“It’s Simply Impossible To Do So On Your Own”: Person Proves Why The Boomer Generation Had It Twice As Easy As Gen Z

On social media, intergenerational conflicts are common. You know how they go; millennials are lazy, baby boomers are bathing in their hoarded wealth and Gen Z’ers spend more time on their phones than with their own families.

However, slogans don’t really paint an accurate picture. For that, we need hard data. And Reddit user MikeTheBard has compiled a set of numbers that might explain the roots of this hostility.

A few days ago, they put together a post for the popular ‘Antiwork’ community, analyzing how much effort one had to put in to get themselves an education and a roof over their head in 1972, 1992, and 2022, and the stark differences show just how much the world can change for your kids.

Many young adults find it impossible to even dream about getting a home

"It's Simply Impossible To Do So On Your Own": Person Proves Why The Boomer Generation Had It Twice As Easy As Gen Z

Image credits: energepic.com (not the actual photo)

And numbers can really help us to understand why

"It's Simply Impossible To Do So On Your Own": Person Proves Why The Boomer Generation Had It Twice As Easy As Gen Z

Image credits: Seattle Municipal Archives (Not the actual photo)

"It's Simply Impossible To Do So On Your Own": Person Proves Why The Boomer Generation Had It Twice As Easy As Gen Z

Image credits: MikeTheBard

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that baby boomers (those born roughly between 1946 and 1964) were handed everything on a silver platter. When they graduated from college and were coming of age in the 1970s, an era of both innovation and downturn, their financial future was actually quite hazy.

In her book ‘Can’t Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation,’ Anne Helen Petersen explains that by the 1970s, many of those boomers (who were in their mid-twenties at the time), experienced wage stagnation, inflation, and an unemployment rate of 8.5% — American jobs had begun moving overseas so corporations could pay employees less and avoid the wrath of powerful unions that advocated for workers, and on top of all that, the U.S. was dealing with the Vietnam War, the Watergate Scandal, a general distrust of the government, and the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

And that wasn’t the end of it. One of the biggest financial hits to the generation was the shift from the pension program to 401(k) programs.

A pension plan is a benefit provided by an employer who agrees to pay an employee a portion of their salary every year for the rest of their life if they remain at the company for a certain number of years (usually 10 to 20+ years). Petersen points out that combining pension funds with Social Security benefits allowed the generation before the boomers (known as the Greatest Generation) to retire quite comfortably, but with the shift to 401(k) accounts, retirement planning was left in the hands of boomers themselves, who now had to opt-in to save a portion of their income in a dedicated investment account for retirement. And while some companies offered a matching program (like companies still do today), many others didn’t offer retirement accounts at all.

All this fueled anxiety about future financial security, and with jeopardized job prospects, some boomers also found it extra difficult to preserve the middle-class status of their parents.

And while the current economy faces massive uncertainty, at least the young seem to be aware of the problems they’re facing. “In 2019, around 27 to 28% of Gen Z’ers had some exposure to equities through holding a stock or through retirement accounts,” Lowell Ricketts, a data scientist for the Institute of Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, told CNBC. “That percentage is much higher than that of other generations. When millennials were the same age back in 2004, just 18.7% of them had some exposure to equities.”

This seems to take the situation full circle. Just like boomers, Gen Z’ers are entering adulthood worried about their ability to earn and save money, but they also seem to be capable of planning ahead in their wealth-building journey. All they need is a little break.

People really appreciated the eye-opening comparison

"It's Simply Impossible To Do So On Your Own": Person Proves Why The Boomer Generation Had It Twice As Easy As Gen Z

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

Read less »

I'm a visual editor at Bored Panda. I kickstart my day with a mug of coffee bigger than my head, ready to tackle Photoshop. I navigate through the digital jungle with finesse, fueled by bamboo breaks and caffeine kicks. When the workday winds down, you might catch me devouring bamboo snacks while binging on the latest TV show, gaming or I could be out in nature, soaking up the tranquility and communing with my inner panda.

Read less »

What do you think ?

POST

Step 2 years ago

Let's call it what it really is, greedy rich people hiking prices up because they want more money than they already have. It's intentional what these companies are doing. They don't have to raise prices and in fact could lower prices and raise wages and still maintain the extreme generational wealth they already have. It's a choice they are making to deliberately keep people at a disadvantage and struggling for basic needs. They lie and say it has to happen when it doesn't. There's enough resources that reproduce constantly for us all to exist. You're being convinced that it has to be like this when these people can literally still live a life of luxury with what money they already have for the next 400 years. I'm tired of the lies and b******t covering up what is really cruel and intentional suffering. That's what they are doing and it's inhumane and wrong.

46points

Jax 2 years ago

The “they” your talking about has always been the lies the government tells us. There is always billions of dollars for special interest groups, and worthless projects thought up to bring money to certain people. Our government has to stop sending our tax dollars all over the world. Our current administration is doing exactly what it said it would and it is a total disaster.

9points

Load More Replies...

Step 2 years ago

Jax, you're right! It is also the wealthy elite or the men and women that own these corporations that control how everything is. We live in a world that has already provided everything all humans need to exist, thrive, create, and carry on. Money has no barring on our survival during our lifetime. Money is and has become the complete destruction of our some of our existence. Using it to literally play with people's lives and deny humans the things they desperately need to exist in life. Even though everything we need is plentiful and available for us all. Food, housing, and water are things everyone of us have to have to maintain ourselves. It is beyond cruel and unusual to place conditions such as money or labor on people and deny them those things as if we are not worthy of a decent existence without being forced to do something for it. I honestly cannot believe how so many folks have been conditioned to think living like this is normal. Some animals treat their own kind better than we do. It's not hard to figure out how messed up it all really is in this country or world. I just think people are in denial about the extreme inhumane treatment of our people. Because they've been fed a lie for so long and it took hold over time to just be the awful way it is. There was a time when it was the best of the best and people actually thrived and were comfortable. That is no longer the way it is because of a small percent of very wealthy powerful people intentionally turning this place into the majority doing everything gaining little. While the rich implement how they want it to be with them controlling everything from the food we eat to the hours we work. Running every aspect of our lives making us think it has to be like this. All the while they live it up on the same planet , with the same resources saying we somehow did this to ourselves and don't do enough as it is. A disaster is an understatement, more like an evil oligarchy forcing others to slave away getting nowhere. Then having the audacity to say we are lazy and the system works just fine. Total b******t lies they tell to keep people thinking it just might be our own damn fault. That's the definition of some sick twisted manipulation and control tactics. That's the raw truth of everything going on and it's only getting worse. Anywho, I think I've typed/said enough. I hope you have a good evening, very nice chatting with you Jax. :)

1point

Ray Arani 2 years ago

In the case or corporations they actually legally can't just lower prices and increase wages. If they try, their shareholders can and will sue them and win. They have to do what's in the best interest of the shareholders, that's literally the law. In America anyway. Not to say the CEOs and upper management of those companies aren't perfectly happy with the situation, but the law backs all that up, sadly.

1point

Honest Bob 2 years ago

Buyers raise home prices, not sellers. Young people keep out-bidding each other. Boomers aren't doing it, we'll sell for the market price set by buyers. Don't blame boomers. Our home purchase 40 years ago isn't driving up prices now.

1point

Sheila Stamey 2 years ago (edited)

I had to work three jobs as a single mother and accept food stamps in order to raise my the kids and take care of my mom. I kept my mom with me at home for as long as I possibly could because I loved her most of all, and honestly, her income made a difference. It still fell short of many things. My husband had been put in jail for being very stupid sad and drunk, but it still made our family a single parent household. It's extremely difficult if you are only feeding and housing yourself. My children are now successful. I am proud of them. None of them have college debt because they didn't go to college. They all have 50k+ incomes in an area where that's middle class. They are blessed and tough.

26points