (and as my grandfather would say) most of my teeth. But yeah, figuring out how to keep moving forward while the rules keep changing...it's hard and it is grumpy making.
50
You forgot, moving forward with changing rules while having a smile on your face. ;)
1
I understand Generation Grumpy, but they're not the only generation who experienced difficulty or dissatisfaction finding a job or buying a house.
The earliest Boomers -- those born in 1946 and a few years after that -- had a much easier time than later Boomers.
During those early post World War II years there was little competition for college/jobs, and the housing market was plentiful and reasonably priced.
Boomers born in the mid 1950s and later experienced a progressively more difficult time getting into college, getting a job and buying a house, simply because of the competition for those sectors the sheer number of Boomers caused.
In fact, the early Boomers were the first to experience satisfaction in these sectors. Early Boomers' parents had gone through the Depression and their grandparents had gone through the pre-World War I years, when the mass of Americans experienced poverty and only a precious few belonged to an upper-income echelon.
My grandparents were rural ranchers but my parents were college-educated with medical degrees, so my siblings and I had an affluent upbringing.
Our children are doing well, but our parents (World War II generation) had an easier time achieving an affluent income than either my (Boomer) generation or our children's generation.
The sheer number of Boomers born after WWII created a boom then a bust in a number of sectors such as college, jobs, housing.
7
Kate, I dont know anyone who had a hard time getting into college, unless it was just way beyond their academic abilities. Any dumbcluck can go to college, and did/does. But it simply was not a guarantee of success. As its been pitched.
My husband recently received an email about electrician jobs going begging in our area. He's a retired electrical engineer and was a union electrician before that, so he gets these types of notices now and then. The hourly pay listed is less than he was making in the 1980s. Of course we were in NW Washington then and we are in a right-to-work-for-less state now, so that has something to do with it, but even so, the expected hourly wage on a national average isn't but a dollar more than he made for that same work back then, when our house payment was less than $200 a month. We lived frugally when we were young, but we also started earning and putting money away late—we were hippies in our twenties, didn't get through college till we were in our late thirties, didn't put a dime away until we were in our early forties, and we still came out ahead because we were paid well in our fields and because we invested and didn't over spend. I don't think it is so easy for the younger generation. I don't see how they can be frugal enough to make up for the higher cost of living, the ridiculous real estate market, and the wages and salaries that simply have not kept up.
110
In short, the rent is too high.
2
I think GenX is more pissed off than "grumpy" (and being labeled "generation grumpy" doesn't help). Many in our generation have done well and feel economically secure, but a great many of us have been hit with repeated lay offs, we're facing age discrimination, and like the generation behind us, we're looking at being worse off than our parents and saddled with college debt. Personally, I graduated college into an economic slump, went to law school years later (after being laid off repeatedly in the dot.com bust). That would have been a great plan if I hadn't graduated right into the great recession (sure wish I hadn't left programming). I feel very sympathetic to my millennial friends, since economically, I might as well be one.
30
Yeah, I resent the "grumpy" label, too. Speaking for myself, I am very pissed off about the inequality in this society. Of course, we need to examine the problem from all angles (race, class, gender, sexual), not just generationally. It's a wonder people are surprised by the mainstreaming of neo-fascism (Trumpism). As a downwardly-mobile white guy, I am exactly the sort of person the Nazis would like to recruit, but I am ruled by my intellect, not passion. I am also nonviolent. But I can't speak to the nonviolence of all people in my situation, impoverished, unemployed, and on the brink of homelessness.
It kills me that I am working like a dog selling stuff on Amazon to net $15K a year, while Jeff Bezos has reportedly managed to amass $100 billion. This is unbelievable, unconscionable greed. It is not enough to expect these billionaires (like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) to give money away voluntarily, government needs to step in and institute a system of fair taxation, so the social wealth can be more evenly distributed. If this doesn't happen, there will be a segment of the lumpenproletariat who will resort to assassinations, property damage, and rioting in the streets. If I was a rich person, I would be very worried.
I was brought up to believe that if you studied hard in school, got good grades, worked hard, got along with colleagues in the workplace, and avoided trouble with the law, you would be rewarded. Well, I have been badly disappointed. Grumpy, indeed!
40
There is a 5th column of intelligent, rational, decent people like yourself that is growing by the day. To counter it, those in power will resort more and more to media manipulation as it becomes impossible to quell social unrest. Witness the rise of 'fake facts.' Whatever you do, DON'T stay tuned, they will fail at muzzling the truth - it always gets out - and will be remarkably efficient at destroying what they claim to cherish.
After a long night's sleep, it's 5.00am in America. The dream is about to...
As a white-collar worker staring down my 50th birthday the final paragraph sums this up almost perfectly from my perspective, but there's one additional factor not mentioned that I believe adds to my cohort's frustration - Boomers have inherited a ridiculous amount of wealth from the WWII generation, whose experiences during and after the Great Depression made them fearful of spending, yet in their typical selfish manner the Boomers are spending it all and leaving nothing for us or our kids. I'm experiencing this in my family on both my father and mother's sides. Boomers truly are, as the recent Gibney book dubbed them, a "Generation of Sociopaths", Hell-bent on self-enrichment in disregard of the needs and lives of future generations.
17
Oh great, Jason. Let's add another level of civil strife and a reason to hate our neighbors. We have racial conflict, religious conflict, political conflict...add inter-generational conflict to the mix and watch the nation literally implode. Boomers encompass a vast number of people and are as varied and diverse as any other category of humans that comprise tens of millions. All the attention is directed on the selfish, materialistic element but boomers started national conversations towards a kinder, gentler, more equitable society, starting with civil rights, racial equality and running the gamut to women's equality, gay rights, environmental protection, workers' rights and a living wage, the peace movement, decriminalizing marijuana and less violent methods of disciplining our children. Unfortunately, those Boomers who have gone over to the dark side and continually work towards unraveling those 5 decades of progress get all the attention. I don't generalize about X-ers, Y-ers, millennials or whatever pop sociological term describes the various generations, so stop generalizing about mine.
14
Jason, our parents "owe" us nothing except to support and guide us from infancy to adulthood, and we should be grateful if we get that. After that, you're on your own. I never anticipated largess from my parents nor begrudged them spending what was theirs on themselves. (And if you live into your 80s and 90s as mine did, there's not much left over!)
10
Wow. Someone doesn't like his elders at all. Sorry but the greatest generation set a lot of this up. They were in power in the 80s when things could have been easily fixed to help the up and coming demographic bulge that is the baby boom generation. As one of that generation, the latter half, I will not be inheriting a ridiculous amount of money from my parents. Indeed, I'd rather my mother spend her money on herself if she needs to. For what? Medical care, any physical therapy she might need or any help she will need with activities of daily living.
Our parents owe us nothing contrary to what you think Jason. They gave us life, nurtured us until we were ready to leave, probably gave a lot of us help when we started our families. They don't owe us or you money. They made that money, not you. If you don't like what your parents are doing speak to them about it, not to us.
8
Well, the Baby Boomers and the Millennials are the most-selfish groups in U.S. history, so ... yeah, Gen X has a lot to be grumpy about.
7
Oh great, "Doctor". Let's add another level of civil strife and a reason to hate our neighbors. We have racial conflict, religious conflict, political conflict...add inter-generational conflict to the mix and watch the nation literally implode. Boomers encompass a vast number of people and are as varied and diverse as any other category of humans that comprise tens of millions. All the attention is directed on the selfish, materialistic element but boomers started national conversations towards a kinder, gentler, more equitable society, starting with civil rights, racial equality and running the gamut to women's equality, gay rights, environmental protection, workers' rights and a living wage, the peace movement, decriminalizing marijuana and less violent methods of disciplining our children. Unfortunately, those Boomers who have gone over to the dark side and continually work towards unraveling those 5 decades of progress get all the attention. I don't generalize about X-ers, Y-ers, millennials or whatever pop sociological term describes the various generations, so stop generalizing about mine.
5
Miguel. Starting a conversation is a step, but it wasnt followed up with a lot of action. Sexual harassment in the workplace is a prime example of all talk and not much action. Equal pay, dead in the water. Gay rights, required a younger generations cultural shift that Boomers still rail against.
And that lack of childhood discipline, resulted in the unrestrained Selfie generations, taking sexy picts in their bathrooms...and an obsession with the inane.
Not all Boomers fault, just most.
The good doctor also castigates millenials. Interesting, is it not, that in the space of a single comments section, the accusers are now also the accused?
Time to stop baiting generations, and focus on the real problems. While we still have time.
1
Who wouldn't be grumpy? Just when this group had gathered their knowledge and expertise, paid their dues in the employer workworld, and thought they could spread their own wings, start their own business, they had a little bad surprise.
When they thought they could depend on the Affordable Care Act to get them through their healthcare needs, to give them employer insurance separation freedom, the rug was pulled out from underneath. The Republican Party would snatch away their dream, and their president abhorred their ambition by taking away Barack Obama's fight for them - to be self employed and have healthcare benefits.
A dirty trick! Who wouldn't be grumpy?
21
Oh, it didn't just start. This group saw rampant inflation, got to start driving just in time to get hit with an oil crisis pushing gas prices up, saw the demise of student fares on airlines, the start of large increases in college tuition costs, high interest on loans with little interest on savings, disappearing pensions, the list goes on.
5
I was born in 1965 and graduated magna cum laude in 1987, just when the Stock Market went south. Demographically, I've always understood myself as a Gen X'er. My ex-wife and I bought our first home, a 2BR condo, at the height of the housing bubble, and lost it to foreclosure during the Great Recession. Neither of us will ever own property again. I have never made more than 40K, I have no savings, no 401K, and live from month to month, facing ageism in a workplace that won't hire me. I live in an unheated warehouse with no running water, but with a WiFI signal that allows me to sell used merchandise on Amazon, so, I would say, YEAH, I'm pretty grumpy.
12
Are we really Generation X? Technically I'm a late "Boomer" but I'm not really a Boomer. Can't relate to that at all. Gen X are the kids that grew up in the 80s. Can't really relate to that, either.
I say we're the Hootie the Owl Generation. The Non Generation (with appropriate irony, of course). The Punk Rock Whatevers.
Good article, thanks -- now back to those frisky Millennials!
I'd say something more thoughtful but I have to get back to working 12 hours a day to maintain my somewhat middle class lifestyle. Grump, grump.
7
To get an analysis of the situation facing the middle-aged published in the corporate media, you have to engage in victim-blaming. The cause of the problem can't be presented as having anything to do with the neoliberal economic policies that both parties have followed for over thirty years.
So the people whose economic fortunes have gone south, the people who are part of the first generation in a long time that cannot envision their children's economic prospects as being better than their own, the generatoin being ravaged by opioid addiction ---- they're just grumpy.
6
I also relate to this article. Born in 1964, I was unemployed off and on between 2009-2014 due to the 2008-9 recession and pursuing digital start up media sales jobs. I temped, collected unemployment and used up all of my non-retirement savings. There is age discrimination, particularly in the digital and media industries. Many 30 somethings are cheaper, cuter and more digitally savvy. Many of my peers are currently unemployed and/or figuring out what's next. I have observed that some companies are squeezing out middle management; I heard that when McDonald's corporate office moves to downtown Chicago most of the middle managers are not coming with them. So what do you do if you are an educated 55 year old, no job, and want to retire in 10 years, and can't find a job that pays what you made 5 years ago? Thankfully I have a great job now and saving as much as I can because you just don't know what could happen.
12
Many of those born at the end of the "Baby Boomer" demograph--that is, from 1960-1964 or so--have never identified with the Boomers. This is especially true if they are the oldest children born in their family.
These late Baby Boomers—better thought of as Baby Doomers—have spent their lives following the bulk of the Baby Boom generation. It is like following locusts: by the time the Doomers arrive, the Boomers have cleared out everything. Jobs. Housing. You name it, the Boomers clearcut the area, and the Doomers glean from amongst the dregs. As they age, this pattern changes, but never goes away.
The Doomers are their own micro-demographic, not benefitting from the economic growth enjoyed by the Boomers. They have lived their lives seeing their plans and dreams dry up and wither, despite effort, attitude, and hope. The Doomers will not create their legacy from lives of excess and success, like the Boomers before them, but from years of resilience and flexibility. And yes, well-deserved grumpiness.
13
I am 54 turning 55 in a month. I am most definitely grumpy.
Notice that this is the generation that graduated high school while Reagan was president.
Once Reagan led the way to kill unions, the remaining almost 37 years was pretty much pre-ordained. I chose not to have kids because of that.
The sad thing is that it's going to get worse. The Millennials will be Generation Grumpier.
25
I’m sorry but does this author have amnesia? 2008 brought the economy to its knees just when Gen x was about to enter its professional maturity. Everyone I know struggled deeply, suddenly our starter homes were worth half our mortgage. We’re just emerging from it. Grumpy? Turning 40 for most generations is when you hit your professional stide and start to reap the financial benefits. We met our 40s in economic freefall. I think our attitude is fairly stoic considering many of us has to go back to square one.
63
The security I have is the result of earlier generations; specifically, the parents of Boomers. My grandparents were able to reap the benefits of post WWII economy (the Great Depression having shaped their engagement with opportunity) and build real capital that has resulted in two generations being able to attend college (w/o crippling debt) and buy homes-- and even to have something toward retirement. (time being key to wealth accumulation). I'm incredibly fortunate for a tail end Gen X-- more so because I'm disabled and would have been crushed under the economic realities outlined. We are headed toward an economic reckoning as climate change reshapes the globe and societies. Having come of age when this truth was just being known (but not widely realized) is also a dividing line for generations. Hard to be the wise elders for subsequent generations when your hopes and beliefs have been so thoroughly dashed by forces you can't hope to counter.
6
This seems to ring true with what my older baby boom generation has experienced relative to my middle age offspring. I believe, however that another wave aspect in the financial satisfaction timeline equation will emerge beyond the period of employment income being the primary determinant. That is the impact of generational inherited wealth. I predict, if you revisit this story after boomers reach peak mortality rates in a few decades or so, that you will be surprised.
1
What's with the constant labeling based on birth year? It is especially annoying that the post baby boom population is micro analyzed in what appears to be a search for flaws. Life experiences are to varied for it to be possible to attribute feelings and behavior to birth date. (I am technically a member of the "baby boom" generation and DO blame them for the current mess the US is in. So I guess I am as guilty of this behavior as anyone.)
4
Social scientists have found that, because each generation experiences a common set of events, those experiences can have long-term political and social effects. Take gun ownership, for instance. Every generation since World War II has fewer gun owners than the one preceding it, with the lowest rates of ownership among millennial households.
http://www.politicsbythenumbers.org/2015/03/10/millennials-still-eschew-...
1
I'm in my early 50s and my whole life, boomers got the good jobs and now they're not even retiring. We're too old to be cool enough for new media and we're stuck in middle management by 60somethings. We trained and took jobs in industries that either don't exist any more or bear no relation to what we originally signed up for (newspapers, administrative assistants, travel agency, factory work).
31
Amen, brother.
2
Gee, we're the bad guys for wanting to use Social Security to retire early, and the bad guys for NOT retiring (because we have plans like being able to eat and put a roof over our heads).
4
another factor in the grumpy middle is job security. while government figures say unemployment is low, I have obsrved a ton of men over 50 dumped from high paying jobs and unable to find new employment. a head-hunter friend told me they are looked at as expensive has-beens with little prospects to get close to their prior earning levels.
29
The federal government's unemployment numbers are nonsense, inasmuch as they ignore those who have dropped out of the labor force through frustration at not being able to find a new job.
If Gen-Xers are grumpy, it's probably because we came of working age at a moment in history when government abrogated its role of taming the worst excesses of capitalism, the role Adam Smith envisioned. Reagan and his big-capital cronies set the rhetorical and policy stage for the twin stars in fiscal conservatives' eyes, absolute freedom for large businesses and just deserts ("they should work harder") for everyone else. The catastrophic consequences for real people of this "market-oriented" idealism are simply the cost of doing big business.
Automation is the future for most current jobs. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if only we had the national will to stop equating paid work with virtue. We will not have that luxury for much longer so we'd better set about rethinking the way business participates (or doesn't) in the social contract, or we will see massive social unrest. That's the bureaucratic term for "rioting in the streets".
3
And we also got to college just around the time AIDS hit and made sex scary. Retirement is not something we're going to get to enjoy, for the most part. The gig economy means many of us are forced to rely on Obamacare, which means taking time to frantically call our senators every few months just to maintain access to health care (because no insurer wants patients in their 50s).
30
Yes, Gen X is sandwiched between the Boomers, who grew up during the sexual revolution of the sixties, and the millennials, who have Tinder and Grindr. We grew up in the middle of the HIV pandemic. So there are non-economic reasons that contribute to our "grumpiness."
8
I was born 1962 and admit to some grumpiness. About the time I graduated from college in the mid-80's, the economy tanked. Nobody was hiring, and despite two internships and lots of extracurricular activities that supported by degree in PR, the only job I could find was in retail making about $10K. I lived with my parents for two years and then went to graduate school to study in an area with more projected opportunities. And I accumulated student loans. Graduated into a better job market but wages and benefits were pretty flat for years until I made a significant job change. After a cross country move for my husband's job right before the Great Recession, I took another career hit when I couldn't find a job in my field and again had to settle for a low wage, low advancement position, which lead to another graduate degree several years latter, along with the short sale of a house and more student loans! My husband (born 1967) for his part, left a high paying job in 2000 (prior to us meeting) to help care for his dying father, and has never returned to that same level of earnings. He returned to work after caregiving making a fraction of his former salary until we moved for a job out here. He's made various job changes in efforts to return to his original field but despite many achievements professionally his wages have been flat for 10 years. We are probably doing better than many of our same age peers. But we worry. The GOP tax bill frightens us.
43
I figured out in the mid-80's that I (late baby-boomer, but more Gen-Xer), needed an education to succeed, and couldn't see myself doing the blue collar manual labour jobs I had done up until then. Since then, I've had jobs that made me 8K a month after taxes, and 1K a month after taxes. But I have controlled my own destiny. If workers of my generation are unhappy, it's because a lot of them followed in the footsteps of their fathers (I didn't really have one) and went into the factory. But even before I went back to university at 24, Bruce Springsteen had sung, "They're closing down the textile mill, cross the railroad track. Foreman says those jobs are going boys, and they ain't coming back." The writing was on the wall for those fortunate enough or prescient enough to see. And this was before China. It's easy to blame others, but companies left the more expensive north because the cheaper south lured them down. And then they left the south when cheaper overseas lured them overseas. If you aren't happy with your place in life, even at 55 - then start making changes and get yourself to a place where you ARE happy. Currently my wife and I are looking at taking a 25K pay cut - but the place we are looking at going to is fascinating and the positions there looks really interesting and meaningful to us personally. Find your happy place and get there.
5
Let us not ignore the fact that for many years, the push down
on salaries and wages came with women joining the work force. This allowed the concept of two wage earners per household to maintain the standard of living that one could previously do. Corporations loved the "two for the price of one" with women paid less. Jobs and professions where women entered, gradually paid less and less.
In the 1980s, we added the part-time, as-needed, adjunct,
Walmart approach to work. At first it was presented as a way for women raising children to go back to work conveniently.
Now it is standard, with hours that are unpredictable and no
benefits attached. Then came the rise in health insurance, for-profit everything in healthcare and the rise in childcare needs and costs.
We have arrived now, in a situation where even two parents
working cannot "make" it. Add on educational debts, high rents, transportation, etc.We have created an entire population of people working longer hours, without the ability to move or change jobs, struggling to simply live. There is no leisure time, no time for civic engagement or social life.
So, corporations have solved that with cable TV, social media, telephones and internet that keep people entertained and somewhat connected to each other, while staying at home, regrouping to get up the next day and start the grind all over.
Finally someone noticed the 50s crowd that are still paying student loans, unable to buy houses and unable to save money.
68
Interesting data but not unusual. It is GenX that is having the problems. Many of them entered the workforce during the Reagan years when mortgage interest rates were north of 10%, then had to live through the dot.com bust and the latest recession as well as Republican control of the House for 17 of the last 21 years. Why wouldn't they be grumpy?
24
For some of the disparity, blame the SS reforms under Reagan (and the Democratic congress.) Until then, a beneficiary of SS could only earn up to about $3000 a year, if memory serves, before the IRS would take #1 for every $2 earned. This was policy so that during the depression when SS was started, it would remove workers and leave jobs for others. Younger men and women. In fact, this was the rationale to get SS passed, more than the empathy for the elderly.
A quick search that $3000 would be a bit over $6000 today. That's $500/mo over any SS received.
Some form of this should be reenacted. Perhaps phase it in so that those who are really dependent on it aren't suddenly impacted.
Forget it, too logical.
1
That is still true today. If you're under your full retirement age, the maximum earnings are $16,920, and they still deduct $1 for every $2 above that number.
2
The stated age range is flexible. I would reframe the age range to be the group born from 1965 to 1975. This article supports studies and sentiments of the Gen Xers.
Why can't the older folks see the benefits of passing the baton to the next generation just behind them and enjoy their years in retirement? My parents gleefully retired and spent the time to truly enjoy life -- on their own terms. To put it another way, the older generation will need high earners, or at least stable incomes, to keep funding social security and Medicare. The Boomers would be doing their part to keeping society strong as a whole, by standing down and allowing the Gen Xers assume higher level positions. The Xers are old enough to have acquired wisdom and still young enough to have energy to solve business problems.
Middle-aged workers in the prime years of their professional career would be very happy if they know that can move up and earn more.
12
Edward,
I'm 51 and am enjoying the best years of my life, professionally. We have many older workers on our team, some in their 70s that provide a vital contribution to our team. The younger employees look to them for advice and council. No one would think of asking them to leave to make space. Why doesn't anyone believe that Sanders, Pelosi, Reid, etc. should leave to make room for younger employees?
This generation is often taking care of their parents. Its not mentioned in this article, but an added psychological and financial burden. I'm in this age range (b. 1967) and my earnings and savings trajectory agree with the story being told. I"m facing age discrimination and job insecurity, just as I need a higher income and the flexibility to take care of an aging parent. And I have colleagues with children just entering college in the same situation. Its really awful. I don't blame boomers for hanging on to their jobs, but I do blame hiring managers for assuming that I am too set in my ways, or out of touch with current trends to be worth hiring or promoting.
54
With a geriatric parent needing dementia care that he can't afford - hence living in my house - and a twenty-five here, too, my life makes me nervous for my future, also. We're squeezed on both sides with fewer family supports and reducing levels of government support for the elderly.
7
I am of of this age bracket but I'm not grumpy about my situation. But I hear a lot of grumbling around me.
My parentsmanaged not to make nor save any money but have a house full of "heirlooms". They grumble about the amount they receive for Social Security which they hated paying while they worked.
I listen to my nieces and nephews grumble about disabling levels of debt for a college experience with the same single-mindedness they used to roll their eyes to any suggestions to mitigate the cost. So I get to hear a lot of grumbling from other generations.
When I was a young I studied finance as I heard the reason that we were poor was lack of knowledge. As a 53 year old CPA I have learned that most people don't want to know and if they know, they don't want to do.
There are terrible circumstances that people have endured e.g. job layoffs. But 30 years of experiencef has shown me that for every uncontrollable tragedy, there are 3 times as many who have simply squandered their money and/or their earning years. I used to think that providing information would lead to better outcomes. I no longer believe this.
After many years of experience I no longer respond to general comments about what has happened individuals in their finances. Many, if not most, have told themselves a narrative and no amount of information or even adverse consequences is going to change that.
Saving my breath and my energy for hiking, meditation and productive endeavors.
12
John,
I hear your perspective and I don't disagree about individual reponsibility, but I encourage you to see that there have been large economic forces at play that have dramatically altered people's ability to thrive in the same way as the early Boomers.
19
Of course. Best of luck and take care.
Large economic forces are always present. I cannot understand the rosiness painted for the 70’s and 80’s. Rememember the billboard sign asking the last person leaving Seattle to turn out the lights? A large war that did not end successfully, 2 oil shocks, Iran Hostage crisis,nuclear weapon fears in Europe, the cratering of auto industry, destruction of steel industry, stagflation, misery index are just a few of the “good times” conveniently forgotten.
Maybe the generation cited simply misunderstood what it takes to do well. It was never “do X and I have it made.” How could someone go through 3 of the biggest stock market rallies in history, relatively peaceful,I.e.,no draft decades, see huge advances in medicine and say “I missed the good times.” I suspect a big rift exists in this generation with most of the comments from people in the bottom side of the rift. Others worked hard. Since this section is about statistics, I wonder about the grumpiness of non-divorced, non-substance abusing, former military, regular exercising, debt avoiding, regularly investing group is.
This sub-group of the much larger generation should spend less time comparing themselves to what they unwisely thought it could do and more time being grateful for what they had and have.
1
Without mentioning names, there is a big extremely profitable private company having the habit of *retiring* its employees when they are in the mid 50s. And things could take a dicier turn if the economy went south. Or another state offering better tax incentive.
If you know this kind of schtick underneath a prosperous economy, or you are the recipient of the *early retirement* treatment, especially when you still have a mortgage to finance and kids are about to enter college, you'd be grumpy too
16
My brother-in-law was recently "let go" by his employer at the age of 63. He had worked hard for the company for 15 years and had never received any complaints about his work. When the owner of the business retired, his son took over and decided that he could save money by firing his older employees and replacing them with younger folks he could pay less. Unfortunately for the older (and more experienced) workers, they are too young to collect full Social Security benefits. Now they are looking for work - try finding a job at 63-64 years of age! This is pure greed.
23
Wages have continuously gone down, and down again. That's not a reason to be "grumpy", but angry, furious, why sugar coat it? The anger is real and it's based on the injustice of working harder all your life but receiving less money, paying higher taxes and having your little wealth continuously reduced by slow but steady inflation. I'm 54. When I started as a New York professional I had a private office, worked but 8 hours and that with an hour for lunch - paid, I got 6 weeks vacation, overtime, health insurance and stock options. It's all long gone. The exact same job I had at 25 is now filled by a person forced to pretend to be a self-employed contractor, who will receive no benefits, nothing. No lunch, no overtime, no healthcare. A salary that won't cover rent on a studio in NY. I wouldn't recommend for any bright young person to join the Business world here now. Hard work isn't rewarded here. Recognizing that isn't "grumpy" it's genuine and irreconcilable anger at the injustice. I reinvented myself a dozen times, constantly updating my skills, improving my knowledge and productivity, got better clients. The laws were continuously changed by both reps and dems to make life harder for the working man. The anger is going to turn to hate and be acted upon if the wealth isn't shared. Calling us "grumpy" is like saying, "Let them eat cake."
189
I feel like I am looking in a mirror.
6
Totally agree. And calling it "grumpy" is another example of ageism & classism that is, sadly, unrelenting coming from the left nowadays. Imagine calling those who protest sexual harassment "grumpy." The class disparity is continuing to increase, but I think the Occupy movement was deliberately squelched by a one-note redirection to racism & other isms. Obviously racism is despicable. But what has happened is that upper class folks - who have theirs - get to enjoy their moneyed cronyism, while constantly ignoring & even mocking real class-based fears & anger. Then they pat themselves on the back for being 'woke." Makes me want to throw up.
2
And the GOP just gave the corporations more money that they WON'T pass along as wages.
10
I am 56 - born in 1961. I am at the peak of my professional career and income. I realize that my friends of High School - an elite technical school, not in wealth but in quality - are probably well off, too. We are way different from the United States comparable generation, since we are in Brazil. However, for the people who have a decent technological education, the comparisons are oddly similar.
3
I was born November 28, 1961, just outside of the envelope of the generation of workers you describe. The oldest cohort of the group are the tail end of the Baby Boom and our experience was very different from Vietnam Era Boomers.
We came of age during the era of the hollowing out of the Industrial base of our nation, of high unemployment and a rather severe recession. The years of inexpensive higher ed and low interest student loans were disappearing. It was about this time that Americans first saw mature adults working in jobs previously seen as High School and College are jobs in Big Box Stores & Fast Food joints.
Interest rates were exceptionally high by today's standards and difficult for young adults to get without help, so getting that first home, first car or establishing credit was far more difficult than generations past or even today. Getting the first good job was also more difficult for many as companies were laying off well trained and experienced mid-career people and shrinking overhead in the sharp recession.
Most of our cohort also missed the Pension plans and were forced into 401k and 403b retirement plans that are proving to be marginal in producing the money retirement will require.
Now, as we approach retirement, we hear of Social Security cuts, chained CPI & voucherization of Medicare. The older workers have not stepped aside & those behind us would like to show us the door. A lot will not be able to retire.
I'd say being grumpy is in order.
113
I agree. I'm your slightly older twin. We baby boom trailers are not the same as the 'classic' boomers. We're closer to the next generation. I don't have the job security, pensions, housing, and overall stability, etc that my older siblings experienced. I think the shift occurred a little earlier- late 50s maybe. Only 2 people in my degree program had permanent jobs at graduation; I got my permanent job with benefits at age 27. Finally doing well the last few years, but now expecting to see it fall apart if tax bill passes and safety net is shredded. Grumpy indeed.
22
Maybe the baby boomers were simply better educated and more skillful than the following generation. They grew up in a society of traditional values, with intact families and high standards in school. It may have been the educational peak of American society. Their skills allowed them to earn more money, and those who are not retired are still doing very well. They were also better at saving and investing, and many of them became quite well-off.
I remember being a senior in college in 1975, and seeing the class of freshman come in. We had found the freshman courses stimulating but not too difficult, and we spent a lot of time playing sports and drinking beer. The class of 1978 had to study really hard to pass these same courses - they just didn't have the same sort of intellectual background and the habits of thinking and studying. This was at a fairly elite liberal arts college. It probably went downhill from there.
2
Maybe not.
4
But on the other hand, earlier generations would’ve been expected to financially support their parents, who would also probably have moved in with one of their children and his family in their latter days.
7
Oh, I don't know. I am in the middle of that age group. I did pretty well under Bush, and fell back under Obama, but the rebound since Trump was elected has been tremendous. I will make more money this year that all Obama years combined. My forecast for 2018 is to drop down to a more sustainable $500k income, but that is still better than any Obama year.
Almost all of my college friends are millionaires now. I can't think of one off hand who isn't.
1
Oh, I don't know. There are people in the middle of that group who did poorly under Bush, better under Obama, and worse since Trump was elected. Some of them made more in the Obama years than in Republican president years combined. Some have forecasts for 2018 that drop to a low income, worse than any Obama year. Some can't think of a millionaire friend off hand.
Cool story?
27
If that's not the product of a politically motivated troll farm I don't know what is!
44
Pack of lies, I suspect.
31
I have always felt this as someone who was born in the 1960s. My baby boomer coworkers now in their sixties have pensions (which were phased out when I began working in the late 80s) and own highly desirable real estate or have rent control apartments because these were cheap and easy to get when they were young but were out of reach by the time I was an adult. They seem to have a sense of entitlement about their jobs and positions, always having been securely employed and what's worse is they are such a large generation and are not retiring to make room for those of us right behind them to move up.
78
And they vote Republican--after all, they got theirs. Just one more thing for Gen Xers to be grumpy about.
1
One aspect that was not mentioned was the effect of having made bad financial decisions. This is a common factor because people tend to make most decisions on emotion. Taking out a mortgage to go on a vacation or make a speculative investment that failed and other similar decisions can make those later years pretty miserable.
1
People have always made bad decisions. You can be sure that we boomers made plenty of them, too. Your hypothesis can't account for the current situation of those discussed here.
10
Yeah, I remember when vacation loans were a thing.
One other thing not mentioned is the very large numbers of divorces, with not a lot of alimony granted. That's made life hard for some women. Then, too, it's hard for some men who, as primary wage earner, paid for houses "lost" in divorce and possibly lost retirement savings as well.
2
What’s a vacation?
I already wrote a comment, but I wanted to add a thank you to the NYT for finally printing a Generation X article. Usually the articles discuss Boomers and then go right to Millennials, as if Generation X does not exist. I was born the first week of Generation X, so I do maybe pay more attention about this topic. This Generation Grumpy article took me off guard. I have been looking for an article, as 2018 nears that's titled: "Generation X Taking Over, Boomers Are No Longer In Power." --- The Year 2018, is an important year for Generation X. For example, did you know that the Boomer that leads the #1 Boardroom in the World, leaves the chair at the head of that Boardroom Table, and a Generation Xer arrives and gets that chair position? So, NYT don't be so fast to move to Millennials, passing over Generation X. Generation X is just getting started... in that #1 Boardroom Powerful Position, for instance. Happy 2018 New Year Generation X.
58
"Generation X is just getting started... in that #1 Boardroom Powerful Position, for instance. "
We wish. It will be some 27 year old because the 92 year old retiring CEO wants a "digital native" to be the next leader.
5
I expect Baby Boomers are few and far between in the exec ranks of Fortune 1000. The only ones left likely have large equity in their firms and are really owners. Gen X rules that tier with Gen Y nipping at their heels. The Gen Xers here just did not make the cut and now have Gen Y like a pack of orcas ready to rampage through upper middle management.
Zaquill and Michael Blazin-- This position transfer from Boomer to Generation X is tradition. Later on, that GenXer will leave for a Millennial. Amount of Education, Report Card Grades are very important factors for selection. So, whether someone was a "digital native" is not really key. So, the age of that GenXer would be more toward the beginning of GenX, since they had more time to accumulate Education. Someone who is around 50 yrs old. I am 52 yrs old, and I was considered... that's how I know about this. Ideas for new products was an important factor. The traditional, classical Resume Skills are required. Standardized Literacy Scores need to be high, for instance.
"Grumpy" is really pretty incredible here. In the sense that Oscar, who is homeless and lives in a trash can, is "grouchy," I guess.
15
A lot of us tail-end boomers feel the same way. We didn't get the sixties, we got gas lines, stagflation and the effects of Watergate. We got whatever jobs might be left that the main Boomers didn't want.
Basically all along, we've stood in the shadowy edge of the generational cohort, too young to have enjoyed the privileges of Boomers, too old to belong to GenX, and still waiting for our shot.
The world we were shown as children was gone by the time we were teens. I thought maybe we'd get our chance as the older Boomers retired - but they aren't.
91
@H.W.--Amen!
And now, after waiting in the wings all these years, we get to experience age discrimination by older boomers. I can't tell you how many people 10 and more years older than I have inferred that I'm too old--for training, for promotion, for a job, you name it.
Don't worry Gen Xers and Millennials, as soon as I can retire (full retirement age was raised to age 67 when I was 23), I promise to be out of there! I hope I can afford it.
22
"The world we were shown as children" (so true)
18
All I wanted to do was be a Boomer and protest. By high school in the late 70s, protests were GONE. I didn't get to go to political protests until this year, in my mid 50s. Better late than never but I wish that I didn't even have to. I wish we had our late Boomer President Obama in the Oval Office.
8
We are grumpy because all our lives we have been crowded out by the baby boomers. Too late for the sexual revolution of the sixties. Too late for the go-go years of the eighties. Throughout our careers the boomers were the ones with more experience who were getting the jobs. By the time they ride off into the sunset of retirement the market for older workers will be flooded and employers will be looking for new blood from the millennials. Just an unfortunate decade to be born in.
26
It was indeed all about the boomers. Growing up, all I wanted to be was a boomer. In fact, supposedly I am one, born in the early 60s but obviously didn't have the same experiences. I was in the room when the Beatles were on Sullivan but didn't become a fan until I was 13. I was in 2nd grade after Woodstock. I had to hear about the Boomers turning 30, then 40, 50...but when it's OUR turn, The NY Times calls us GRUMPY!
3
Doesn't seem like much of a mystery to me. People are living longer and much more is known today about how to stay healthy. Ergo, I and my spouse keep working, and will for the foreseeable future. I really don't care that some young person might have my job if I'd leave it; young people's lives aren't more important than mine. I want to be able to travel abroad and continue contributing to a nest egg for a life that I have every reason to expect will last another 30 years or so. Why should I retire? I'm smart, fast, experienced and flexible. I think the U.S. has always been an outlier in valuing and utilizing the wisdom and experience that comes with age, and maybe we'll start addressing that now. Young folks are just not more valuable than I am! Sorry!
3
Sarah, thanks for reminding us younger folks why Boomers are and will forever be the "me generation."
40
In your defensiveness, I think you missed the point of the article. And please don't end with a "Sorry!" when you don't mean it.
26
As a member of this age group, I read this with interest. But there is too much generalizing to glean much from it.
I DO agree that my sliver of "USA generation" saw the stock markets go DOWN more than up and it hurt our ability to invest for retirement. Specifically, we completely missed the the time to put money in during the 80s that would have buffered the crazy up and down losses of the 90s. The .com crash of the 90s destroyed many 401 accounts 25% or more. That wasn't a good thing.
But the younger generations have it far far worse than us. As a hiring manager in a large company I see it every day. They earn low wages and no job security and they never knew that is was different and mostly better for the working classes in previous decades.
37
The younger generations will have it harder because at least in the 80s I saw what life used to be like, with bosses that were at companies for 40 years and then retired.
My own parents had good government jobs and retired.
2
Gen Xers when starting their careers competed for jobs with Baby Boomers. Now at mid-career Gen Xers are competing with Millenials who as younger workers will work for a lower salary. I've seen it printed several places that Gen Xers are the first US generation to do worse than their parents economically. I think this article should be re-titled "Generation Depressed".
63
An interesting appraisal of life in the world's foremost capitalist country.
My info and impressions are all anecdotal, but I suspect this same age group in many European countries is far more sanguine than their American counterparts.
12
The decline in financial satisfaction of about 10 percentage points on this scale is mostly the result of boomers having to delay their retirement dates due to the stock wipe outs in 2000 and 2008. Wipe outs that come late in your work life reek havoc on your plans. So about 10% more boomers are having to work longer thus denying 10% from the next age cohort from moving up the corporate ladder when they otherwise would have. That alone explains the drop in percentage points.
Also, most boomers who spent their careers in the private sector are not receiving generous pension benefits. Companies started paring them back about 30 years ago in various and sundry ways. Few of us got thru unscathed. Finally most of the baby boom cohort hadn't saved much by the time of the big stock market runs in the early 1990s. Tough to do when you may still be paying off your own student debt, college for your kids and a mortgage. Doubling or even tripling from a pretty small base doesn't get you very far.
39
Many older retirement-age professional baby boomers are now cruelly discovering they are making more money then ever, the stock market is exploding and they have have decided to shelter as much money as possible by maxing out retirement and health saving accounts. Delaying social security for as long as possible is a smart strategy. In addition despite living longer baby boomers have a greater disease burden and feel more secure under employer-based health insurance particularly if they have a spouse in poor health and are unsure about Medicare. Working longer to pay off mortgage and consumer-debt makes sense if they able.
2
This piece isn't about Boomers. It's about GenXers. And, oddly, it doesn't mention the Great Recession at all. Surely that must have affected GenXers. Right?
29
I'm 67, retired from a good job at 65 with a pension that's funded only by my own savings and I'm "pretty well satisfied." I strongly believe that people in my age cohort ought to retire if they have had decent incomes and make openings for people younger than us. To continue to pull in a substantial income at my age seems greedy and unfair.
11
Al, many workers arent simply raking in the dough and can stop working anytime they please. Yipes.
12
Not quite ready for the ice floe, Mr. Maki.
I like working.
not all boomers have done that well either. many are still working because they must.
29
Exactly. This piece is about the plight of Gen Xers. It's not about Boomers.
13
It's actually about late boomers and Gen X'ers.
Older boomers can retire younger (I can't get Social Security until 67) and lived through better economic times. We grew up during the Nixon-Ford-Carter malaise years. There was always some kind of energy crisis, scandal (Watergate, anyone?) and then Reagan "optimism" hiding homelessness, crack addiction and pensions being replaced with 401Ks. Finally there was some excitement with Clinton until he couldn't control himself with Monica Lewinsky. Thank goodness there was some peace with Obama. Now everything that our previous President gave us is being dismantled by 45.
5
Many companies have reduced or eliminated healthcare benefits in retirement. That is likely a primary reason boomers are staying on the job, being mindful that Congress may further reduce Medicare and Social Security when the deficit explodes after they pass tax reform.
89
You are forgetting the two economic disasters this generation has gone through-dotcom bust of 2001 and great recession of 2008-12. For a lot of people in white collar professions, their incomes have not recovered to pre-2008 levels. And they lost 50% value of their 401k twice in 20 years of work.
144
Thank you. I don't understand why the Great Recession isn't mentioned, because surely it did hit the GenX as much as any other cohort out there working.
And all these comments from Boomers about how they did is nuts. But it seems to always be about the Boomers. And I'm a Boomer, too! But I can read and know this ain't about me or us!
28
Ajay's comment is utterly on point. The long Great Recession destroyed the retirement accounts of many workers in their (at that time) 40s.
The thing I most remember about that time is that no politician EVER talked about the recession in front of a media camera, until the great recession was mostly over.
30
Three disasters, if you count the down economy following the Gulf War in the early 90s.
20
A few other things that might be causing unhappiness for this group. Both monetary. They are often trying to help pay for college at a time when costs have skyrocketed, and they may be helping out their elderly parents. I know those are two things that have added to my economic insecurity and will undoubtedly postpone any retirement plans.
127
Some of our parents have not prepared at all (!) - a huge burden (with our own future insecure) if you are the only offspring capable of earning.
18
We are sandwiched between two needy generations which we will naturally help...the children who have a very difficult time paying for an education (crushing student loans) and buying a home (high home cost)...and our parents (those before the baby boomers) who most likely will need our help if social security and governent assisstance are the only source of income. I can see why we are grumpy if we have to spread our finances to cover three generations...and we can't!
2
And some of us have parents who tried to prepare, and saved what they could on quite modest salaries, but then faced age discrimination and other career adversity and have spent the last chunk of their careers marginally employed and whittling away at what little savings they had.
I am now 70 and fully retired. My background was engineering and law, with my legal career focused on regulatory oversight of the public utility industry.
At 50, you find yourself limited in getting employment with others. Retirement still seems far off, yet the burnout factor is growing fast. Going at it as a sole practitioner is an option, but many clients are just not comfortable in working with a sole practitioner.
I found rewarding opportunities with the USAID program. I signed on as a subcontractor with a major consulting firm, and went overseas to work with nations that were opening up their utility operations to private investment for the first time. Therefore, these nations needed expertise, often fundamental practical expertise, in the development of a regulatory oversight structure, and defining its mission.
I found this work very personally rewarding. While the pay was not the most I ever made, all my living expenses were reimbursed, so it was all money I got to put toward my retirement.
I came home, moved to Vermont, semi retired, and, at 65, put away my suitcases for good. My only overseas travel these days is purely for pleasure.
2
Burnt out, totally tired and burnt out after growing up poor in economic turbulent 1970's, graduating college in a recession of 1989 (working 2 jobs and taking loans to pay my way through college), did okay in mid 90's-02, layed off started a business that was successful and barely survived the downturn of 2008.
The pace and velocity of change is a stressor as is the volume of competition. I'm also grumpy from my experience of cheating and thievery in business and the lack of civility, winner take all mentality, and being poor is a personal failure of character vs. a temporary (historically) economic condition. Sad, sad state of affairs we are in.
33
Seems odd that all but the youngest group is 'above average'. Another Lake Woebegon effect?
3
This generation is unhappy because we are all going to be working until we die. The only people of this generation with retirement pensions are Government workers. My neighbor retired as a policeman at 50 on a six-figure pension. So we slave away, cannot retire, and we have been downsized to "contract" workers by our Corporate employers so they don't have to pay us benefits. Great life!
200
I read an article recently that stated that there is 21 trillion(!) stored in off-shore tax-avoidance accounts from worldwide companies and rich people. Corporations also have record profits. The executive suite also has astronomical pay and benefits. And now they are all going to get even more money via tax cuts.
So, economic systems seem to be rigged in their favor and they are close to having ALL the money.
Most of the planet is barely getting by. Maybe it's time to redistribute those trillions downstream so people can have economic security and retirement.
In the U.$.A., out Declaration of Independence has something called "the pursuit of happiness." Well, you can't do this while you are grumpy because of the conditions of your life, mainly based on economics. Well, maybe it's time to change the economics. Capitalism has become a form of government because it has "captured" democracy.
The economics don't work.
4
In about a month I will be turning 53 yrs old. My job does not require people to retire in order to get a "slot". The more the merrier, really. If there were more people with the amount of Education I have, then the Trump/Pence "kray kray" would not be in The White House, dumbing-down The United States. That's just one example. I chose to stay in School and go for "Star Professor". All of the time, as I interact with people who are not on that job track, respond "when are you going to join The Real World", as if I don't want to grow-up and be an Adult. Most "males" look at me as a female who has not done her job since I don't have a baby. I say, no really, I am doing very well, I am right on track for this Star Professor job, my Resume is stunning. I guess people don't appreciate Standardized Test Scores, and Literacy Levels. My salary pay? Not a much as the millionaires and billionaires my age who "pump and dump", and trash the economy as opposed to grow the economy, the World Economy. Pump and dump are short term gains, at best. For those people who went for Long Term Financial Gains, like me, they would not be so grumpy, as this article implies.
3
It's wonderful that you have realized such a degree of success in academia. However, please give a thought to the adjunct professors you are working with who may share the same level of education. They are not allowed to be more than part time at any one school, so they usually teach at more than one school. When you say "the more the merrier," please remember that the professor teaching beside you may not share the same level of security or income. And yes, many of us are Generation Xers.
14
Hi BV-- the "more the merrier" comment was about the last part of this article that discusses boomers not retiring and hanging onto their high-paying jobs, so genXers are not getting those jobs. There are other kinds of jobs in addition to Star Professor that don't require people to retire in order to promote. So I was just stating that I am not in the position of waiting until someone retires. Of course, I am working-on new things for the Education/Higher Education Campus that would certainly improve the School Environment. I am very aware of Adjuncts, and certainly mindful of awful circumstances (that I did not create) that they are experiencing, depending on the campus. As for your statement about "Adjuncts who may share the same level of education" as me, that is not correct. People did not vote on me by consensus to give me Star Professor status, I earned it. Someone with my education level, would not be an Adjunct. I encourage you to continue-on in the School Grades (there are 52 in all). Not too many people do, but, I am trying to add something to the Structure that would make that number of people much larger. Jobs/Positions are given if a person reaches that level of education, and they don't have to retire or leave, as long as they maintain their Report Card Achievement.
2
Wondering if you are trying to do satire, what with the weird use of CAPS and all.
Suspected as much in your first post (who refers to herself as a "star professor"?).
Your second post declaring that there are "52" "School Grades" clinched it: Didn't you mean "Shades [of Grey]?"
1
Count me among the Grumpy Middle. And we're about to get grayer and grumpier!
24
Nope. Not getting grayer, not as long as I can get to the hairdresser. Also starting invisalign teeth straightening and saving up for the facelift that will help me stay employed at least 12 more years. My university doesn't verify years attended, just degree, so I can shave some age off my resume and avoid some discrimination.
4
Kevin Gilbert captured this perfectly in his song, Goodness Gracious, released in 1995: "No sex that isn't dangerous, no money left to spend, we're the clean up crew for parties we were too young to attend." That's why we're grumpy, the boomers have always sucked all the oxygen out of the room...
112
Thank you for this. Cool song!
4
Wow, I never heard of this song. These lyrics sound like the song of our generation: Those born in 60-65.
2
Oh pshaw. Boomers are fading away, but maybe not fast enough for some.
Now it's time for others to try their hand at sucking oxygen. Best of luck..
1
One reason the older generation may be working longer is that life expectancy is now up to around 77 years and there is a fast growing segment of octogenarians in our US population. One of the biggest fears in this generation seems to be outliving one's money. 20 + years of retirement is a long time to go without a regular paycheck coming in. Yes people can do it, but they had to have planned carefully in their younger years and been relatively lucky in avoiding some life catastrophes.
31
Apparently, I can't even get full social security until 67. People older than I can retire earlier. I've been working since the early 80s. Thank goodness I changed careers and like what I do.
4
Very true. Even Gen X'ers who tried to be wise and not throw away money are not doing well.
Unlike boomers, their pensions, big salary increases, job security etc. have been whittled away halfway thru their careers.
75
The Baby Boom Generation is not a monolith and people like myself- born in 1961- experienced a very different America from our older siblings who came of age during the Vietnam Era and just after.
Real Income in America peaked in about 1971 and has been in decline since that point- that is part of why it takes a couple to live like a family used to be able to live on a single income. The older Boomers got on the ladder before the great divide and the younger ones like myself faced a very different reality.
The economy I graduated High School in was one of High Inflation, High Interest Rates, High Unemployment and very slow economic growth. It was not the same as the economy of 2008-9, but it had a lot of similarities. Fortunately for me I was in College, but the kids I grew up with that opted to go into the work force faced a tough economy that hobbled their ability to get off to a strong start financially.
Younger Boomer like myself cringe when younger people claim we had the America older Boomers had- a growing economy with low inflation, low interest rates, inexpensive higher ed, relatively cheap real estate, etc.
23
I'm around your age and agree that late Boomers have nothing to do with people born in the 40s and 50s. We deserve our own generation (we're NOT Gen-X either) and we're certainly not GRUMPY. Someone in their 30s probably wrote this article.
2
Agreed. I'm 1963 and have never considered myself a boomer. By the time the group that's now 45-60 came along, the boomers (now in their 60s and early 70s) had ensconced themselves in the good jobs and they weren't moving. The economy was bad when we graduated and we've never enjoyed the access to training, perks, and raises that the generation ahead of us did. We've seen pensions replaced by defined contribution plans, healthcare costs skyrocket, housing prices that have outraced our paltry wage increases, and a continued whittling away at tax deductions. (Yes, Greatest Generation and baby boomers, YOU got to deduct the interest on your car loans and credit card bills and your healthcare expenditures from the first dollar. That disappeared with the 'revenue enhancements' of 1986. Not that we're bitter or anything.)
We are fortunate in one respect -- unlike the millennials, we aren't mired in student debt. But we don't have pensions, we don't have job security, and we don't expect to live comfortably in retirement. And may I say that I for one am FED UP with hearing "oh, we need to hire young people". Hire some of the grumpy generation. Trust me, we know how to work. We're the group that has had to learn how to do a lot more with a lot less.
All true but those who took their increasing income and bought McMansions in the late 90s early 00s now cannot sell those homes near what they invested.
Grumpys like me don't have the money to buy them and the unicorns in their 30s want simple, new and walkable.
Try getting out of 6,000 sq ft on 4 acres in the back woods of New Canaan and you will be losing money. I predict we will see that repeated when we 45-54 don't retire with the same wealth and security and can't afford the multimillion dollar homes in Delray..
26
"Try getting out of 6,000 sq ft on 4 acres in the back woods of New Canaan and you will be losing money."
Ouch. But True.
4
I hear you. I grew up in New Canaan (I’m now 43) and remember when those backwoods areas started sprouting McMansions. As kids we lost our place to roam and build forts, and when we saw twenty McMansions metastasize in just a year, we were shocked and wondered who would want these?? Turns out a lot of people did, but not for long. Living in Seattle now and working in tech, husband is a public school teacher. Guessing we’ll be working until we’re close to 70.
As usual in the USA, it is all about money
11