There’s a generational rigidity you possibly can virtually really feel buzzing by means of group chats and household dinners. Millennials and Gen Z are sometimes advised they complain an excessive amount of about housing, jobs, debt, and the economic system. However after they push again with information and comparisons, one phrase surfaces time and again: “Boomers had it simpler.”
At first look, it sounds just like the sort of factor each youthful technology says. However while you dig deeper into wages, price of dwelling, and alternative gaps, it begins to look much less like a whine and extra like a actuality examine. So, have been issues actually simpler for child boomers? Or are youthful generations simply struggling to regulate to the trendy world?
A Have a look at the Numbers
It’s simple to romanticize the previous, however the numbers don’t lie. Within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, shopping for a home on a single revenue wasn’t simply attainable. It was regular. The common dwelling price in 1970 was round $17,000. Even when adjusted for inflation, it’s nowhere close to in the present day’s sky-high actual property costs. In the meantime, wages have been rising steadily, and school tuition wasn’t a monetary dying sentence.
At this time’s youthful generations, in distinction, face stagnant wages, crushing scholar debt, astronomical hire, and the rising price of fundamentals like groceries, gasoline, and childcare. A school diploma, as soon as a ticket to the center class, now usually results in years, generally many years, of mortgage reimbursement and not using a assured payoff. Briefly, youthful generations aren’t lazy. They’re enjoying a a lot more durable sport.
The Job Market Isn’t What It Used to Be
Boomers got here into maturity throughout a time when jobs have been extra secure, pensions have been widespread, and employer loyalty was usually rewarded. The thought of staying with one firm for 30 years wasn’t a fantasy. It was a plan.
Now? The job market is way extra precarious. Gig work, contract roles, and job hopping are the brand new norm, and it’s not as a result of younger individuals are flaky. Quite, it’s as a result of conventional profession ladders have eroded. Advantages like healthcare and retirement plans are more and more uncommon outdoors of company or authorities roles. And even then, burnout is rampant.
Youthful staff are sometimes pressured to commerce safety for flexibility, and even these working a number of jobs nonetheless battle to make ends meet. In a system the place loyalty is not rewarded and upward mobility is elusive, it’s no marvel younger individuals are skeptical of recommendation like “simply work more durable.”
The Worth of Freedom Has Gone Up
Boomers usually discuss pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, however these boots got here with fewer limitations. School was reasonably priced, minimal wage had extra shopping for energy, and social applications have been extra strong. Beginning a household, shopping for a home, or touring the world felt attainable, not aspirational.
Examine that to in the present day’s price of independence. Shifting out at 18 is now a luxurious, not a milestone. Hire alone can eat up greater than half a paycheck, and inflation has hit on a regular basis bills more durable than headline numbers usually present. Younger adults aren’t attempting to skip steps; the steps simply obtained steeper.
A Cultural Divide in Expectations
There’s additionally a philosophical break up between generations. Many boomers have been taught to hunt safety, like getting a very good job, shopping for a home, and retiring with a pension. That path was supported by the financial situations of the time.
Youthful generations have grown up throughout recessions, housing crashes, and a pandemic. They’re extra skeptical of establishments, extra prone to query conventional milestones, and extra open to redefining success. However that doesn’t imply they’re not working exhausting. It simply means the world they’re working in has modified. So when boomers scoff at avocado toast or facet hustles, it’s much less about frivolity and extra about misunderstanding how survival seems to be in 2025.
Resentment or Actuality?
It’s simple to dismiss generational critiques as bitterness, however there’s worth in acknowledging how totally different the terrain has grow to be. Boomers didn’t construct the system alone, and never all of them reside giant. Many are struggling too. However when those that did profit from simpler situations deny that privilege ever existed, it solely deepens the divide. It fuels resentment as an alternative of fostering empathy.
What youthful generations are actually asking for isn’t revenge. It’s recognition. Acknowledgment that sure, issues are more durable now. That no, it’s not at all times a matter of effort. And that possibly, simply possibly, the recommendation they’re getting must evolve together with the economic system.
Do you assume youthful generations are proper to say boomers had it simpler, or are they lacking one thing necessary? How can we bridge the generational divide?
Learn Extra:
Why Boomers Are Downsizing—and What Youthful Patrons Can Study From It
14 Nice Habits Child Boomers Nonetheless Do And So Ought to You
Riley is an Arizona native with over 9 years of writing expertise. From private finance to journey to digital advertising to popular culture, she’s written about all the pieces beneath the solar. When she’s not writing, she’s spending her time outdoors, studying, or cuddling along with her two corgis.
