Boomers Had It Harder Than You Think
Between violent crime and stagflation, the 1970s were kind of a mess
Hating on boomers is a cottage industry online. Some of it is the usual generational foofaraw; some of it is conveniently viral clowning. But it’s all ultimately grounded in a perception that their generation got cheap college and houses, locked down the balance in pensions and stocks, and pulled up the ladder behind them by pivoting from the idealism of their youth to reactionary austerity.
There’s some truth to this: college, health care, and other core costs of living were a lot more affordable several decades back. But boomers were pretty young when the postwar promise they were born into started to fray. Most were barely out of school and some were still kids. Their young adulthood looks a lot more like the crap sandwich their kids inherited than is typically leveled at them — and it explains a lot about contemporary undercurrents of reactionary politics, too.
A brief history of poor wage growth
Turn the pages to 1973. The oldest Boomers are 27; the youngest are nine. A Boomer born in 1950, supposing they went to college, is just entering the job market. And everything is about to go to hell.
