During Barack Obama’s presidency, the dismissive “OK, Boomer” meme emerged among Millennials who viewed some Baby Boomers as clueless about the economic realities of the 21st Century. If a Boomer, for example, failed to understand why home ownership was a struggle for so many Millennials, they would dismissively tell them, “OK, Boomer.”
The “OK, Boomer” meme continued with Generation Z, and younger Americans are still struggling with affordability — from homeownership to education to health care.
In an article published by The Guardian on December 7, Millennial journalist J. Oliver Conroy examines the frustrations that younger Americans are suffering over the high cost of living.
“Despite some signs that the wildly expensive housing market is cooling down,” Conroy explains, “buying a home is still a fantasy for millions of younger Americans. In the 1980s, the median age of someone buying their first home was about 29. Today, the median first-time buyer is 40 — and can expect their first home to cost twice as much money, adjusted for inflation, as their parents’ home did in the mid-1980s. The situation is so bad that last month, the Trump Administration floated the idea of introducing a 50-year mortgage to make houses more affordable, then frantically walked back the idea when critics pointed out that a Millennial buying their first home at 40 might die before paying it off.”
Conroy adds, “This is a crisis, given how closely home ownership is tied to wealth creation in the U.S.”
The “adult lives” of Millennials and Gen-Z members,” Conroy laments, “have been marked by stagnant wages, inflation, broken political institutions and a sense of national decline.”
“American Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are the richest cohort in the history of the entire world,” Conroy notes. “Yet they are also the first generation of Americans to leave to their children a world that is, by most common economic metrics, worse. So why are we still being told we would own a house if we drank less Starbucks, or shamed for failing to meet the milestones of a vanishing age? And why, when economic alarms have been ringing for years, does it often feel like only younger Americans hear them?”
Read J. Oliver Conroy’s full article for The Guardian at this link.
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