As I’ve noted before, I’m technically a Boomer, but I don’t identify with them. To me, a Boomer is someone who participated in the great causes of the 1960s. I grew up with Watergate, inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis. It’s not the same thing at all.
Nevertheless, when I watched an NYT video featuring young people complaining about Boomers, it pissed me off so much I had to turn it off. It’s not that they don’t have some legitimate grievances; it’s that they misidentified the villains, to the extent there are any.
I will start by noting that Boomers did not elect Trump last year; Gen X did. The numbers don’t lie. As to the other complaints:
- HOUSING COSTS: The speakers on the video argue that Boomers are NIMBYs. I have extensive experience in this field, and I can tell you that no generational cohort has any monopoly on NIMBY behavior. The problem is with a system that seeks to create public goods purely at the expense of existing homeowners, whether they be Boomers, Gen X, or Millenials.
- COSTS OF EDUCATION: Yes, the paper cost of going to an elite private school has skyrocketed. This is due to a business model that also emphasizes massive aid to deserving poor students. Boomers probably didn’t invent the business model, and it certainly doesn’t benefit them in any way.
- WELFARE STATE: There have been no massive increases in the size of the welfare state relative to the elderly during my lifetime. Yes, we suck up an increasing percentage of GDP due to our large numbers, but we paid for it in the form of tax increases and deferred retirement ages in bipartisan legislation passed during the Reagan years. There have been no tax increases to fund the system imposed on subsequent generations since that time of which I am aware.
- HEALTH CARE COSTS: They have also skyrocketed, but that helps private companies and investors, not Boomer consumers.
It is fair, I think, to blame us as a group for responding selfishly to climate change. We also failed to grasp the significance of technological change and globalization, but it was the right, not all of our generation, that prevented the federal government from compensating the victims of those economic forces. Finally, some of us resisted tax increases to fund the welfare state, but some of us didn’t, and in any event, objections to higher taxes are not limited to my generation. If Gen Z wants to expand the welfare state for its benefit, it will have to agree to pay for it.