The Boomers Are Evil
Your life is ruined? Blame the Boomers!
Every generation thinks there’s something wrong with the other generation. Ours is the first one that can prove our thesis with a spreadsheet. The thesis? The country is fucked because of Boomers. Alternatively view this as a collection of facts about boomers that they don’t want you to know. When you do, a lot of things which are happening now will become more clear.
Now approximately 73% of all wealth in the U.S. is currently owned by Americans over the age of 55, and 63% of all American wealth is concentrated in the hands of Boomers and the Silent Generation (who are still alive somehow).
The Congress is likewise pretty old, the average age is 59, while the average age of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence was 44. In contrast, the average age of the Israeli Knesset is 50.
Before we get into the numbers, it’s worth naming the hypocrisy upfront. This is the generation that preached personal responsibility, mocked socialism, and built an entire political identity around pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. They were going to be the last people to demand handouts. Instead they became the most successful recipients of government wealth redistribution in American history.
Many people assume that older generations have always held greater financial and political power than younger ones as a natural state of affairs. Under this view, Baby Boomers controlling 63% of the wealth while making up only 27% of the population would simply be the expected outcome of market forces. This explanation, however, does not hold up. The Boomers’ wealth is largely the product of the welfare state policies of the past century.
Before large-scale welfare reforms of the 1960s, the elderly had much higher rates of poverty than the younger generation (boomers). By 1995, the net worth of a 80 year old was equal to the net worth of a 50 year old. In 1984, households 65+ were 10× wealthier than younger counterparts. By 2015 it had increased to 47×.
The mechanism is not complicated. Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you-go systems. The money you pay in goes directly to current retirees. When Boomers were working, there were 5 workers per retiree funding the system.
