"The Boomers Deserve A Horrific End."
Is it fair to ask whether this is their own fault?
We’ve had jokes about the Boomers and how great they’ve had it for literal decades now, with this being a good, funny take:
And
even made the case a while back that there was a “Boomer Blockade” that was causing leadership and community involvement erosion.And then there’s “OK Boomer,” etc.
But now there’s a different reality emerging, and again, it’s a subset of Boomers, not all of them. As with most things in America, it’s along class/money lines. I first became more aware of it in this video:
That video has some flaws, because he keeps referring to a “three-legged stool” of Boomer wealth without mentioning housing, which is the primary leg of the Boomer stool in many cases.
But right at this moment, housing is an absolute cluster-f*ck because of “rate lock.” If Boomers think they have a house worth $2M, and there’s an audience for that house, said audience is not going to pay $2M at 7%, unless they can find the $2M in cash. As a result, Boomers are kinda stuck not being able to access capital from conceivably their biggest investment. And when and if they do access that capital, rents are also jacked up in a lot of places — for people who (a) may lack a pension of any note and (b) will have a hard time finding solid-paying work due to, well, ageism and tech.
From 2007 through 2017, the percentage of people 51 and older in homeless shelters rose from 16.5% to 23%, a rate greater than what would be expected just from the increase in people of that age group. In 2018, the department started tracking people 55 and older in homeless shelters, and the figure rose from 16.3% to 19.8% in 2021.
The National Health Care for the Homeless Council reported that the proportion of patients 50 or older who it serviced in 2022 was 36%, up from 25% 15 years earlier.
Seems kinda dire, actually.
There are some other concurrent Boomer trends that are both interesting and disheartening:
If you take this all together, you can paint a picture whereby people are reaching their glorious twilight years and … things are not as they expected or seemed to have been promised.
Let’s start by listing some of the bigger buckets of what is going on here.
People are living longer.
It is harder to find quality employment, especially the older you get.
Their kids don’t have the time (their own babies) or resources to help them as much.
Rate lock.
Rents are very high.
Again, if you are living until 90 vs. 77, that is more money that you need.
Social safety nets eroding, especially social security (probably dead by 2032, if not sooner).
Stock market up and down.
Poor financial literacy because for a long time, everything seemed great for them.
Confrontation of new American realities.
And again, if you have money/assets/resources, these grim outcomes are not really in store for you. It’s more brie and chablis on that side of the coin.
The next subset of this discussion is: should we be embarassed as a collective society that we’ve done the Boomers so dirty if they lack money? These people potentially helped build aspects of modern society — and we’re gonna let them live under a bridge? Egad! (I guess if you’re in the “OK Boomer” camp, you wouldn’t care much.)
“It’s an entirely different population,” said Kushel. “These are people who worked their whole lives. They had typical lives, often working physically demanding jobs, and never made enough to put money away.”
That’s where I would see a moral problem with Boomer homelessness. If you literally work your entire life and the end result of that work is society telling you, “Well, I hear the tents in Portland are nice this time of year,” then like … what’s the point of working? Why wouldn’t you just suck at the government teat as much as possible for your supposed “prime” earning years? It completely changes the incentive structure for work and work ethic to see this happening.
Here’s a photo gallery of Boomers becoming unhoused.
I think one rationalization you will see here is “these people must be addicts or otherwise messed up.” Probably true in many cases, but not all. You might also see “they managed their money poorly.” Indeed, many probably did — but in the “richest, greatest society on Earth,” shouldn’t we have at least a tiny house for someone who just worked for 50 years? That would also seem manageable, even if they bounced a bunch of checks along the way.
I think the “quiet part out loud” on this trend line is that we tend to deify the young for their exuberance, virility, they’re contributing babies to the world, they’re working, they’re spending, etc… we tend to view our elders as a nice-to-discuss, but we’re more comfortable with them out to pasture on Princess Cruises, only checking in once or twice a year. So if Boomer Bob is close to homelessness, I’m not sure who exactly Boomer Bob has to speak to. If he’s a widow or something, it’s double awful.
Compassion isn’t the norm:
“Baby boomers are becoming homeless,” TikToker @straightouttasalem said in a video back in September, “and that’s what spending decades as a ‘pick-me’ for capitalism will get you, and frankly, everyone else as well.”
Goddamn.
So, I don’t know how true or has-legs this trend line is, but it seems a bit concerning. I’ve seen headlines about Boomer decline use the phrase “it only takes one crisis,” which seems to mimic the broader problem with the U.S. economy — it only takes one blown tire, one unexpected medical expense, etc. to set people back for 3–4 months. That doesn’t seem like an aspirational economy to me, but perhaps I’m some communist liberal joke.
What are you thinking or seeing about the Boomers right now?
In between "the state should take care of them" and "they should be abandoned" there's another possibility, which you almost thought of but then dismissed with,
"Their kids don’t have the time (their own babies) or resources to help them as much."
It's not a matter of time, because worldwide you get vast extended families who are very very busy, but who look after their elderly nonetheless. This is cultural: Anglo (or Anglicised) families are much more socially atomised. Smaller families, geographic mobility, and an attitude of "I'm an individual, fuck you" are common.
Often the Anglo Boomer parent engaged in neglect, if you were lucky it was benign neglect. It was common to move around a lot, so the child or children could never make lasting friends, never had uncles and aunties and cousins around, and the children got kicked out at 18 to make their own way. So when the Anglo Boomer became elderly and lonely, there wasn't much sympathy.
You don't really see this as much with other ethnicities, except where they've assimilated into Anglo life (common enough, since they'll be migrants and will have left their own larger families behind in the homeland). You'll notice those who teach their children their homeland's language are more likely to be looking after their parents. Those who are exclusively english, less so.
Obviously with the elderly there can be a level of health problems which require professional help, even aged care. But short of that - an elderly person with adult children should never face homelessness and starvation. You'll see this in Italian, Chinese, Indian, or in NZ in Maori homes - they'll always squeeze you in somehow. Of course, you'll then have to watch over the grandchildren and do some cooking and cleaning, it won't be a free lunch.
Point is, culture's relevant here.
Not a Boomer, I'm an Xennial, but I'm here to defend them. Honestly Millennials and Zoomers who hate on Boomers display levels of selfishness and straight up malice that far exceeds anything they complain about in Boomers, who they are seemingly mad at for not dying fast enough and giving them their money.
First of all, Boomers work a lot harder than younger generations, that's clear in any workplace. They're like 70 and still the first ones in in the morning and last ones at night. They had to marry the first girl they ever slept with, because there was no Plan B and there was a shotgun held by dad. Their own parents universally hit them and barely ever told them they loved them, if ever, and they were all absolutely kicked out and expected to join the military or get a job at 18. And if they didn't, they could actually be drafted and sent to go get shot in a war whether they wanted to or not. The Boomers were WAY nicer to their kids and grandkids than their own parents ever were to them, and those kids just turn around and deride and bitch about the parents who gave them more than they ever got themselves. And give me a break with the idea that any generation has control over national policy...people voted and half of them lost, just like always. In the 80s they all actually believed the trickle down, privatize everything BS that every major economist was peddling, and hadn't yet seen how it would work out to carve out the middle class and make the rich richer. And just like always, the top decile got theirs and screwed over everyone else...you don't blame 50M old people for that unless you're just an a-hole. The young tearing apart the elderly and being maliciously covetous of their assets because they don't want to wait is just grotesque. No wonder no one wants kids anymore, when this is how they treat their own parents. The vast majority of Boomers had parents who 1. Never paid for or assisted with their college (because most Boomers didn't go to college), 2. Never passed on a dime in inheritance, 3. Rarely if ever said "I love you" and sure as hell didn't dote on them or watch their sports and activities or try to raise their self-esteem, and 4. Regularly whipped them and whupped their asses...and yet most Boomers would never have even considered cutting off or talking badly about their own parents the way young people do today. Bunch of spoiled ass jerks (I mean the anti-Boomer young people, not the Boomers). If they can afford a cruise, why the hell shouldn't they go on one, after working their ass off their whole lives? I honestly cannot comprehend people that are mad at old people going on a cruise. And most of them couldn't afford it anyway.
All that said, if you think the stats regarding impoverished Boomers are scary, just wait til Gen X gets elderly. They are absolutely screwed, none of them have pensions (except teachers and military and a few state workers), and they have even less saved than the Boomers. Gen X is going to have massive amounts of poverty in their old age.