25 Ways Baby Boomers Affected Younger Generations

Back in the day, when Baby Boomers were first entering the workforce, it was easy to find an entry-level job with little to no experience in the field you were entering. These days, it’s much harder.

Gone are the days of getting a job in your field fresh out of high school; now we have full-time unpaid internships. While Boomers didn’t create internships, the concept of working for experience didn’t come about until the eighties, after Boomers had taken control of the job market.

These days you’re lucky if you can get a job without years of experience on your resume, but it wasn’t always like this. Boomers were able to get jobs fresh out of high school and make enough money to support their families.

The same doesn’t go for younger generations. Most Boomer employers want people with a degree and years of experience, something that younger generations just haven’t had the chance to gain.

Boomers will be the first to tell you how much they made when they were your age and that was enough. What Boomers fail to understand is that the amount they made back then doesn’t amount to the same in today’s economy.

Instead of increasing what’s required to make a living wage, Boomers seem to be content with the fact that younger generations often have to juggle multiple jobs just to scrape by.

Say what you will about Baby Boomers but their work ethic is extreme. They would often work long into the night, getting paid for overtime. They worked so much that the number of hours we work has become a benchmark of success in American culture.

Science has proven, however, that people are more productive and have better mental health when they work measured hours. Working less isn’t something that’s acceptable in the culture that Boomers helped create.

There’s a lot of hostility between Baby Boomers and younger generations … that’s no secret. While the hostility isn’t one-sided, most younger generations’ qualms with Boomers come from a place of frustration about how the world is today.

On the other hand, most of the complaints younger generations get from Boomers is that we just don’t do things the way they want us to.

Baby Boomers got married and started families at a young age; this has caused an increase in divorce rates.

Most people in the older generation are willing to give up on marriage rather than making it work. This has caused issues for many young people regarding the idea of settling down and having a family.

Baby Boomers grew up in the most financially stable time in American history. The economy prospered and it was easier than ever to be successful.

Because of this, many Baby Boomers don’t understand why younger generations struggle so much. They just don’t realize how lucky they were to be born in a time when it was so easy to achieve your life goals.

The term Baby Boomers comes from the fact that during the forties, there was a massive increase in the birth rate. With Baby Boomers comes an extended life expectancy. These factors have had a massive effect on the nation’s social security reserves.

Although it’s not expected that Social Security will run out completely in the future, it is expected that the following generations will be getting far less money than Baby Boomers get today.

It’s been proposed that the age at which a person is eligible for social security should be raised to 70 rather than 65 to combat this, but Boomers have done little to actually put this plan into action.

During the sixties all the way through to the nineties, there was a massive housing boom in America. Millions of houses were built and it was relatively cheap to purchase one.

Because of the strict regulations that were made during the time, the same can’t be said about today’s housing market. It’s become harder to build new houses and because Boomers are looking to sell large houses that were made decades ago, it’s nearly impossible for younger generations to afford to live on their own.

Many Baby Boomers complain that younger generations don’t have the skills to function in real life, and they’re right. What they don’t realize is that this is their own fault.

Boomer politicians have cut so much funding to classes like Home Economics, Woodshop, and Finances in exchange for rigorous test programs. Now schools only care about how a student does on their yearly tests rather than if they can balance a checkbook.

While a majority of Baby Boomers are in the middle class, they also make up the majority of the one percent.

Boomers that have amassed this wealth wish to keep as much of it as possible and vote to cut taxes on the rich and increase taxes on the poor.

Although there are many Baby Boomers that have retired, a great deal of them are still working.

With many employers wanting more work experience and companies cutting back on how many jobs they provide, it makes it difficult for younger people to find good jobs.

It’s true that younger generations tend to lean towards more liberal and progressive political views. Baby Boomers, on the other hand, traditionally believe in more conservative values.

Due to the fact that there are so many more Baby Boomers than there are younger voters, they tend to be able to block progressive laws that younger voters vote for.

When Brexit was proposed to the people of England, it was the older generation that decided it would be a good idea to leave the European Union with no plan as to how it would work.

Now England finds itself in one of its worst recessions and older voters are the cause of it.

It’s a product of a bygone era but many Baby Boomers still hold on to the days when it was okay to discriminate against people based on gender, race, and sexual preference.

It’s important to realize that many Boomers have shucked off these ideals now that the world is more open-minded, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

As stated previously, Baby Boomers in charge of the country in the eighties cut taxes for the rich. The reasoning behind this decision was founded on the idea of trickle-down economics. The idea is that if you cut taxes on companies and the rich, they’ll use that extra money to invest in small businesses and it will help the economy grow.

Instead, it has allowed Boomers that are rich or in control of corporations to keep all of their money and buy out smaller companies for themselves.

The government under Boomer leadership has borrowed trillions of dollars from foreign powers.

Instead of trying to pay it off, Boomers in charge are more than content to let us younger people deal with the massive debts they’ve collected over the last few decades.

Most Baby Boomers were able to go to college for a fairly cheap price back when they were in their twenties. But as the years went by, the price of college rose exponentially. This is in large part due to the fact that the people operating colleges now (Boomers) have raised the price so much.

Not only that, but the generation also controls how much money grants give to low-income students, making it harder than ever for a low-income student to go to school without ending up in debt.

There is a student loan debt crisis in the US currently. Two out of every ten adults have student loan debt that they won’t be able to pay off in their lifetime.

The idea of abolishing student loan debt for future generations has been the talk of the political world as of late. Most Baby Boomers have said it isn’t fair that they should have to pay for their student loans and younger generations shouldn’t.

When Baby Boomers were our age, it was common to graduate from high school or college, find a job, get married, buy a house, and start a family. These days, it’s not only harder for younger generations to afford these things, but it’s also not what all of them want.

Because this is not the mentality that Boomers grew up with, they’re prone to calling young folk “lazy” and “entitled.”

We have come a long way in terms of awareness of mental health issues, something that wasn’t afforded to Baby Boomers when they were growing up.

An intergenerational study by Bupa U.K. showed that Baby Boomers were the most likely age group to delay or avoid seeking medical help for symptoms associated with mental health, even though many of them deal with it.

In fact, many of them ignore these symptoms altogether simply because they don’t consider mental health as a serious issue. It not only makes younger generations feel like their problems don’t matter, but it also leaves many older people dealing with these issues on their own.

Seek help, Boomer.

It used to be normal to get food from local stores. With the rise of supermarkets in the sixties and seventies, however, local produce and locally-sourced meat became a rarity in modern society.

With the increase in popularity of cheap and affordable food from supermarkets came the decrease in regulations on food companies. Ever since, food has been packed with chemicals to help preserve them. It’s not exactly what you would call a healthy way to eat.

Let’s face it, it’s hard to watch the world change around you and no longer understand it. Unfortunately, a lot of Baby Boomers find themselves in that situation.

The only problem is that many Baby Boomers refuse to accept this fact. They’re stuck in their old ways and become confused or angry when they don’t understand why something isn’t the way it used to be.

Conservative Baby Boomers have had a history of wanting stricter immigration laws.

Lately, they’ve passed laws that make life harder for immigrants already here and for immigrants trying to come into the country.

It’s no secret that climate change has been a growing issue over the past few decades.

It would make sense that the ruling generation would acknowledge this and do their best to make sure the planet will be stable for generations after. But Baby Boomers seem to be just fine with ignoring science and not take the appropriate steps to do what’s needed to protect the environment.