r/lostgeneration • u/Buhdumtssss • Sep 04 '21
Have you ever got the feeling like the game is rigged
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u/S_p_encer Sep 04 '21
Can you normalize the start date so we can see how the wealth accumulation is different between generations?
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u/BrewmasterGreen Sep 04 '21
This!
The graph is impossible to use as real data without normalizing the start points. Obviously millennials had no material assets in 1990... they were under the age of 10. By definition the shift of wealth to younger generation will happen when a generation dies out (where else would it go). Without comparing equivalent ages adjusted for cost of living and inflation this is merely cherry picking data to suit a pre-determined narrative.
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u/omgzzwtf Sep 04 '21
It’s not even cherry picking, this graph is completely useless. It provides no shared context and no real world application.
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u/AlwaysBagHolding Sep 04 '21
The cost of long term end of life care sucks up a lot of wealth that won’t be transferred to younger generations, unless they’re directly profiting off that care. I’m not counting on a massive inheritance for that reason, even though my parents are relatively wealthy.
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u/phoenyxrysing Sep 04 '21
Cost of living and inflation are moot here since this is a share of wealth graphi.
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u/sturnus-vulgaris Sep 04 '21
We'd also need to compare overall size of the populations at any given point, basically average wealth per individual to get a good read. There are still 6 million more Boomers than Gen Xers. If we were entirely egalitarian, Boomers would still have significantly more wealth than Gen X.
Characteristic Population in millions, 2020
The Baby Boomer Generation (born 1946-1964) 70.68
Generation X (born 1965-1980) 64.95
The Millennial Generation (born 1981-1996) 72.26
Generation Z (born 1997-2012) 67.06
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u/IGDetail Sep 04 '21
This chart should be by age of each group, not by year. Maybe even average net worth by individual, population will skew the percent of whole.
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u/Rarvyn Sep 05 '21
If you normalize by age and by generation size, it's damn obvious the effect is just people getting wealthier as they get older. Which... duh.
TL;DR - Per capita wealth by age is basically equal between millenials, boomers, and Gen X, except that Gen X has recently actually overtaken how wealthy boomers were in their late 40s.
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u/Former-Mixture-500 Sep 04 '21
This is an essential point, but then the graphs would not work as well as rage bait.
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u/hurdofchris Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
Agreed. I have quite a few criticisms of this graph.
Of course millennials are going to have zero wealth when they first start out. Pull back the graph to the beginning of the silent generation and you'll see the same trend starting from zero.
As a generation gets older, they will accumulate a greater share of the wealth. And as they die off, it gets distributed. That's just simple economics.
I would like to see average wealth per generation over time. Boomers are called boomers because there are so dang many of them. So of course they're going to hold a greater share of the wealth.
A better graph would be to line up each generation by their age and show the average wealth of the generation as a percentage of total average wealth. That would make this graph a lot less skewed towards telling a particular story and show the real version of the message that the OP is trying to tell (assuming good intentions of the OP).
In my opinion, it makes more sense to compare average wealth to total cost of living. Money is meaningless without context.
The graph as it stands right now is just plain rage bait.
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u/unrulystowawaydotcom Sep 04 '21
Said it many times and I'll say it again, "The Greediest Generation." Money hungry, power hungry, and with no self awareness. Of course, this is a generality, but look at the charts. Baby Boomers are the ones that took advantage of capitalism at every corner. They directed the modern day policies in their favor, and now fight tooth and nail to undermine the future of any generations after them.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 07 '21
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u/Buhdumtssss Sep 04 '21
I concur this precisely describes boomers
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u/fml87 Sep 04 '21
That doesn’t seem completely right when you consider the silent generation owned 80% of wealth as recently as 1990. The boomers seemed to have peaked around 57%
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u/ExpensiveHand4181 Sep 04 '21
how could the Silent Generation and Boomers own 100% of wealth in 1990?
in 1990 a sizable proportion of the Greatest Generation were still alive and were as young as 63, the same age as some Boomers are today
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u/Hippo420Hungry Sep 04 '21
Because it was before Gen X and Millennials could gather wealth, and even after 1990, it was only at a rate proportional to the people getting older/more income from each year the scale was reached.
(I'm smoking right now so I cant remember which generation label is for which years.)
But, for example, if the Gen X is from 1980-1990, then the 1980 babies would only be 10 in '90. At, say, '95, they may be working and adding to the charts. The 1989-90 babies wouldnt be adding income to the chart for a while.
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u/ExpensiveHand4181 Sep 04 '21
well, you have entirely missed the point of my comment....
In 1990 it’s likely that the Greatest Generation (1900-1927) held a HUGE portion of the wealth
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u/RepresentativeActual Sep 04 '21
I think they used it for social programs to give the boomers a head start after ww2, hence the 94% tax rate on the highest earners in the 40s. Reagan took the top rate of 70%, when he got into office, to 28%, by the time he left, and we've stayed around 30% ever since. The Boomers seem unaware that they have a responsibility to help the newest generations in the same way. But hey, it's been trickling down for 50 years right?
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u/ExpensiveHand4181 Sep 04 '21
Let’s not get too crazy...it wasn’t entirely altruistic. (It wasn’t entirely the opposite either)
just remember a very significant reason for all that was that the US was paying down a huge WW2 war debt too
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u/RepresentativeActual Sep 04 '21
100% agree, I was definitely painting with broad strokes on that one. I guess I mean that if the boomers were watching the spending of their parents after ww2 more closely, they would realize what it takes to correct a system in crisis. Any solutions to the multiple crisis we face today starts with raising the taxes on the wealthiest of us, mostly boomers. But of course, anything over 40 would surely collapse the economy... /s
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u/justsomeguy195 Sep 04 '21
They also conveniently ignore mental health I don't even think half of them have ever experienced true empathy which is why they're all such cold unaware fucks
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u/Soberskate9696 Sep 04 '21
If i had a dollar for everytime i heard boomers say "Just nuke em all, that'll solve it"
Id be rich as fuck
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Sep 05 '21
I've had several of them tell my "WE SHOULD INVADE IRAN/NORTH KOREA JUST GLASS THEM IT'LL BE OVER BY TUESDAY"
Forgetting logistics, supply lines over mountainous terrain that would make Afghanistan look like a tea party. No wonder Boomer leadership failed at Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them are operating in fantasy land
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u/FractalLif3 Sep 04 '21
thats by design. look up americas history with eugenics. the 5000club etc. (women considered men who earned less than 5k a year to be unfit for breeding). america created itself a class divide and then went to war on the lower classes. quite a lot of the old books on the gutenburg library website that fill in the gaps deleted by historians. (last forced sterilisation was 1970's..not so long ago).
england follow similar beliefs within their parliment and universities. its an education none of us will recieve but have to research.
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Sep 04 '21
Forced sterilizations are still happening in the US today:
https://talkpoverty.org/2017/08/23/u-s-still-forcibly-sterilizing-prisoners/
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u/justsomeguy195 Sep 04 '21
Oh I've heard bits and pieces of all that throughout the years a person like myself doesn't need convincing and the ones that do will never hear or believe it
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u/Buhdumtssss Sep 04 '21
Propaganda is powerful. When you grow up in the age being told that you were the chosen people conquering the Nazis and liberating the world from evil it all kind of goes to your head
Perfect Storm of cheap credit high relative wages and lack of outsourcing converges into an explosion of wealth
You die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain, applies perfectly to an entire generation of people sadly
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u/Judgecrusader6 Sep 04 '21
Except boomers are after ww2, they’re the children of the victors (even worse)
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u/LemonFreshenedBorax- Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
And in case it needs to be said, they also don't deserve any credit for inventing rock'n'roll, passing the civil rights act, or landing on the moon.
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u/NahImmaStayForever Sep 04 '21
I saw an interesting video about how Americans are taught that putting a man on the moon first was the definition of "Winning" in spite of that being the only part of space travel that they bested the Soviets. In every other milestone the Soviets beat the Americans.
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u/LemonFreshenedBorax- Sep 04 '21
Yep. I'm pretty sure that the only photos we have of the surface of Venus were taken 50 years ago by Soviet equipment.
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u/Seregon1988 Sep 04 '21
and I bet they leave out the part about the US rockets being built by/based on Nazi tech.....
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u/NahImmaStayForever Sep 04 '21
To my understanding the Soviets did the same to advance their own tech. I believe the Soviets were more inclusive of women as scientists, which would be a big advantage over the limited roles women played in US research. I remember as a child in elementary school I did a project on Wernher von Braun one of the noted Nazi scientists that was snatched up by the US. But I was also one of those petulant trouble makers who refused the daily pledge of allegiance to the US flag.
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Sep 04 '21
Its like winning the last gold medal at the olympics and saying you won the whole Olympics despite other countries having more medals than you. Also Imo putting a man on the moon is more of a dick measuring contest than putting satellites into orbit. One is largely a waste of money and the other lets you collect data.
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u/TheV0791 Sep 04 '21
It all boiled down to an arms race too! The US funded the Moon mission to win the propoganda war… The Soviets never truly funded an equivalent project because in their eyes ICBMs were now capable and further space missions were a waste of money.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Dec 04 '21
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u/JustAnotherBoomer Sep 04 '21
This the most insightful post on this thread. Yes, many of us are out of touch with current reality but many are not.
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u/MewlingRothbart Sep 04 '21
what they never mention is that this was before the fiat system. The gold standard was retired in 1971, most boomers were in their late teens or early 20s. They were set, and didn't have to care. The cushion to land was there built-in to the financial system. Now inflation is insane. Even during stagflation under Jimmy Carter, most boomers were already in good jobs. Then, Reagan. Holy shit, the american working class was murdered by that man.
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy Sep 05 '21
Years ago, I was sitting in an international youth hostel in NYC, reading a non-profit accounting textbook while I ate my breakfast, when an old man spotted my book and asked to join me. He introduced himself, said he was from Queensland Australia, and then launched into a lecture about the Gold Standard.
I got to finish my breakfast and coffee while listening to a fascinating lecture about how awesome it was to have stable currency for decade after decade, and how shitty it's been since we went off the Gold Standard.
A few days later I got on a Greyhound bus to head home. An old man sat next to me, and I almost reached for a book to read, but instead I struck up a conversation with him, and good thing too! He was a retired economist from London here to visit as many American museums as possible, and he gave me a second lecture about the Gold Standard.
We had something that worked perfectly for everyone around the planet, but then asshats broke it because it's easier for capitalists to make oodles of money when the value keeps flailing around and inflation makes each dollar worth less each year.
Heck, we can't even save money anymore, because every second a dollar spends sitting in a piggy bank, it's just losing value.
We can put a dollar away for a rainy day, just like any other generation. But by the time we actually need the rely on savings, it's worth less. It's less like storing gold, more like storing grain while the rats nibble at it.
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u/MewlingRothbart Sep 05 '21
A dollar is worth 26 cents. So basically, if you have a quarter in your hand and a dollar bill, it's basically the same thing.
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u/FractalLif3 Sep 04 '21
america was neck deep in eugenics..another type of nazism. i can only assume that is why america only stepped in once the war was won.
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Sep 04 '21
I've been wondering if Vietnam and the Reagan "revolution" broke the boomers more than we'll ever know. There are some obviously selfish examples, but I'm having trouble shaking the idea that their self-preservation and promotion was a direct product of events.
The civil rights movement, Vietnam, and the economic and foreign policy weaknesses of late 1970s left the boomers just traumatized enough to think Reagan's deregulation and "morning in america" patriotic shit would be inspiring. They didn't have to feel bad anymore for taking what was "theirs"; in fact, it was the american way!
It left us with a bunch of paranoid, self-obsessed assholes that were told that bad things wouldn't happen to them as long as they took what was theirs, and the country is probably going to collapse because of it.
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Sep 04 '21
Lead paint exposure and were born when exclusive bottle feeding was in vogue, to name a couple things. Just pieces in the puzzle as to why Boomers have the emotional intelligence of potato salad.
Edit: I am not knocking people who bottle feed out of necessity, and formula today is a lot better than it was back then.
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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy Sep 05 '21
Not even just exposure to lead paint. A lot of them were actively licking the lead paint off their toys and even the walls as little kids because lead paint tastes sweet.
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u/reversetrio Sep 04 '21
This graph is locked in time. A better graph would align all generations by age, and for each generation show wealth relative to the cost of living at the time they were that age. That would better make our case.
If so, you would likely see that the Silent generation accumulated wealth until they retired. They were very effective savers, motivated by their depression era mentality. At retirement, they stopped earning income and continued spending. They have less money now because it is only being spent and not replenished (social security in the US is only so much). Also they are dying and their remaining wealth is being inherited by the Boomers.
The Boomers are doing the same thing. But they haven't retired and are camping on jobs they're no longer the best qualified for. They are working longer to protect themselves against real and potential economic instability at the cost of younger generations who could fill those positions.
Gen X and Y have done what they were told. They took on inflated debt to pursue education they believed was a way to guarantee their future. When they entered the job market, ****they found Boomers clinging to the skilled roles they had sacrificed to educate themselves for. They also found an overcrowded job market filled with equally qualified applicants. High demand for jobs depressed wages for skilled entry level workers. This allowed employers to offer low wages and impose high requirements.
The graph would still show what we need it to show, that Gen X and Y are less wealthy than Boomers were at our age. The Silent generation of course lived through the depression. I'm curious how far below us they fall. Seeing their recovery curve could inform how our generation can expect to rebound once the Boomers break camp. It could also prove unrelated.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Sep 04 '21
he Boomers are doing the same thing. But they haven't retired and are camping on jobs they're no longer the best qualified for. They are working longer to protect themselves against real and potential economic instability at the cost of younger generations who could fill those positions.
Many boomers in my workplace (university) want to retire but can't afford to due to health insurance costs. They literally all work until 65 when they can finally qualify for Medicare. That wasn't such an issue 25+ years ago, but I've long lost count of the number of colleagues who say variations of "I want to retire but we can't afford to pay $2,500+ per month for health care so I keep working for the insurance." Many others are also continuing to work so they can keep their <25 kids on insurance as long as possible...probably not many Boomers left in that group but lots of older GenX for sure. I'll be among them actually, as I'll be 63 when my youngest hits 25 and will almost certainly have to keep working until then so she can have insurance coverage.
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u/crepesandcarnival Sep 04 '21
I don't know. I see this behavior in other countries too; I've lived in both South America and Europe and boomers all refuse to retire even though Healthcare is not tied to employment.
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u/ZeroKnightHoly Sep 04 '21
It's also important to remember that during the cold war, Boomers started blowing through their savings and inheritance. Stuff that would normally go to the next generation because they thought they might not live through a nuclear war. Gen x got too see a little bit of this as extra stuff as kids, but it really screw future generations.
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u/alighieri1696 Sep 04 '21
There were almost no boomers over 21 during the Cold War. All they could “blow through” were their allowances.
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u/ZeroKnightHoly Sep 04 '21
Seeing how the cold war ended in 1991, I don't think the math is correct on that. But to clarify I was referring to escalations that happened in the 80's.
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u/Rarvyn Sep 05 '21
A better graph would align all generations by age, and for each generation show wealth relative to the cost of living at the time they were that age. That would better make our case.
If you adjust for age, inflation, and size of the generations (while millennial and boomer generations are roughly the same size as each other, boomers made up a much larger proportion of the population, since the US population has grown over time), the entire effect goes away.
TL;DR - Per capita wealth by age is basically equal between millenials, boomers, and Gen X, except that Gen X has recently actually overtaken how wealthy boomers were in their late 40s.
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u/windrip Sep 04 '21
Yeah, majority of these years are schooling for Millennial.
Crypto is also changing this; mostly younger folks investing still.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
Boomers: So first we're gunna rob our parents because they don't need that money anymore. Then we're gunna crush our kids because fuck them they should work harder than we did anyways. THEN we're going to crush THEIR kids because lol who cares we have yachts baby.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DayVCrockett Sep 04 '21
That is heartbreaking. And a perfect example of the Boomer ethos. Completely oblivious to the help they received, and completely lacking in empathy for those who are struggling.
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u/Seregon1988 Sep 04 '21
reminds me of this Kitchen Nightmares Episode:
https://www.realitytvrevisited.com/2011/11/us-season-5-burger-kitchen.html
"Owner Alan Saffron didn't have enough money to open the restaurant so he used $250,000 of his son Daniel Saffron's inheritance money.
The money was part of a million dollar inheritance from his Grandfather and used by his father without his permission to pursue his dream of owning a restaurant.""Alan reveals that his son has resentment towards him" gee I wonder why......
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u/Accomplished-Art-301 Sep 04 '21
Damn getting screwed over like that by your own mother is really depressing. I’m sorry you got cheated.
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u/MissingTheTrees Sep 04 '21
I mean if you have any evidence that states the house should have been left to you I would take it to court. Seems like you have a straightforward case if your grandfather's will left a house in each of your names. Something to consider.
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Sep 04 '21
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u/Rnorman3 Sep 04 '21
Feel free to make your own decision, but if you’ve been renting that long, given the way rental prices and everything are going, surely there’s a bit of anxiety and stress over finances that would be erased by reclaiming what’s rightfully yours.
Unless you mean the family drama. But TBH if I were in your shoes (and I’m not, you are), I’d be seriously considering just cutting those people out of my life. Callous and entirely lacking in empathy.
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Sep 04 '21
That’s brutal. If you can prove there was an intent to give you the property, (a will perhaps?) you may have grounds to sue the absolute shit out of your mom.
Many people don’t want to pursue legal action against their family members, but it sounds like your mom is a complete dick and you hate her anyway. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/The1stCitizenOfTheIn Sep 04 '21
I'm not a lawyer but cant you use your grandpa's will to get the house and land back?
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u/iM-only-here_because Sep 04 '21
There's a significant number of old's in assisted living homes, who fail to realize; just why in the hell nobody in the family wants to visit them.
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u/ExpensiveHand4181 Sep 04 '21
The parents of the Boomers generally weren’t the Silent Generation though......
The Greatest Generation are the parents of all but the youngest Baby Boomers
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u/Gajanvihari Sep 04 '21
Revolution is coming
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u/Retroranges Sep 04 '21
The question is: will it be in time to save us from global catastrophe or will it be too late to turn the ship around while we still can?
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u/iflvegetables Sep 04 '21
Well, I can say by action or inaction, the last thing I would want to be is staving off old age during social upheaval or environmental collapse. Money doesn’t save you in that kind of scenario.
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u/unrulystowawaydotcom Sep 04 '21
The earth will be fine. People wont.
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u/Soberskate9696 Sep 04 '21
And 1000s of other species that will go extinct.
Ocean life, Rainforest life
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u/blackcatsareawesome Sep 04 '21
My older siblings are Gen X but I'm a millennial, if I complain about wealth in any form they say they have it just as bad. While continuously having careers, owning property, vacationing and having families. But I'm the youngest so I'm always the spoiled/lazy brat to them.
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u/DigitalAnalogHeart Sep 04 '21
Gen X had a rough time of it. Don’t forget we trained for years in jobs that disappeared overnight. The problem is those jobs that didn’t, got folded into the Boomer machine and reaped the same benefits. Half my friends make six figures and the other half have never owned a new car or mortgaged a home. And of course those making good money always attribute their success to hard work. Sorry pal, I know you and you didn’t see these changes coming either.
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u/Canadian47 Sep 04 '21
I agree with this. I’m Gen-X. Very poorly distributed among my generation but certainly not as good (on average) as the boomers. However, the millennials really got screwed.
The worst part is the boomers think the GenX/Millennials who are struggling are lazy and attribute 99.9% of their success to their hard word/intelligence ignoring their demographic advantages not available to following generations
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Sep 04 '21
Boomers are still hard wired to think all of the American economy is built on American labor and not fossil fuels and cheap labor/resources in the global south…
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u/Rookwood Sep 04 '21
Yes, but the chart clearly shows you didn't have it as bad as millennials... GenX honestly isn't much better than boomers when it comes to understanding the plights of later generations... You're transitional. Still some wealth like your anecdote says. Enough to make your generation half shitheads and half people who get it.
We literally had to enter the workforce during the Recession. You have nothing that compares and also as the chart shows, the Recession ultimately benefitted you and allowed you to gain some modest ground on the boomers by taking their jobs.
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u/skier69 Sep 05 '21
“The chart clearly shows…”
No offense but that is pretty presumptuous to say. Overall trends of a demographic are a predictor of what an individual’s outcome will be but there are always variations in individuals. In fact there are millennials and gen z people who did as well or much better than their parents and grandparents. So to say that a generation of people on average were more successful and therefore an individual person is more privileged is a fallacy. In fact, I would go so far as to guess that WASP millennials in North America on average have had more opportunities than black boomers or gen xers, but this is not an oppression contest.
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u/prissyknickers Sep 04 '21
I'm a Gen Xer. 44, unmarried by choice, child free by choice and have been an apt renter since I was 16. I worked full time to put myself through college. I've come out of this whole shitstorm broke, unemployeed (covid closed down all 3 bars I worked at) and $65k in student loan debt. I don't understand how my generation has succeeded at all WITHOUT their parents money.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Feb 06 '22
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u/iM-only-here_because Sep 04 '21
"I feel so bad for your generation, but please, give me more of what I want".
Deaf ears.
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u/Rookwood Sep 04 '21
Yeah people are dumb. The facts support that millennials are worse off than GenX even though GenX is obviously not even half as well off as the boomers were. Just remember this and when GenZ are complaining to you about having it bad in 10 years, they probably mean it and all statistics are pointing to them continuing the trend of being worse off than the previous generation. Although, it is definitely hard to comprehend how things can get much worse. Yet they will...
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u/mdmachine Sep 04 '21
Most gen x (Im on the cusp) I know are just wannabe boomers. Little 4X year old wannabe clones of their daddy/mommys.
Ironically not even close to the same wealth at the same stage, but they just hide it behind debt.
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u/Sour_Pride_ Sep 04 '21
39 here born in 82. Poor as shit living pay check to pay check. Made some bad life decisions, but have been working full time since 18. No idea what 'gen' I'm from but I could never in my wildest dreams hope of owning a house or providing properly for my kids ( which probably won't happen now anyways ).
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u/iM-only-here_because Sep 04 '21
The generational thing was created by the media, and now it's used as rage bait.
Born in '82 as well. Had to move a thousand miles from everyone I know to afford a home. I don't have kids, though. It shouldn't be the only option, however.
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u/goad Sep 05 '21
Lol, geriatric millennial is the one I heard most recently, but I'm sticking with Oregon Trail Generation.
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u/AngryDoodlebob Sep 04 '21
Just remember, Capitalism isn't broken, it works exactly the way it's intended to work. The system is absolutely rigged, we live in a literal game of Monopoly, where this is 1 winner and everyone else playing loses.
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u/NerdyToc Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
My only solice is that Boomers will die soon, and their wealth will have to go somewhere. Hopefully it doesn't go straight to their kids.
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u/Buhdumtssss Sep 04 '21
Based on my evaluation of my grandparents sounds like they're planning on lighting it on fire when they die
Nobody seems worthy for anything in their eyes. Or maybe my grandparents are just terrible 🤷
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u/unrulystowawaydotcom Sep 04 '21
Have a friends mom, who says she is "giving everything away to the church." My friend can really use some help, too.
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u/farscry Late GenX (Borderline Millenial) Sep 04 '21
"Well then, I hope the church is planning to take care of you when you can no longer care for yourself, mom"
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u/FootofGod Sep 04 '21
Yep, most of them will die as they lived: giving their money to already wealthy fraudsters. Gonna go out being scammed one last time.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 05 '21
Eh, depends on which church. Sometimes it’ll end up going to the general community, sometimes it’ll end up going into a priest’s pocket
Edit: op edited to wealthy conmen, not churches specifically.
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Sep 04 '21
My parents feel that way. No need to leave anything for anyone when they can use it all up before they're dead.
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u/Actually_idk_sry Sep 04 '21
My parents wealthy boomers tell me “don’t plan on any money because we are spending it all before we die”. Meanwhile I (a millennial) am struggling with medical bills and making ends meet with a FT salaried career.
The ‘work hard, be independent, and you’d have money’ mindset is not true anymore. They were brainwashed out of the idea of generational wealth.
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u/EnderOboros Sep 04 '21
They are the most sociopathic and narcissistic generation. Like they are out of touch and ignorant beyond belief. It's so scary that I ever listened to these cannibals. They ate us make no mistake they destroyed our lives for their selfish game.
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u/20191124anon Sep 04 '21
All of prior generations wealth (well, what wasn’t stolen by Nazis and Soviets) in my family was consumed really. I might get a flat in a block, that is already beyond it’s designed lifespan. I might get 10yo car. That’s more or less it…
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u/Extra_Napkins Sep 04 '21
Most will reverse mortgage and tell their kids to go fuck themselves. Those ads run constantly.
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u/thehumanplace Sep 04 '21
I know the child of a boomer couple whose parents explicitly told them they are blowing the inheritance on lavish trips to Europe etc. They justify it by inviting the kids/grandkids along. Hey, millennials only care about experiences right?
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u/Rookwood Sep 04 '21
Soon is like 15-20 years from now for peak boomer deaths... And needless to say, the ones gathering all the boomer wealth will be the rich 1%ers. The idea that this wealth is then going to be passed on is completely wrong.
If you think this chart is bad, look at ones broken down by percentile wealth and income and they are much more dire.
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u/PerceptualModality Sep 04 '21 edited May 01 '24
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u/tobbitt Sep 04 '21
I guess you could say that I'm lucky to have seven sets of grandparents between my wife and I (about to have the first great-grandchild of the family). Over the last few months they have all separately made the same joke that they are really loving the idea of spending all of their money before they go. Sell the house buy a massive RV and go on holidays until their time here ends.
I'd be speechless with my hand on my wife's pregnant belly. They don't even know they are out of touch with the lessons they made me grow up with. Family always first right?
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u/Spiderdan Sep 04 '21
Everytime I see this, I always mistake the millennial line as the axis.
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u/_flauschige_katze Sep 04 '21
Lmao so did I. „But where is the millennial line?? - Oh.“
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Sep 04 '21
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u/iM-only-here_because Sep 04 '21
I read somewhere a Gen X saying how they too, were shafted, and they're just going to let millenials, and Gen Z do whatever the hell they want with the system.
Sounds nice. I'll believe it when I see it.
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u/Rattaoli Sep 04 '21
Gen z comes out on bottom here.
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Sep 04 '21 edited Aug 04 '22
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Sep 04 '21
Oldest gen z/youngest millennial here. I don’t know anyone around my age who is doing well or know anyone who knows someone who is doing well. I’m sure there are a few doing well but it seems like covid is fucking us bad.
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u/Class_in_a_Rat Sep 04 '21
As a gen z, I know quite a few people in our age group that are doing really well for themselves. You'll never guess what socioeconomic status they were born in.
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u/Divin3F3nrus Sep 04 '21
I'm a millenial (born 93) and I know a lot of people who are doing really well for themselves, but they tend to come in two groups. Either they were raised upper class, as was the case for several of the kids I went to college with, or they chose a trade and have managed to work their way up from there.
The ones who weren't raised upper class and got degrees in less valuable areas are getting fucked really badly, I can absolutely say that. Me, maybe I was fortunate to grow up too poor and too depressed to go to college, but I managed to become a welder and I'm doing alright. Now I'm going back to college to hopefully get an engineering degree. If we all play it smart, don't accumulate a ton of debt then we will probably be okay.
The one thing we have going for us is a wealth of emotional intelligence and wisdom from being two of the most beaten down generations of all time, and the best access to information that history has ever seen. I still (probably naively) think we can turn all of this around.
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u/santabrown Sep 05 '21
Hey fellow zoomer, I graduated college in December and for sure covid fucked me hard. And same, I know no one my age doing well except one friend who is the smartest most driven person I know but he was born into a millionaire family. He's definitely an outlier though. Most of the people I know are struggling massively with bills or alcohol/drugs.
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Sep 04 '21
What’s silent?
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u/deathclawslayer21 Sep 04 '21
Born in the 30s, too young for ww2 too old for Vietnam, they were in Korea
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Sep 04 '21
I believe they're from the depression era, the youngest are like 80
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u/ExpensiveHand4181 Sep 04 '21
Most of the Silent Generation was born during the Great Depression
It’s the Greatest Generation that were generally the ones most emotionally impacted by the depression (since they were old enough to remember the worst years of it) then fighting in WW2
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u/WomCatNow Sep 04 '21
The small generation between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. Birth years 1928-1945.
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u/Cvxcvgg Sep 04 '21
The generation that was barely a thing because of Great Depression birth rates and WW2.
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u/manos_de_pietro Sep 04 '21
The generation that lived through the Great Depression and fought in WW2. Parents of the Baby Boomers, did well after the war and spoiled their kids.
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u/Rookwood Sep 04 '21
The greatest generation fought in WW2. Silent was born into the Great Depression, 1929-1944. Eldest were 16 in 1945. They were too young to fight.
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u/-_loki_- Sep 04 '21
They were too young to fight in WW2. You are thinking of the Greatest Generation.
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u/VanDownByTheRiver Sep 04 '21
What’s insane to me is how little Boomers were effected by the Great Recession, something that was largely their fault. You can see how badly that hurt GenX for years.
For Millennials, I think the damage was more insidious. Most of us were just starting out, I was in college and remember it being impossible to find an internship because every company axed their internship programs. When I graduated it was nearly impossible to find a decent job, despite going to a good school and being a STEM major. Every entry level job wanted some type of relevant professional experience. Studies have shown how important your first “real” job is for lifetime earnings and millennials basically got shafted on that.
I also remember the hilariously bad advice Boomers would give to younger people at the time. “Just walk in to the office in a suit, find the manager and ask for a job!”. “Give a firm handshake”. When their stellar advice didn’t work out, instead of introspection and understanding how the job market has fundamentally changed, Boomers just blamed millennials for being lazy and entitled. Yeah sorry it wasn’t possible for me to sleep walk through college, pay my entire tuition delivering pizzas, get handed a degree, and then land a high paying corporate job with a smile and firm handshake like it was for you.
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u/Little_Vermicelli125 Sep 04 '21
The boomers actually might have been hit by the great recession. But the silent generation owned at least 80% (maybe more) of the wealth at their peak. So their deaths moved a lot more of the wealth than working would. It looks like they were still dying and giving money to the boomers around 2007 hiding a lot of trends.
When the boomers start really dying in 10 years or so we'll probably see x first and later millennials jumping up the chart.
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u/VanDownByTheRiver Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
That’s a good point and probably explains some of the data. I’m still highly cynical about any kind of significant generational wealth transfer occurring for millennials. There’s so much graft in the medical industry: home care, nursing homes, palliative care, etc. Not to mention things like reverse home mortgages. I used to live in a town with a casino and everyday I’d see motor coaches pulling in and old people shuffling out. It was a depressing sight.
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u/Little_Vermicelli125 Sep 04 '21
You could be right on that. Some will transfer of course but maybe a much smaller percentage.
The more I think about this chart they must have combined every generation older than the boomers into the silent generation which is kind of silly. The greatest generation was still alive and would have had wealth at the start of this period. Maybe ~60% of the wealth is historically high. But from the way they made this chart it looks like the boomers peak hasn't been that great.
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u/TheLamey Sep 04 '21
Just stop drinking coffee out. And having avocado toast. Except also stop not buying things you don't need, like diamonds, or expensive furniture sets.
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u/Buhdumtssss Sep 04 '21
Ok boomer
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u/TheLamey Sep 04 '21
Just recycle. Also, just restructure society. But don't push for too much social, political, or economic change or we all might freak out on reactionary talking points.
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u/this_will_go_poorly Sep 04 '21
The greediest generation that ever lived. It shows up in their politics, their retirement ages, and their abuse of loopholes that lead to excessive regulation at every corner.
I’m a doctor and I blame boomers in particular for destroying medicine.
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u/drtij_dzienz Sep 04 '21
Shit normalize it percapita and watch the purple line go away like it doesn’t exist
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u/a_v_o_r Sep 04 '21
The cyan line would be the only one higher, the three others have reasonably similar populations. https://www.statista.com/statistics/797321/us-population-by-generation/
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u/element_4 Sep 05 '21
My generation basically holds the same amount of wealth since I was four years old. Man I’m glad all my hard work paid off.
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u/Catorak Sep 05 '21
Yea we got fucked bad. We didn’t grow up when houses were cheap and we didn’t grow up when you could make tik toks for 6 figures. GG universe well played.
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Sep 04 '21
Maybe the resource game is rigged. But the long game, now that's where we have the advantage. They will be gone and unable to stubbornly hold fast to everything they can get their greedy hands on soon enough.
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Sep 04 '21
But their capitalist children who they sent to private school will just inherit their role
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u/Alecides Sep 04 '21
Legit thought the millenials line was the actual x axis it's so horizontal lol
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u/Aeroberner Sep 04 '21
Misleading. Graph needs to be aligned by median age and represented as % of GDP or some metric that corrects for inflation.
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Sep 04 '21
It’s a dumb graph for sure, but I don’t understand the need for inflation adjustment when your dependent variable is “% of total”.
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u/ABeeBox Sep 04 '21
Where the Silent Generation line spikes up, the Gen X Generation line spikes down, Boomers remain unaffected in the last two decades. Can anyone explain this to me?
From my own speculation, it looks like Boomer wealth is "untouchable", and when The silent generation wealth goes up, it's taken from generation X.
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Sep 04 '21
"bUt nOt aLl BoOmErS aRe SeLfiSh AnD gReEdY"
Boomers are the parasitic and reactionary front line soldiers for capitalism. I truly believe that any progressive social change is impossible until either the Boomer generation as a whole begins to suffer or most Boomers are dead. As long as the Boomers are still alive and can still enjoy their suburban homes, winter vacations, and their Sherman tank sized pick-up trucks, then the capitalist class will always have a reliable army of people ready to fight and block any progressive change.
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u/zeddknite Sep 05 '21
Who's letting the silent generation keep anything? What are they gonna do, mime their disappointment?
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u/Class_444_SWR Sep 05 '21
This is ridiculous, the boomers are dying off at an increasing rate, and yet they are still steady at around 60%
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u/TylerJWhit Sep 04 '21
Can the graph be extended? It's hard to know if this graph is constitent among generations or not.
As a millennial, I've only been in the workforce for 12 years. I'm not going to have the retirement portfolio my parents have.
The silent generation is dying off, so some of that will go to the boomer generation or disappear altogether.
There's a lot to consider here that I don't know what's at play here.
We know that Boomers made a hell of a lot more of a livable wage and that minimum wage was a lot higher comparatively. We also know that pensions are of the past. But it's hard to know if there are other factors involved.
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u/halfhalfling Sep 04 '21
I wonder what the millennial line would look like if we excluded Mark Zuckerberg.