Behind a paywall. Summary, those blaming a particular generation for all the woes i.e you've got it and I want it syndrome, are not looking at the issue properly.
- In the naughties, boomers were castigated for fuelling a fiscal crisis because it was predicted that, as they aged, they would be a drain on the public purse (pensions, hospitals etc) and become a “burden” on younger workers.
- They were blamed for not saving enough for their retirement, even though superannuation came in when they were halfway through their working lives.
- Fewer than 10 per cent of boomers benefited from the fabled free university education. For the most part, only the children of the privileged middle-class attended university in the late 1970s and 1980s.
- Many boomers, anxious about their children’s future, are responsible for a very large transfer of wealth through the bank of mum and dad.
- Those landlords putting up rents for young people? Most of them are Gen Xers and Millennials. And the fastest growing category of homelessness is not among 20-somethings but among women over 55, baby boomers.
- There are rich boomers and there are poor boomers and many in between. For the generational warmongers, the rich-poor divide has been displaced onto a manufactured generational divide.
- Most top decision makers today, in politics, business, the media, are Gen Xers and Millennials. Perhaps Millennials and Gen Xers might turn to their brothers and sisters who now run the country and ask them to create a fairer society.
Blaming Baby Boomers for your money woes is unfair, lazy and wrong
Generational scapegoating places blame on a malevolent generation rather than the political and economic system that creates and perpetuates inequalities between rich and poor.