The Myth Of The Baby Boomers

[Northerner]

Bit of common sense at last ...

http://www.independentage.org/campaigning/our-campaigns/campaigns-we-support/the-ready-for-ageing-alliance/

The Ready for Ageing Alliance has published a report called 'The myth of the baby boomer' which highlights that among the baby boomer population there is significantly more diversity than is often recognised. It also challenges the sometimes lazy assumptions being made about the group of our population often described as "boomers".

"Similarly, it argues that while people in the 55 to 64 age-group have the highest level of equity on property after a lifetime of working and have not yet begun to draw down on savings, many do not share in this. It adds that 28 per cent of people aged between 55 and 64 in mainland Britain have no private pension wealth at all – a proportion which rises to 37 per cent among women. The report notes, wryly, that people over 50 even play less golf than other generations. “The term ‘baby boomer’ is increasingly used as a term of abuse,” it concludes. “The picture often painted is one of a group who are ageing well. They are wealthy demanding consumers who are demanding Government resources and stealing from the young. “But painting this picture has the potential to result in worse outcomes for both young and old. “If we are to ensure that future generations experience ageing better, policy makers cannot use the myth of the baby boomer as an excuse for inaction. “It is in the interests of both younger and older people that we find a way of ensuring more older people today and tomorrow retire well.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11808431/Myth-of-the-baby-boomers-how-post-war-generation-doesnt-have-it-so-good.html

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

I don't agree, sorry.

The main problems as I see it are (in no particular order):

1. Too much stuff given to lazy people (bribe)

2. Too much stuff given to boomers (bribe)

3. Bankers (theft)

4. Politicians (theft)

5. TV

[canbuywontbuy]

I don't think it's necessarily so that "boomers have it easy", it's that opportunities to prosper were greater through their working years than the young generations who are just starting out on theirs. I say this as someone "in the middle" at 43. "Boomers" rode a really good wave of good pay, relatively cheap housing, and genuine job opportunities and careers. I think resentment towards "boomers" occurs when they turn to the younger generations and tell them housing is no more expensive in relative terms, and other such glib comments that go along the lines of "everything's the same" when it clearly isn't.

[steve99]

I agree.. I am a boomer, not of the oldest type however cannot reconcile myself to being the stereotype as depicted around here most of the time. I only know two lots of people who do fit the description and these are as so.

Number 1- has 3 houses and a couple of flats all in zone 5 London, one of the houses is a HMO, he drives a newish Merc and now has 2 yachts, why? because he bought what was a bargain before selling his other yacht and now cant sell it as everyone that can afford to buy a yacht already has one and younger people cant afford it... I spent a long time convincing him that 'those days are gone' and your property and yachts is 'too expensive for younger generations to buy. (his 2 gen Y kids will never have to rent or scrimp when they finally leave home so they will be the new Tory ideal being born into money and good education paid for by M&D)

Number 2- got a flat in London back in the 80's for half price, owner up north got old and got conned with what appeared to be an attractive offer from my BILaw and his wife. They sold this for a massive gain at the right time and bought a house in zone 2 London for GDP120K. They just sold it to retire for GDP 1 million. Gave the kids 100k each as a deposit and as they are out of London that is a lot of deposit. They fully believe that it was their hard work for 25 odd years that made the price go up to 1 Mill and they fully deserve it and look down their noses at the rest of us who did not get the free rides....

Who are they ...

Number 1 is 72 years old so is not a BBoomer.. , just had a good run in the 1960s and 70's and massively out of touch (like our Eton silver spoon politicians)

Number 2 are fully fledged GenX (aged 50 and 48) who also had a nice simple easy straight line run in life with no redundancies or other major issues that can ruin anyone's life trajectory in an instant.

Apart from this I only know 1 person who will get a proper pension when she hits 66 and she is a lifetime school teacher. The rest of my bboomer siblings, cousins and friends regardless of education will all be scrimping around the state pensions with perhaps a few extra sheckles they have saved up, no inheritances, no massive private pensions etc and this is far more typical of bboomers than the perceived wisdom around here. In fact some of them have been on the dole since the age of 50 with zero prospects of employment or saving up for anything, never mind a spectacular retirement.

About time people took a much bigger interest in the real culprit for today's housing and employment depredation, ie the Bankers and everyone else running the fianancial mafia that 'OWN!' the government and coral the rest of you into a liftime of debt servitude or as a landlords bitch.

[porca misèria]

It doesn't hurt to bear in mind motives here.

The use of "boomer" as a term of abuse goes back to a man called Willetts. A baby-boomer himself, his motivation was to deflect attention away from his own fortunate cohort (who were by then politically speaking too near retirement to share in many of the painful things like rising retirement age), and interpose a scapegoat cohort. So he expanded the term "boomer" to encompass also a 1960s-born cohort having nothing more in common with his own than an accident of birth statistics.

[crashmonitor]

I agree.. I am a boomer, not of the oldest type however cannot reconcile myself to being the stereotype as depicted around here most of the time. I only know two lots of people who do fit the description and these are as so.

Number 1- has 3 houses and a couple of flats all in zone 5 London, one of the houses is a HMO, he drives a newish Merc and now has 2 yachts, why? because he bought what was a bargain before selling his other yacht and now cant sell it as everyone that can afford to buy a yacht already has one and younger people cant afford it... I spent a long time convincing him that 'those days are gone' and your property and yachts is 'too expensive for younger generations to buy. (his 2 gen Y kids will never have to rent or scrimp when they finally leave home so they will be the new Tory ideal being born into money and good education paid for by M&D)

Number 2- got a flat in London back in the 80's for half price, owner up north got old and got conned with what appeared to be an attractive offer from my BILaw and his wife. They sold this for a massive gain at the right time and bought a house in zone 2 London for GDP120K. They just sold it to retire for GDP 1 million. Gave the kids 100k each as a deposit and as they are out of London that is a lot of deposit. They fully believe that it was their hard work for 25 odd years that made the price go up to 1 Mill and they fully deserve it and look down their noses at the rest of us who did not get the free rides....

Apart from this I only know 1 person who will get a proper pension when she hits 66 and she is a lifetime school teacher. The rest of my bboomer siblings, cousins and friends regardless of education will all be scrimping around the state pensions with perhaps a few extra sheckles they have saved up, no inheritances, no massive private pensions etc and this is far more typical of bboomers than the perceived wisdom around here. In fact some of them have been on the dole since the age of 50 with zero prospects of employment or saving up for anything, never mind a spectacular retirement.

Who are they ... Number 1 is 72 years old so is not a BBoomer.. , just had a good run in the 1960s and 70's and massively out of touch (like our Eton silver spoon politicians)

Number 2 are fully fledged GenX (aged 50 and 48) who also had a nice simple easy straight line run in life with no redundancies or other major issues that can ruin anyone's life trajectory in an instant.

About time people took a much bigger interest in the real culprit for today's housing and employment depredation, ie the Bankers and everyone else running the fianancial mafia that 'OWN!' the government and coral the rest of you into a liftime of debt servitude or as a landlords bitch.

Well tbh I will be grateful for a state pension, currently pencilled in when I am 67 (now 51). Don't do ourselves any favours by saying scrimping on a state pension. Mortgage free and no dependents on a universal state pension of £155 each (£310 for me and my partner) is a dream scenario for many starting out. Ok we've put in the years of work (72 years for me and my partner currently) but let's not pretend it's going to be difficult. And many of us have savings to boot.

[Timak]

Well of course there are huge variations within any group.

However it is fair to say that the post war generation on average did very well out of wage inflation, house price inflation, relatively low taxation and relatively high benefits which are locked whilst other benefits aren't.

I only know a relatively wealthy cohort of people that age but even the poorest of them live in a 3 bedroom council house (that would sell for £400k) which they pay minimal rent for and would certainly not be available to them if they were in the same situation as youngsters now.

The best off are those who did normal jobs but with extraordinary pension benefits - one couple retired in their 50s on 66% of final salary from the insurance industry and 50% of final salary from a head teachers job. They'll be making £80k-90k per annum in pensions each year.

[canbuywontbuy]

How many "boomers" could afford their properties if they were on the market today, and buying as a first time buyer?

[crashmonitor]

Well of course there are huge variations within any group.

However it is fair to say that the post war generation on average did very well out of wage inflation, house price inflation, relatively low taxation and relatively high benefits which are locked whilst other benefits aren't.

I only know a relatively wealthy cohort of people that age but even the poorest of them live in a 3 bedroom council house (that would sell for £400k) which they pay minimal rent for and would certainly not be available to them if they were in the same situation as youngsters now.

The best off are those who did normal jobs but with extraordinary pension benefits - one couple retired in their 50s on 66% of final salary from the insurance industry and 50% of final salary from a head teachers job. They'll be making £80k-90k per annum in pensions each year.

The precariat of that generation did especially well...DLA, free housing and minimum income guarantee from the tender age of sixty. A 20k pa package that would make the younger generation at boot camp wince. This level of generosity will never be repeated in the history of mankind.

[Bugger BTL]

Very few people think all baby boomers are rich, anyway. They're not making a particularly radical or important point by reminding everyone that some boomers are poor. My parents are boomers and they've barely a pot to piss in. Hell, there are some of the very youngest of them who didn't think of buying property until quite late who ended up priced out. However, the salient point is that they as a generation, a cohort, have had and continue to have it significantly easier than those who follow. The stuff about golf is just a risible attempt to distract from that.

[crashmonitor]

Very few people think all baby boomers are rich, anyway. They're not making a particularly radical or important point by reminding everyone that some boomers are poor. My parents are boomers and they've barely a pot to piss in. Hell, there are some of the very youngest of them who didn't think of buying property until quite late who ended up priced out. However, the salient point is that they as a generation, a cohort, have had and continue to have it significantly easier than those who follow. The stuff about golf is just a risible attempt to distract from that.

Poor is a relative thing. Imo if you are getting the minimum income guarantee, a free council flat, council tax and DLA (poor health is almost a given with the poorest) then that's a remarkably generous package compared to boot camp for the young starting out.

The fact this special protected status began at 60, when their followers will have to wait until beyond 70 in some cases is a real sickener for those starting work today.

[BlokeInDurham]

I'm sorry, but this argument is a bit disingenuous.

Diversity within a group does not preclude diversity between groups.

I don't think anyone would argue against the existence of a diversity of both opportunity and outcomes within the Baby Boomers, within the Gen X'ers, within the Millenials or any other age group, howsoever defined. The issue of inequality levels within all generations may be a very pertinent one, but it doesn't negate the completely separate issue of intergenerational inequality. Regardless of the inequalities between the top and bottom deciles of individual age groups:

* have the bottom decile of the Baby Boomers taken more from/given back less to society than the bottom decile of Generation Y has done/is likely to?

* have the top decile of the Baby Boomers taken more from/given back less to society than the top decile of Generation Y has done/is likely to?

It may be a live debate, but those are the relevant questions to address in relation to whether the Baby Boomers are lucky, not: "Is every single Baby Boomer better off than every single person of any other generation?" That's not to say that other forms of inequality (e.g. within a generation) aren't important, but please don't conflate the issues.

[porca misèria]

Well of course there are huge variations within any group.

However it is fair to say that the post war generation on average did very well out of wage inflation, house price inflation, relatively low taxation and relatively high benefits which are locked whilst other benefits aren't.

I only know a relatively wealthy cohort of people that age but even the poorest of them live in a 3 bedroom council house (that would sell for £400k) which they pay minimal rent for and would certainly not be available to them if they were in the same situation as youngsters now.

The best off are those who did normal jobs but with extraordinary pension benefits - one couple retired in their 50s on 66% of final salary from the insurance industry and 50% of final salary from a head teachers job. They'll be making £80k-90k per annum in pensions each year.

You've swallowed the Willetts line whole. And a bit more (far, far higher taxes than today was something today's 70-year-olds and 50-year-olds really do have in common).

Relatively high benefits which are locked? You're thinking of pensioners there. Certainly not Willetts-boomers.

Council house? Not quite sure of the timings there, but again I think it was the generation who lived through the War who really got them en masse. They certainly didn't exist for the 1960s-born Willetts-boomers, nor (I think) for some time before.

I'm a little puzzled by stories of those final-salary pensions. The story my generation learned was that they were useless unless you stuck forever in one job. They weren't transferable between schemes, and your frozen final salary pension on a final salary of £5k in your first job as a young graduate was going to be worthless by the time you reached an age to claim it. So not an option if you expected a career with a range of different employers. That's why they brought in personal pensions, though those were a massive ripoff in terms of huge charges until real competition started to arrive about 10 years ago.

[AThirdWay]

How many "boomers" could afford their properties if they were on the market today, and buying as a first time buyer?

How many "boomers" own no property?

[porca misèria]

The precariat of that generation did especially well...DLA, free housing and minimum income guarantee from the tender age of sixty.

Yep, today's 50-year-olds did really well on that minimum income guarantee at age 60. But wasn't it only women who got it at age 60?

[crashmonitor]

You've swallowed the Willetts line whole. And a bit more (far, far higher taxes than today was something today's 70-year-olds and 50-year-olds really do have in common).

Relatively high benefits which are locked? You're thinking of pensioners there. Certainly not Willetts-boomers.

Council house? Not quite sure of the timings there, but again I think it was the generation who lived through the War who really got them en masse. They certainly didn't exist for the 1960s-born Willetts-boomers, nor (I think) for some time before.

I'm a little puzzled by stories of those final-salary pensions. The story my generation learned was that they were useless unless you stuck forever in one job. They weren't transferable between schemes, and your frozen final salary pension on a final salary of £5k in your first job as a young graduate was going to be worthless by the time you reached an age to claim it. So not an option if you expected a career with a range of different employers. That's why they brought in personal pensions, though those were a massive ripoff in terms of huge charges until real competition started to arrive about 10 years ago.

Boomers is a bit of a wide definition and starts from 1944. The poorest did get a free council house, final salary schemes for the better off and retirement at 60.

[BlokeInDurham]

But that's not a response to the fundamental argument of generational inequality, is it Porca?

It's just an argument for more careful delineation of generations.

And while I dare say the late Baby Boomers have had a worse shot at life that the early Baby Boomers, how does that compare to later generations?

[Si1]

I don't think it's necessarily so that "boomers have it easy", it's that opportunities to prosper were greater through their working years than the young generations who are just starting out on theirs. I say this as someone "in the middle" at 43. "Boomers" rode a really good wave of good pay, relatively cheap housing, and genuine job opportunities and careers. I think resentment towards "boomers" occurs when they turn to the younger generations and tell them housing is no more expensive in relative terms, and other such glib comments that go along the lines of "everything's the same" when it clearly isn't.

this

[crashmonitor]

Yep, today's 50-year-olds did really well on that minimum income guarantee at age 60. But wasn't it only women who got it at age 60?

I actually know one man that got retirement at 60, he is still only 65...default state retirement re. sex equality. I'm in the same boat as you and will have to wait until 67 as a late boomer (1964).

edit. just think welfare has been handed out too early in general and like confetti and it wont be there to the same extent in future.

[porca misèria]

Very few people think all baby boomers are rich, anyway. They're not making a particularly radical or important point by reminding everyone that some boomers are poor. My parents are boomers and they've barely a pot to piss in. Hell, there are some of the very youngest of them who didn't think of buying property until quite late who ended up priced out. However, the salient point is that they as a generation, a cohort, have had and continue to have it significantly easier than those who follow. The stuff about golf is just a risible attempt to distract from that.

Not entirely untrue, except in that in conflates cohorts with very, very different lifetime circumstances.

It's equally true if you substitute "Jew" for every use of the word "boomer" in the above. Uncomfortable thought.

[edit to add] Because that's dangerous ground, let's clarify. My actual point is that "anti-boomer" sentiment is indeed exactly the same social phenomenon as anti-semitism.

[winkie]

How many "boomers" could afford their properties if they were on the market today, and buying as a first time buyer?

Not that many.....but if they didn't own them, who would be owning them?

Anybody who lives within their means, saves and does not waste what they have earned will own a home of their own if that is what they want...what they want and what they need as a home are two completely different things.....a home you own, that you feel safe and secure living in and can meet the monthly costs to keep it, with a rainy day buffer that maintains its value has to be a hard earned and paid for achievement.......or borrow at great cost, what you can't pay back to buy stuff and things you don't need, can't afford and makes everyone else better off except yourself.....

[porca misèria]

Boomers is a bit of a wide definition and starts from 1944. The poorest did get a free council house, final salary schemes for the better off and retirement at 60.

Can't speak for those born in the late 1940s.

But if the poorest got a free council houses, who were all those tenants of Rachmann and later Hoogstraaten, and their respective peers?

[canbuywontbuy]

How many "boomers" own no property?

According to here > http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk/

.....around 25%?

[crashmonitor]

According to here > http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk/

.....around 25%?

Including Frank Dobson in his London council penthouse.

[porca misèria]

Including Frank Dobson in his London council penthouse.

Born 1940.