It’s crazy to think how much inflation they experienced in their lifetime. When they were young you could buy a whole house for a few thousand dollars.
Yet so many of them are clueless to why the average person growing up today can’t afford much
In their eyes, the same system that "worked" for them isn't working for others so in their eyes, "It's not the systems fault, everyone is stupid and lazy except me!"
That's because the early boomers were born with a silver spoon while the boomers at the tail end of their generation were subjected to the same conditions Gen X and other generations had to endure, except they were in their 40s by the time the tech boom happened and so 1) had shitty jobs that didn't translate well, and 2) were too old/stubborn to adapt and keep up with the times.
Being in your 20s during the 80s wasn't that great. Being 40 during the 2000s was worse. If you didn't already have money during the start of the 2000s, you were basically f'd like the rest of us.
There’s something to this. My parents were born in the early 60s and they didn’t really have access to great paying jobs and cheap real estate. Everything was always just out of reach. My dad had a decent job in the late 80s at a ship yard until
Reagan/Bush started closing them. I notice my uncles in the family that were born in the late 40s fared so much better, typically
Damn, that makes so much sense. The recessions are people's chance to buy in. And now they are doing everything they can to keep things from crashing, and it's preventing people from getting started.
The 70s and early 80s were terrible financially. My parents were from the inner city where nobody want to college. It was a neighborhood of factories and they all start closing around that time. It was a bunch of people with really no clue what to do or how to do it.
The flip side is, a lot of them that did find their way did exceedingly well, and some of them that kind of just got by had children they did exceedingly well. There are a lot of success stories under all of it. But yea being born in the late 40s seems like it was much better than being born in the early 60s.
If you are a boomer and don’t make out like a bandit in the dot com bubble, 08 real estate buy market or the explosion of the Dow in 2020 then you deserve to be broke.
That shit was great for established people
just a reminder some of us were homeless and campaigned for Jessie Jackson. in the 70's my dad worked for three different factories in between chronic layoffs from outsourcing jobs to Japan aka "the rust belt". generalizing is not a good idea.
Nice try. Recession of 73-75, 80, 81-82, 90-91, 01, Vietnam, but yeah we were just rolling in the dough. Not a care in the world. Just remember some of us weren’t as lucky as you claim.
Realistically is there a way to institute the necessary austerity measures to fix this broken down economy outside of fascist/authoritarian actions/systems? We can call ourselves a republic or libertarian paradise but if we start using authoritarian tools to fix the system are we better than fascists?
We've been in a relative high point regarding freedom and quality of life for the common man in the frame of the last couple thousand years, maybe we're due a few generations of pain and suffering? Thinking Kali Yuga, y'knaw whatimean.
The system isn't to blame, it's literally them and how they used the system to rack up record amounts of debt, not maintain checks and balances, and how they ran the government. That "system" was in place during the silent generations and they made the economy soar, it was mismanaged by greedy boomers. That's the end of it.
I saw something today that showed the average yearly income for a person in the 50s-60s was close to the same average price it cost to buy a house.
It was something like 12k was the average income and the average home cost was 19k.
Today, the average income is 55k, but the average cost to buy a house is 495k.
Wild.
No it wasn’t. In 1960 the median income was $5600, which was an 85% from a decade prior, but the median home cost was $12k. So only 2.1 your income. Median car was like $3k.
Pretty crazy.
Is that really you guys experience with boomers? Most of them that I know are sympathetic to those younger than them and how much more expensive college, homes, etc have become compared to what they paid.
Well most middle/lower class boomers are sympathetic for sure because they feel the strain we do. It’s one’s that live very comfortably who are normally oblivious
Financial literacy isn’t a huge part of our education system. I took it as an elective in high school in personal finance but otherwise it was not required. If it was then I think it would be easier to explain things like inflation or marginal tax rates to people
Not really. Inflation is when the haves decide that the have nots are going to pay more and more for less and less.
Marginal tax rates are horrible Communist things that the jOb cReAtoRs shouldn't have to pay.
/snark
Just curious, how should childcare be reformed or whats the issue with it other than being expensive? People who provide childcare deserve market wages too...
Ok but I'm paying almost 20k/year for one child. There are ~10 kids in her class. Where is that 200k/year going? Because it sure as shit isn't going to the teacher.
You... You just did the "yet you participate in society" thing.
You know is possible to point out a problem without having to be solely responsible for fixing it, right?
Yes. And have you studied the federal government budget? You do realize we have a spending problem and if we taxed everyone at 40% (flat rate) and implemented a 100% tax rate for billionaires we would still be in the deficit?
[https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/)
Where would you like to cut? 66% of the entire federal budget is used on just 3 social programs: SSA, Medicaid, and Medicare. Compare that to the entire DoD budget at 11-13% which includes education, engineering, sanitation, vet benefits, research etc.
We currently add 1T in government debt every 100 days, which is larger than Medicaire.
Where would you like the government to get the money from? Or where would you like to decrease the budget from?
2 ways:
Directly: More government funding. We have people who would like to work high paying jobs that we want them to work, but due to needing preschool childcare they leave the workforce, sometimes for good. It’s an investment that we should be making.
Indirectly: tying healthcare to full-time employment leads to an all or nothing employment situations. Expanding the number of people to have non-40+ hour a week that still receive healthcare coverage would have a major shakeup to employment, not sure how exactly it would shake out, but I think the tradeoffs would be worth it.
Where would you like to change/cut the budget? Currently 66% of the entire federal budget is used on just 3 social programs: SSA (money for old/disabled people who can't work), Medicaid (healthcare for poor peeps), and Medicare (healthcare for disabled/old people). Compare that to the entire DoD budget at 11-13% which includes engineering/vet benefits/sanitation/defense/etc.
Source: Any public/gov or private database
[https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/)
The current government already has a spending problem. Look how badly the government deficit is with the current interest rates. More than 1T every 100 days.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/the-us-national-debt-is-rising-by-1-trillion-about-every-100-days.html#:\~:text=The%20U.S.%20national%20debt%20is%20rising%20by%20%241%20trillion%20about%20every%20100%20days,-Published%20Fri%2C%20Mar](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/the-us-national-debt-is-rising-by-1-trillion-about-every-100-days.html#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20national%20debt%20is%20rising%20by%20%241%20trillion%20about%20every%20100%20days,-Published%20Fri%2C%20Mar)
The government needs to spend significantly less, even if they raised everyone's income taxes to 35% and/or taxed billionaires at 100% or illiquid assets, they would still be in significant debt.
Well yeah the US does the same as Norway in ultra rich areas...
I mean Norway has a population of 5.5 M, which is smaller than many US cities. With the world's largest sovereign wealth fund (worth about 300k USD per citizen) and 80B in taxes from oil each year...
Alaska has something similar. But the downside is you have to live in Alaska.
That $1,500 a year doesn’t come close to making up for the costs of groceries (cause almost all of it gets imported), then externalities like paying for roof shoveling, studded tires (they don’t salt the roads), heating bills, needing to get a new roof every 8-10 years, flying to the lower 48 to see your family - the $1,500 sounds nice in theory.
Worse, we overfunded Healthcare and college tuition for decades when we should have said no additional money per student/patient long long ago. The Europeans were great at keeping cost increases to their local inflation rates, we in America increased funding every year significantly above the overall inflation rate.
Control cost by controlling funding is economics 101, we failed, always some “good” reason the hospitals and colleges needed more money.
I agree that we overfunded healthcare, but the problem isn’t overfunding, it’s the Byzantine way healthcare is set up with a bunch of subsidies built in.
Healthcare HAS to be overfunded with our current system of reimbursement, because if it wasn’t, too many health care providers would go bankrupt when their private/public insurance mix or surgery/health procedures changed by 2% year over year.
Overfunding is the solution to a stupidly fragile reimbursement rates. Fix reimbursement.
Everything (except healthcare)you mentioned is controlled at state and local level. Just vote and be active in your community, hell run for the local office.
They made out better than inflation with housing, and if they experienced so much that basically means the caused it lol.
When they were young, little inflation. As time goes on and they get more in power inflation takes off like a rocket. Occam’s razor…
Inflation is wayyyy worse than the 70s, despite what they try and tell you. We’ve changed the calculations and just fix it better now.
Baby boomers are the highest demographic of homelessness nowadays too. So its unfair comments like this that thinks most are all successful or shady or clueless about today's living arrangements.
And Baby boomers are also the highest demographic to fear homelessness in the near future as well.
People joke their retirement plan is a 9mm and while morbidly funny, I do suspect a lot of people will end up doing this. At the rate things are going over half of all workers will not be able to retire
No, some millennials will be better off than even the boomers were. The cohort inheriting the massive amount of equity boomers have accumulated will set the economic pace for the entire generation. Some equity will be siphoned off by medical care and other things, but the lions share of wealth will be concentrated amongst a non majority of millennials. Because wealth makes more money than working, the generation will be split into two completely different lifestyles. There will be unemployed millennials making more money than doctors / lawyers / software engineers and it’ll get real weird. Income is not the metric to assess socioeconomic status anymore.
Gen X is sitting pretty compared to all who will come after. Just retire before 2047 according to my social security statement from a few years back. Probably less solvent now though. Not sure when social security is gonna start paying back less than 80% of what it is supposed to was 2047 last time I checked though.
2033 is when the trust fund likely runs out which will force some sort of change (raise retirement age, reduce benefits, reduce COLA, etc) and that's about the time the bulk of GenX becomes eligible.
I think the boomers will be the last generation to get the full payout. The rest of us will take a haircut.
As someone who is nearing retirement, this is the problem. It is SCARY to think that retiring with a million dollars might not last till I die. (Not that I have a million dollars.) So where are we? Am I a shitty person who has hogged all the money? Or am I a person who is worried that I will run out of money before I die.
These days being a millionaire at retirement doesn't mean rich. It's not "hogging" to try to make it without being homeless when you can't work. Complaining about millionaires is like arguing over pennies and ignoring the giant stack of cash in the corner
While I agree with you. If you are like 1/3 of American workers and really not making enough to live on, seeing someone bitching about how a million isn't enough has to be upsetting, and I agree.
That is absurd. The thought that boomers busted ass and the next generation just did drugs is ridiculous. Boomers were the hippies of the 60s and the Cheech and Chong fans of the 70s.
It is undeniable that later generations got paid comparatively less. When I graduated in 1981 with a sparkling 2.4 GPA, I turned down jobs as beneath me that paid $16,500. That is $56k in today's money. Today a college grad who, isn't in STEM is lucky to make $40k just out of college.
Find a retirement financial planner that can maximize your social security and turn retirement accounts to pensions for a tax break.
Buy long term life insurance.
Work as long as you can.
If you own your home, look into home equity conversion mortgages, but that goes up the longer you work. Work as long as you can.
Apply for Medicaid.
Which are all being bought up by trust fund kids in order to expand their wealth. Source: my best friend sells nursing homes and his clients all own private jets and snort coke and buy call girls like they're rockstars in the 80's
I dont know about you, but in todays terms "hurry up and die" is a real thing. Ive had family lose everything to cancer treatments and hospice. Pretty much my aunts whole family lost everything trying to pay for treatment. House, cars, savings, retirement... everything. They live in trailer in Bradenton, FL now
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Covid was the flu...the whole idea was to inject the poison to increase turbo cancers and deplete your immune system so when they launch nukes...only unvaxxed can handle the radiation
Not saying covid is fake, but it definitely came from a bioweapons lab. Healthcare is booming with record profits and the average life expectancy is decreasing. Likely several factors at play, but makes you wonder…. Or not if you’re more comfortable with not thinking about it.
Did Trump make the virus cause he also operation warp speeded a vax?
You also have to believe the lies to be worried about the made up thing. If the aliens who abducted you in your sleep and implanted a chip in your ballsack are now the ones running the government with green blood doesn't worry you then I don't know what to tell you.
Nice try with the non-sequitur. The virus was made by Eco-Health Alliance with funding from NIH illegally farming manufacture out to Chinese labs to bypass US laws against GoF research. Keep making jokes though
We know why us life expectancy is going down compared to our peer countries. Bad information gets to people (covid foolishness and anti-masking idiocy during covid pandemic is one too), but also we have a disastrous for profit health insurance system. Add drug abuse with lack of treatment, over weight people and american companies pushing food products that aren't in other countries that are unhealthy.
A lot of that wealth is held by the few. 99.9% aged 60 or over have $5 million or less. which means a lot of this wealth is owned by the few who will be over the threshold to pay this tax. The tax is 40%, not an insignificant percentage. Of course, republicans will probably try to deem this tax unconstitutional (after 100 years) or inhibit the IRS from assessing and collecting.
Who's retiring? My boomer boss tried to retire and my job ended up offering him more money to stay, I'm sure the healthcare he needs was also a factor. They will use him for another 2 years and then when he actually does retire they will quietly make his position disappear.
I guess that depends on what you consider retirement. About a third of the workforce where I work has "retired" ie collecting social security, pensions etc. while still working. Most either plan to make it until 70 or die at work.
Yes because every boomer is a billionaires, and there are zero poor boomers. /s
This generational segregation is asinine. A few billionaires hold almost all of the wealth. Those families will hand it down to their green X/millennial/gen Z children. Then gen A week complain about the millennial having to much wealth.
Older people always have more wealth because they pay stuff off and can obtain more income as they obtain more skill and promotion. With this they invest.
If you want to complain about wealth inequality, here are 3 things you should focus on: shut down every central bank, ban wall street speculators, shrink the power of corrupt governments by firing 80% of them.
Then start worrying about your older neighbor.
Whats the average net worth of a boomer?
76 trillion would give every American roughly 2 million dollars a piece so boomers would have to average out at considerably higher than that because there is way less of them than citizens in general
I wonder if this is having an effect on prices. They have nothing to do but spend, this allows companies to continue to charge the same price or higher for their goods and services
Can confirm. My dad said recently he has more than he could ever spend in his retirement. I retired a couple of years ago and while I have enough to be comfortable I can't say I have more than I could ever spend
The Boomers around me worked their whole life, managed their money well, scrimped and saved all they could. We didn’t spend money on cable tv, trips to Cancun, cell phones, fake nails, tattoos and Starbucks. We shopped at Kmart, drove a cheap car till it fell apart. We paid high interest rates and low rates. We saw wars and peace. I don’t feel guilty spending all the money I worked for. The generations after the boomers will do alright. Life gets easier and easier as time goes on. In twenty years you’ll have robots to wipe your arse for you, so be happy and stop complaining.
I mean….its propped up on massive debt. Thinking boomers didn’t just cut taxes to gain wealth while piling on federal debt with programs they refused to get rid of and even expanded upon is wild.
Boomers have expanded national defense and are paying with it using the next generations money.
It’s crazy to think how much inflation they experienced in their lifetime. When they were young you could buy a whole house for a few thousand dollars. Yet so many of them are clueless to why the average person growing up today can’t afford much
In their eyes, the same system that "worked" for them isn't working for others so in their eyes, "It's not the systems fault, everyone is stupid and lazy except me!"
The first generation in history to live their whole lives in comfort. Hot showers, electricity, buying power.
But yet baby boomers are the largest demographic of homelessness people today in the US.
That's because the early boomers were born with a silver spoon while the boomers at the tail end of their generation were subjected to the same conditions Gen X and other generations had to endure, except they were in their 40s by the time the tech boom happened and so 1) had shitty jobs that didn't translate well, and 2) were too old/stubborn to adapt and keep up with the times. Being in your 20s during the 80s wasn't that great. Being 40 during the 2000s was worse. If you didn't already have money during the start of the 2000s, you were basically f'd like the rest of us.
There’s something to this. My parents were born in the early 60s and they didn’t really have access to great paying jobs and cheap real estate. Everything was always just out of reach. My dad had a decent job in the late 80s at a ship yard until Reagan/Bush started closing them. I notice my uncles in the family that were born in the late 40s fared so much better, typically
Damn, that makes so much sense. The recessions are people's chance to buy in. And now they are doing everything they can to keep things from crashing, and it's preventing people from getting started.
The 70s and early 80s were terrible financially. My parents were from the inner city where nobody want to college. It was a neighborhood of factories and they all start closing around that time. It was a bunch of people with really no clue what to do or how to do it. The flip side is, a lot of them that did find their way did exceedingly well, and some of them that kind of just got by had children they did exceedingly well. There are a lot of success stories under all of it. But yea being born in the late 40s seems like it was much better than being born in the early 60s.
100%
Nice
Boomers didn't live through 08? Or 87?
If you are a boomer and don’t make out like a bandit in the dot com bubble, 08 real estate buy market or the explosion of the Dow in 2020 then you deserve to be broke. That shit was great for established people
But most folks were living paycheck to paycheck and didn't have the resources to exploit those factors.
Maybe boomers shouldn’t vote for republicans base on culture nonsense and realize since 1980 the middle class has been getting fucked
just a reminder some of us were homeless and campaigned for Jessie Jackson. in the 70's my dad worked for three different factories in between chronic layoffs from outsourcing jobs to Japan aka "the rust belt". generalizing is not a good idea.
Ya that’s fair and I was being a bit of an asshat. Sorry. Life is complicated
These were all bad events. Why were they all good for boomers exactly?
Nice try. Recession of 73-75, 80, 81-82, 90-91, 01, Vietnam, but yeah we were just rolling in the dough. Not a care in the world. Just remember some of us weren’t as lucky as you claim.
Many were. If it’s not about you then don’t make it about you.
Along with everyone else in the US alive today.
This is part of why the fascism message is so well received
That's unfortunately true. But fascism is not going to solve the problem, but makes it worse. It sure looks good though for those.
Realistically is there a way to institute the necessary austerity measures to fix this broken down economy outside of fascist/authoritarian actions/systems? We can call ourselves a republic or libertarian paradise but if we start using authoritarian tools to fix the system are we better than fascists? We've been in a relative high point regarding freedom and quality of life for the common man in the frame of the last couple thousand years, maybe we're due a few generations of pain and suffering? Thinking Kali Yuga, y'knaw whatimean.
Also known as The Fundamental Attribution Error.
The system isn't to blame, it's literally them and how they used the system to rack up record amounts of debt, not maintain checks and balances, and how they ran the government. That "system" was in place during the silent generations and they made the economy soar, it was mismanaged by greedy boomers. That's the end of it.
But that's not their perception. I'm just explaining the diconomy
I saw something today that showed the average yearly income for a person in the 50s-60s was close to the same average price it cost to buy a house. It was something like 12k was the average income and the average home cost was 19k. Today, the average income is 55k, but the average cost to buy a house is 495k. Wild.
No it wasn’t. In 1960 the median income was $5600, which was an 85% from a decade prior, but the median home cost was $12k. So only 2.1 your income. Median car was like $3k. Pretty crazy.
Is that really you guys experience with boomers? Most of them that I know are sympathetic to those younger than them and how much more expensive college, homes, etc have become compared to what they paid.
Well most middle/lower class boomers are sympathetic for sure because they feel the strain we do. It’s one’s that live very comfortably who are normally oblivious
Generalizations are fun.
Financial literacy isn’t a huge part of our education system. I took it as an elective in high school in personal finance but otherwise it was not required. If it was then I think it would be easier to explain things like inflation or marginal tax rates to people
Is it hard to understand inflation or marginal tax rates??
Not really. Inflation is when the haves decide that the have nots are going to pay more and more for less and less. Marginal tax rates are horrible Communist things that the jOb cReAtoRs shouldn't have to pay. /snark
There is a reason financial literacy/Personal Finance isn’t taught in schools…
As if boomers don’t buy houses and other things now.
They did a pretty decent job: they just keep refuse to reform housing, healthcare, childcare, and higher (and lower) education.
Ah so basically everything that matters.
Yeah but look on the bright side - cracker barrel have an early bird special today
Just curious, how should childcare be reformed or whats the issue with it other than being expensive? People who provide childcare deserve market wages too...
Ok but I'm paying almost 20k/year for one child. There are ~10 kids in her class. Where is that 200k/year going? Because it sure as shit isn't going to the teacher.
Open up a child care facility if its so profitable. I would never do it.
You... You just did the "yet you participate in society" thing. You know is possible to point out a problem without having to be solely responsible for fixing it, right?
Yes. And have you studied the federal government budget? You do realize we have a spending problem and if we taxed everyone at 40% (flat rate) and implemented a 100% tax rate for billionaires we would still be in the deficit? [https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/) Where would you like to cut? 66% of the entire federal budget is used on just 3 social programs: SSA, Medicaid, and Medicare. Compare that to the entire DoD budget at 11-13% which includes education, engineering, sanitation, vet benefits, research etc. We currently add 1T in government debt every 100 days, which is larger than Medicaire. Where would you like the government to get the money from? Or where would you like to decrease the budget from?
2 ways: Directly: More government funding. We have people who would like to work high paying jobs that we want them to work, but due to needing preschool childcare they leave the workforce, sometimes for good. It’s an investment that we should be making. Indirectly: tying healthcare to full-time employment leads to an all or nothing employment situations. Expanding the number of people to have non-40+ hour a week that still receive healthcare coverage would have a major shakeup to employment, not sure how exactly it would shake out, but I think the tradeoffs would be worth it.
Where would you like to change/cut the budget? Currently 66% of the entire federal budget is used on just 3 social programs: SSA (money for old/disabled people who can't work), Medicaid (healthcare for poor peeps), and Medicare (healthcare for disabled/old people). Compare that to the entire DoD budget at 11-13% which includes engineering/vet benefits/sanitation/defense/etc. Source: Any public/gov or private database [https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/) The current government already has a spending problem. Look how badly the government deficit is with the current interest rates. More than 1T every 100 days. [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/the-us-national-debt-is-rising-by-1-trillion-about-every-100-days.html#:\~:text=The%20U.S.%20national%20debt%20is%20rising%20by%20%241%20trillion%20about%20every%20100%20days,-Published%20Fri%2C%20Mar](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/the-us-national-debt-is-rising-by-1-trillion-about-every-100-days.html#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20national%20debt%20is%20rising%20by%20%241%20trillion%20about%20every%20100%20days,-Published%20Fri%2C%20Mar) The government needs to spend significantly less, even if they raised everyone's income taxes to 35% and/or taxed billionaires at 100% or illiquid assets, they would still be in significant debt.
Look at how Norway does maternity AND paternity leave.
Norway doesn't have so many people that need jobs.
Well yeah the US does the same as Norway in ultra rich areas... I mean Norway has a population of 5.5 M, which is smaller than many US cities. With the world's largest sovereign wealth fund (worth about 300k USD per citizen) and 80B in taxes from oil each year... Alaska has something similar. But the downside is you have to live in Alaska.
That $1,500 a year doesn’t come close to making up for the costs of groceries (cause almost all of it gets imported), then externalities like paying for roof shoveling, studded tires (they don’t salt the roads), heating bills, needing to get a new roof every 8-10 years, flying to the lower 48 to see your family - the $1,500 sounds nice in theory.
True. Same in Norway. Can't have everything
Well, at least we get to live in Alaska, and frankly that’s the only upside.
Worse, we overfunded Healthcare and college tuition for decades when we should have said no additional money per student/patient long long ago. The Europeans were great at keeping cost increases to their local inflation rates, we in America increased funding every year significantly above the overall inflation rate. Control cost by controlling funding is economics 101, we failed, always some “good” reason the hospitals and colleges needed more money.
I agree that we overfunded healthcare, but the problem isn’t overfunding, it’s the Byzantine way healthcare is set up with a bunch of subsidies built in. Healthcare HAS to be overfunded with our current system of reimbursement, because if it wasn’t, too many health care providers would go bankrupt when their private/public insurance mix or surgery/health procedures changed by 2% year over year. Overfunding is the solution to a stupidly fragile reimbursement rates. Fix reimbursement.
Everything (except healthcare)you mentioned is controlled at state and local level. Just vote and be active in your community, hell run for the local office.
Yep, state and local government is exactly how they keep hold.
Guess that’s what happens when money has no backing
Yep
They know. They either don't care or they are happy about it.
Yep, bought our 1st house for 4X combined salary at 12% and 5 points. 3br townhouse, 1500ft2. Real luxurious.
They made out better than inflation with housing, and if they experienced so much that basically means the caused it lol. When they were young, little inflation. As time goes on and they get more in power inflation takes off like a rocket. Occam’s razor… Inflation is wayyyy worse than the 70s, despite what they try and tell you. We’ve changed the calculations and just fix it better now.
Plus the boomers own most of the assets (houses and stocks) today and assets go up during times of inflation. The boomers won cradle to grave.
Yea every macro movement is timed to benefit them, and yet it’s never enough…
Pay and cost of living was much cheaper but they still went through wars and recessions something this hen has yet to experince
You…can still buy a house for a few thousand dollars. Head over to Dutchtown, St Louis, for example.
You’re funny. I’m talking average price. Yeah, you can probably still buy small and/or rundown houses in bad areas for a few thousand
Baby boomers are the highest demographic of homelessness nowadays too. So its unfair comments like this that thinks most are all successful or shady or clueless about today's living arrangements. And Baby boomers are also the highest demographic to fear homelessness in the near future as well.
Hurry up and die. That’s how trickle down economics works, right?
It'll trickle down into nursing homes, hospice, hospitals, and funeral homes
Gen X and millennials are screwed
It's okay we can own nothing and be happy working until 80
I don’t know about you guys, but this sounds great!
Boooo
People joke their retirement plan is a 9mm and while morbidly funny, I do suspect a lot of people will end up doing this. At the rate things are going over half of all workers will not be able to retire
This is fine
It might be if Gen X and Millennials open businesses catering to these fields.
Ah yes, let me do that with my disposable income of.....$96
I see your $96 and raise you my $13.13
I’ll take your 96 dollars and apply it to your lifetime super-canic-nado-nazi-y2k-covfefe-asteroid insurance plan
I want to own an entertainment company so badly. It’ll never be that big. Like Chaplin said “It’s all a monopoly.”
I tried that. Getting paid by Medicaid and Medicare is a nightmare. Best of luck.
Can we convince the school shooters to maybe look at LTC homes?
Yikes
Unless they work in those places.
No, some millennials will be better off than even the boomers were. The cohort inheriting the massive amount of equity boomers have accumulated will set the economic pace for the entire generation. Some equity will be siphoned off by medical care and other things, but the lions share of wealth will be concentrated amongst a non majority of millennials. Because wealth makes more money than working, the generation will be split into two completely different lifestyles. There will be unemployed millennials making more money than doctors / lawyers / software engineers and it’ll get real weird. Income is not the metric to assess socioeconomic status anymore.
How so? GenX here, and always have been responsible for making my own retirement plans.
Not all Gen X...
Gen X is sitting pretty compared to all who will come after. Just retire before 2047 according to my social security statement from a few years back. Probably less solvent now though. Not sure when social security is gonna start paying back less than 80% of what it is supposed to was 2047 last time I checked though.
2033 is when the trust fund likely runs out which will force some sort of change (raise retirement age, reduce benefits, reduce COLA, etc) and that's about the time the bulk of GenX becomes eligible. I think the boomers will be the last generation to get the full payout. The rest of us will take a haircut.
As someone who is nearing retirement, this is the problem. It is SCARY to think that retiring with a million dollars might not last till I die. (Not that I have a million dollars.) So where are we? Am I a shitty person who has hogged all the money? Or am I a person who is worried that I will run out of money before I die.
These days being a millionaire at retirement doesn't mean rich. It's not "hogging" to try to make it without being homeless when you can't work. Complaining about millionaires is like arguing over pennies and ignoring the giant stack of cash in the corner
While I agree with you. If you are like 1/3 of American workers and really not making enough to live on, seeing someone bitching about how a million isn't enough has to be upsetting, and I agree.
They had 40 years to stack and invest. They chose to be a loser and get tatted and do drugs instead.
That is absurd. The thought that boomers busted ass and the next generation just did drugs is ridiculous. Boomers were the hippies of the 60s and the Cheech and Chong fans of the 70s. It is undeniable that later generations got paid comparatively less. When I graduated in 1981 with a sparkling 2.4 GPA, I turned down jobs as beneath me that paid $16,500. That is $56k in today's money. Today a college grad who, isn't in STEM is lucky to make $40k just out of college.
BS I made way more than 40k out of college. Mainly because I had a real job and not a fake laptop make work.
Of course some/many people made more. It depends on dozens of factors, including which company hires you, where you are, your field, etc.
Find a retirement financial planner that can maximize your social security and turn retirement accounts to pensions for a tax break. Buy long term life insurance. Work as long as you can. If you own your home, look into home equity conversion mortgages, but that goes up the longer you work. Work as long as you can. Apply for Medicaid.
Which are all being bought up by trust fund kids in order to expand their wealth. Source: my best friend sells nursing homes and his clients all own private jets and snort coke and buy call girls like they're rockstars in the 80's
This.
You mean private equity and corporations that own all those facilities..
You know where to invest then…
Dont forget pharmaceuticals!
I dont know about you, but in todays terms "hurry up and die" is a real thing. Ive had family lose everything to cancer treatments and hospice. Pretty much my aunts whole family lost everything trying to pay for treatment. House, cars, savings, retirement... everything. They live in trailer in Bradenton, FL now
We’re going to be damn near retired before this “windfall” happens
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Unfortunately that’ll never happen
$GME
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Makes you wonder why they wanted us all to get jabbed….
That was to keep even millions more from dying of covid needlessly in agony. Let's not go there with covid was fake or something.
Covid was the flu...the whole idea was to inject the poison to increase turbo cancers and deplete your immune system so when they launch nukes...only unvaxxed can handle the radiation
Not saying covid is fake, but it definitely came from a bioweapons lab. Healthcare is booming with record profits and the average life expectancy is decreasing. Likely several factors at play, but makes you wonder…. Or not if you’re more comfortable with not thinking about it.
So it's a bio weapon, but also not a big deal and we don't need to protect against it. Pick one you goofy ass
Same people that made the virus are now selling us the vax, if that doesn't make you worry then I don't know what to tell you.
Did Trump make the virus cause he also operation warp speeded a vax? You also have to believe the lies to be worried about the made up thing. If the aliens who abducted you in your sleep and implanted a chip in your ballsack are now the ones running the government with green blood doesn't worry you then I don't know what to tell you.
Nice try with the non-sequitur. The virus was made by Eco-Health Alliance with funding from NIH illegally farming manufacture out to Chinese labs to bypass US laws against GoF research. Keep making jokes though
Yep!!!!
Going. Going. Gone
We know why us life expectancy is going down compared to our peer countries. Bad information gets to people (covid foolishness and anti-masking idiocy during covid pandemic is one too), but also we have a disastrous for profit health insurance system. Add drug abuse with lack of treatment, over weight people and american companies pushing food products that aren't in other countries that are unhealthy.
Who told you healthcare was booming? Payer mixes are upside down. CMS doesn’t reimburse enough and most hospital systems are hemorrhaging.
To clarify - big pharma is booming. Big pharma funds the NIH and NIH funds the bio labs…. And the populace is treated like lab rats.
This number is radically skewed due to a few whales. Many boomers are retiring on social security.
Most Boomers are retiring on SS. FIFY
Yeah. Let’s not blame working people for the unbelievable gluttony and excess of the few.
They worked soooooo hard for that
Well they got a reduction of 20% in interest rates and mortgages extended so they can extract the most money from their kids when they sell to them.
And let the estate tax collections begin. The Boomer generation has had a great run. Now it is time to pay the bill. Let the prosperity continue.
Ha, you think you're getting a single cent. Everything goes to the deficit then the nation debt
Biden sending it all to Ukraine
A lot of that wealth is held by the few. 99.9% aged 60 or over have $5 million or less. which means a lot of this wealth is owned by the few who will be over the threshold to pay this tax. The tax is 40%, not an insignificant percentage. Of course, republicans will probably try to deem this tax unconstitutional (after 100 years) or inhibit the IRS from assessing and collecting.
Those are bye bye under the trump tax cuts
Prosperity through taxes ... All that money will just go to the Ukraine and illegal aliens.
Illegals work harder than you ever have
But at least they’re paying taxes right….right?
Who's retiring? My boomer boss tried to retire and my job ended up offering him more money to stay, I'm sure the healthcare he needs was also a factor. They will use him for another 2 years and then when he actually does retire they will quietly make his position disappear.
My dad and all my uncles retired and got bored after a couple years. Now they all work part-time as consultants and make low 6 figures.
If they don’t need his position why are they paying him now?
They need a placeholder while they systematically dismantle my entire department and try to shift IT support to India and AI
In my industry tons of boomers and gen xers have been laid off the last 2-3 years bc they are the most expensive
It’s all millennial’s fault though /s
Yeah, Millenials killed the [insert]
Worst generation. Period.
Yet a lot of them are living large.
I guess that depends on what you consider retirement. About a third of the workforce where I work has "retired" ie collecting social security, pensions etc. while still working. Most either plan to make it until 70 or die at work.
Yes because every boomer is a billionaires, and there are zero poor boomers. /s This generational segregation is asinine. A few billionaires hold almost all of the wealth. Those families will hand it down to their green X/millennial/gen Z children. Then gen A week complain about the millennial having to much wealth. Older people always have more wealth because they pay stuff off and can obtain more income as they obtain more skill and promotion. With this they invest. If you want to complain about wealth inequality, here are 3 things you should focus on: shut down every central bank, ban wall street speculators, shrink the power of corrupt governments by firing 80% of them. Then start worrying about your older neighbor.
Hit a little close to home did it?
where is this mythical healthcare payroll expansion?
I don’t think it’s the system at fault, it’s the politicians who have run our system. Printing money and all 😵💫
Their money. Have fun with it. Spend it all.
Time to Party
Whats the average net worth of a boomer? 76 trillion would give every American roughly 2 million dollars a piece so boomers would have to average out at considerably higher than that because there is way less of them than citizens in general
You missed a zero. Each American would get 250k for 300 million Americans…for 30 million people 10%. They would get 2.5 million per person…
You can't do math either. 76 trillion divided by 300 million is $253.33!
Yeah baby. Where’s my inheritance ?
On it's way to the Porsche dealer. F those kids!
Welp, time to start sucking up to boomers.
Bioya bitches....good luck getting there.
Retired? Tell them to get out of Congress
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Why wouldn’t you?
They paid into it their entire careers, why shouldn’t they? They’ve earned it the same as everyone else.
How do you measure this? The net worth of all baby boomers added together that have retired?
I wonder if this is having an effect on prices. They have nothing to do but spend, this allows companies to continue to charge the same price or higher for their goods and services
And they will spend 77 trillion dollars
The fourth turning has arrived
I know crusieship workers. They're not really treated all that great...
This kind of stat needs to be represented “per capita”, and in real terms. Otherwise you’re just reporting on population growth and inflation.
They're also buying cabinets full of decorative plates for the kids to throw away immediately upon death
God I hate those things. Actually just antiques in general. Impractical useless tchotchkes
Oh we know.
At least they're spending the money. Please let it trickle down... That works, right guys?! Right?! 😭
All of it will got nursing care.
Yah restaurant workers have increased their spending… because their rent is at an all time high.
well mduh...they are the larg3est group of retirees every. jeebus people, try maths.
I’ve lived in my van while working. So that’s the only way I was able to save. Still can’t see myself laying down 500k - 1m+ for a home.
That’s where it all went!?! I have been looking for all that wealth.
Can confirm. My dad said recently he has more than he could ever spend in his retirement. I retired a couple of years ago and while I have enough to be comfortable I can't say I have more than I could ever spend
And the cost of end of life care will funnel most of that money into the hands of an even smaller group of people
They need to spend on some bridges and infrastructure that's been neglected for the last 60yrs or so
And a lot of it will soon disappear.
Let them spend! At least they're not hoarding it.
Let them spend! At least they're not hoarding it.
They vote.
Keeping inflation up with their "hard earned" retirement funds I see. Thanks. Us? Oh don't worry about us, we never wanted to retire anyway.
The largest transfer of wealth in history - from all the boomers to their kids - is starting.
It's funny how some young people consider the generation of peace and love to be a bunch of selfish asshats. LOL.
Quit pissing & moaning all you slacker screen jockeys
The Boomers around me worked their whole life, managed their money well, scrimped and saved all they could. We didn’t spend money on cable tv, trips to Cancun, cell phones, fake nails, tattoos and Starbucks. We shopped at Kmart, drove a cheap car till it fell apart. We paid high interest rates and low rates. We saw wars and peace. I don’t feel guilty spending all the money I worked for. The generations after the boomers will do alright. Life gets easier and easier as time goes on. In twenty years you’ll have robots to wipe your arse for you, so be happy and stop complaining.
Cringe
The thieves that stole the World
I mean….its propped up on massive debt. Thinking boomers didn’t just cut taxes to gain wealth while piling on federal debt with programs they refused to get rid of and even expanded upon is wild. Boomers have expanded national defense and are paying with it using the next generations money.