Generation gaps

Here’s an unexpected side effect of the pandemic. Resentment of Baby Boomers is on the rise. This goes beyond the usual, snarky “OK Boomer” memes circulating on the internet.

A survey done by the Financial Times last November—when many countries were in the grip of their second COVID lockdowns—showed that for 16- to 30-year-olds worldwide, their outlook on the future was bleak indeed.

Many young respondents blamed their misfortunes on older generations—baby Boomers in particular.

To be clear, none suggested that Boomers were directly responsible for the COVID-19 virus. But rather, the intensity of the lockdown experience—and the disproportionate economic effects it has had on the young—seems to have amplified existing frustrations of the young visà-vis the old.

There is no doubt that people aged 30-years-and-under face serious economic challenges these days, pandemic or no. Student debt, soaring real estate prices, and the evolution of the job market—away from steady work towards short-term contracts and “gigs”—have all been major stressors on this particular age cohort.

Certainly, it can be galling for them to hear the misty-eyed recollections of their Boomer parents: How they bought their first home at 24; or got a job right out of school with a pension and benefits, etc., etc.…

Add a pandemic lockdown to these existing stressors, and it’s no wonder young people had (continue to have?) pessimistic views of their futures.

The Times survey seems to have captured a deep trough of this pessimism. In November, recall, lockdown fatigue was setting in and no vaccines had yet been approved. The dark tenor of those days is reflected in the shocking antipathy some respondents expressed towards older people.

“We’re not in this [pandemic] together,” said a particularly bitter 30-year-old Montrealer. “Millennials have to take the brunt of the sacrifice. If you [Boomers] won’t watch out that we don’t end up jobless and poorer, why should we protect you [with all these lockdowns]?”

Hardly a stirring endorsement of civic responsibility!

Still, the notion that Boomers are directly answerable for today’s economic challenges is increasingly seductive to many Millennials, Gen Zs, and younger Gen-xers.

One Gen-x author even wrote a book making such a case. In his provocatively titled “A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America,” Bruce Gibney argues that Boomers have essentially been the luckiest—and least grateful— generation in recent history.

Boomers, he claims, had the sterling fortune to inherit not only near-perfect economic conditions in which to build their lives and careers, but also shiny new national infrastructures (roads, hospitals, schools and universities) built through the hard work of their parents, and for which they themselves had to pay virtually nothing.

Yet instead of maintaining this sparkling inheritance, the aptly nicknamed “Me Generation” transformed their collective good luck into inflated personal bank accounts. They achieved this, claims Gibney, by consistently voting for politicians who cut their taxes, leaving their inheritance to crumble, both literally and figuratively.

Gibney labels this pattern of political behaviour “a massive push for privatized gain” that prevailed for many of the years the Boomers held the reins of power. As proof, he compares the US debt-to-gdp ratio in the mid-1970s (around 33 per cent) to that of today (almost 130 per cent).

He might also have cited some remarkable statistics that I recently came across on the PBS Newshour website. For instance, Americans 55 and older own almost three-quarters of their nation’s private wealth, while Millennials own a mere 5 per cent, despite representing a third of the workforce.

But those stats are changing—and quickly. Forbes Magazine estimates that by 2030, a whopping $68 trillion will have been handed down from Boomer parents (who will have shuffled off their mortal coil, so to speak) to their Millennial and younger Gen-x children.

This, coupled with the extant (and growing!) earning power of Millennials, will rapidly transform them into the richest generation that has ever lived.

So, is all this fashionable Millennial rage towards their Boomer parents justified? Can you smear one generation as “sociopathic” when you stand to inherit their supposedly illgotten privileges?

Of course, not all Millennials will get a piece of that $68 trillion pie. But for those who do… what will they do with their own sparkling inheritance, the largest generational wealth transfer in history?

Will they squander or hoard it—as Gibney believes their parents did—or invest in their own children’s futures?

They best choose wisely. Because as they themselves have shown, the kids are always watching.