Generation Glum
America's baby boomers are feeling gloomy. Yes, you couldn't pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV all weekend without hearing grim economic news. But the members of this especially large generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than older and younger adults, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Baby boomers, currently ages 43 to 62 and, in their peak earning years, have the highest income of any age group, but they are the most worried about money as their epic and thoroughly discussed retirement looms, the survey of 2,413 adults found.
Here's how boomers stacked up to older and younger generations on a few questions.
| Younger adults 18-42 | Boomers 43-62 | Older Adults 63 plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| In the next year, how likely is it that your income won't keep up with the cost of living? | |||
| Likely | 45 | 55 | 43 |
| Not likely | 55 | 45 | 55 |
| Is it easier or harder for people to get ahead now or 10 years ago? | |||
| Easier to get ahead today | 19 | 10 | 14 |
| Harder to get ahead today | 55 | 66 | 58 |
| About the same | 24 | 23 | 25 |
| Is it now more or less difficult for people to maintain their standard of living compared with five years ago? | |||
| More difficult | 77 | 86 | 74 |
| Less difficult | 14 | 9 | 13 |
| The same | 6 | 3 | 7 |
Source: Pew Research Center, 2008.
Note: Don't know responses are not shown.
Do boomers have a right to be so glum? They've got a lot of stuff going for them that older and younger people don't. Boomers earn more money than both older and younger generations. Americans ages 45 to 64, which is roughly the same age range as the boomers in the Pew survey, have a median household income of nearly $60,000. That compares with about $53,000 for younger adults ages 25 to 44 and about $30,000 for those ages 65 and older, according to the Census Bureau. Boomers also are more likely than younger or older adults to have retirement accounts, stocks, and bonds, Pew found.
More younger adults under age 42 report having a hard time paying for medical care and housing than boomers, according to the Pew survey. The young people are also more likely to have had someone in their household take on extra work to make ends meet or to have been laid off than the baby boomers.
To be fair, many baby boomers missed out the fantastic pension plans that some of their parents are getting. Three quarters of boomers are homeowners, at a time when home values are falling. And quite a few are sandwiched between taking care of elderly parents and helping out cash-strapped and struggling adult children.
Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist, posits that the huge size of the baby boom generation, approximately 76 million, may account for their chronic unhappiness because they had more rivalry for jobs and education than other smaller generations. "The generation as a group was so large, and their expectations were so great, that not everyone in the group could get what he or she wanted as they aged due to competition for opportunities. This could lead to disappointment that could undermine happiness," Yang says.
D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer for the Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project, has a different theory. "Their generation reveled in the culture of youth," she writes. "Boomers are a big, complicated generation, but one thing can be said about them without fear of contradiction: They are no longer young."
Tags: depression | money | baby boomers
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Reader Comments
People born in the 60's are not BOOMERS
When growing up, for 30 years Baby Boomers were defined by people born prior to 1960. Someone, which the press has picked up on, now defines it all the way to 1964. Being born in 1964, I hate to be thought as of baby boomer. I plan to work until I die. I do not need some retirement age defined that tells me when to shut down my mind and shut down my ability to work.
My advice: work harder, plan better, no excuses.
Being Realistic About Retirement Can Chase the Blues Away
It's no wonder that baby boomers are glum. Who wouldn't be with the media and organizations in the “retirement business” — mutual funds, insurance companies, real estate developers, and the like — telling them that their retirement is going to cost millions of dollars that boomers don't have. But the truth is that the retirement being peddled today on every street corner is actually a "dream retirement" that few will actually be able to afford.
The ultra-high standards of living that people achieve today using credit cards and other types of credit are based on the assumption that they will have an unlimited future during which they’ll tighten their belts and pay all the borrowed money back. Unfortunately, people can't carry this lifestyle into retirement unless they become rich, and that’s unlikely.
Yet with a little smart planning, retirement is a goal that can be achieved, albeit with more modest lifestyle than what's currently being marketed. Boomers I talk to "get happy" in a hurry when they realize that the secret to a successful retirement is not to try (and most likely fail) to amass a huge retirement nest egg, but rather to find a retirement lifestyle that fits their budget. The fact is that most post-retirement lifestyles are less extravagant than that prior to retiring. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however. It might do Americans and the planet some good if we all consumed less.
Jonathan Edelfelt
Author of Who Said You Need Millions? Retirement Strategies for the Rest of Us
www.WhoSaidYouNeedMillions.com
The real penalties of generational size and aging in America
Being part of a large generation has its advantages in the aggregate (including collective impact on mainstream culture and business), but a large generation often penalizes individual members.
Millions of Boomers have not had the opportunities to achieve their goals due to numerous socioeconomic factors, including competition for entry-level jobs, corporate downsizing and offshoring of jobs. Generational competition has further limited the number of opportunities for top-paying jobs; only so many positions exist at the C-level. Guaranteed retirement benefits have evaporated and morphed into defined contribution retirement plans, placing retirement assets at risk in the stock markets.
This generation's greatest social accomplishments -- mainstreaming of gender and racial inclusiveness in the workplace –- have also led to greater economic competition among its members. While nearly 30% of the generation have college degrees, 70% don’t. This has further limited economic opportunities as the nation has shifted from a manufacturing to a knowledge economy, beginning in the mid-1980s.
Chronic underemployment and accelerating costs of raising children has influenced lower retirement savings rates (with one-third of the generation economically insolvent today), thus diminishing a real sense of independence and economic security.
Second, this research points to ageism as a factor influencing the lives of many. People in their fifties cannot as easily find other jobs after layoffs. Those lucky enough to find comparable career jobs often face substantial reductions in wages and other benefits.
Third, many in this generation are sandwiched between parents with failing health and adult children who have returned home as "twixters." Millions of Boomers are now experiencing enormous financial and/or psychological burdens due to caretaking. (You'll appreciate this point if the time has come for you to take care of your parents in assisted living and/or a college-educated daughter who chooses instead to work as a barista and live at home.)
Fourth, we live in a youth-centric culture, thanks in part to the influence of Boomers when they were young. Marketers and members of the media communicate hundreds of messages every day that associate aging with loss, decline and lesser value. This has been a longstanding tradition in this country and now incongruent with demographic reality. It's difficult for members of such a vital and engaged generation to accept being marginalized.
This is a time of enormous cultural and sociological transformation as nearly one in three American adults has passed the threshold of 50. The nation is just beginning to adjust to an unprecedented era when the old outnumber the young, and the pressures fomented by this adaptation are falling squarely on the shoulders of the Boomer generation. In the short term, these are pretty gloomy realities.
Brent Green
Author, Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers
http://boomers.typepad.com
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