To think that not all old people have worked hard all their lives...

[MrsKittyFane]

Go on, flame me.

And please anwer my question. Why does the thread title mention how hard people have worked? It doesn't seem to be about that at all.

Your parents don't claim these things but many in exactly in the same position do thus costing the country money it can't afford.

No idea about the thread title.

Well most of the older people I know (my parents' friends and our relatives) are in my parent's sort of position - have voted Tory all their lives and don't claim any sort of help at all. They are lucky in that they don't need to but they aren't a drain on anyone. But as I said they are in their 80s and not BBs.

Both sets of my grandparents worked hard all their lives and had very little to show for it. None of them were home owners as they could never afford to buy, it's irrelevant how much houses cost then compared to now. They had extremely hard lives and I do resent the over generalisation

what does the BB abbreviation mean?

Orm sounds like you are a BB . Come on tell us, do you have a large house with no mortgage bought for a song, lots of savings and lots of foreign holidays?

BB - Baby Boomer

In my dreams lesley, in my dreams.

I have very boring dreams.....

My grandparents were of the generation you are talking about (80s/90s) they all lived in council housing. But we is working class isnt it Actually only one of my Grandparents is alive now and the poor love isn't very well :(

BBs were born after the war - the youngest is now 67. Although my background is working class and no one I know is wealthy.

have read a bit more now, sorry, your experience is the same as mine.

lesley - I think you mean 'the oldest is 67'.

According to Wikipedia:

"In 2004, the UK baby boomers held 80% of the UK's wealth and bought 80% of all top of the range cars, 80% of cruises and 50% of skincare products".

That is an indication of the true economic power the baby boomers have. All the generations above and below them added together share the other 20% of the wealth. It is truely staggering multiple and indication of just how lucky that BB generation really is.

They were born between 1945 and 1964 according to the US census bureau.

If you include early retirees about 50% of them are now drawing their pension. People in their 80s were their parents so they did fight in the war and ar enot baby boomers. My parents were born in 1943 and 1944 respectively so they are just a few years too old to be true baby boomers. I was born in 1963 so just a few years too young to really enjoy the full fruits of baby boomer status. That said, I did get a free university education and know I am massively lucky compared to the generation below me.

Sorry I did mean oldest

it just means people within that bracket though, it doesn't mean everyone that age has the same or similar amount of wealth

I think what people mean here is that SAHM's who were married to men who got final salary pensions did v well.

And they did do very well.

My granny, who I love dearly, has a house valued at £750K and pensions that must be about what I earn now. She complains about the value loss on her house over the past couple of years, the lack of interest on her savings and her small pension.

She worked as a secretary until she was 30, then got married and sayed at home for the rest of her life. (TBF she wantd to be an artist but family didn't want her to go to art shcool). Yes she did have 3 kids, but 2 went to boarding school and she had a cleaner.

She is a valuable member of her community and allowed by GPa to work in the way he did, but she and the rest of the family just can not see how privileged that was.

Apparently I was born at the beginning of Generation X or 'Post Baby Boomer Generation' which runs from the early 1960s to 1980.

We are Thatcher/Reagan children and hence were brought up in a world where the powers of the State and the assumption of a job for life and universal welfare was being chipped away.

According to that I missed out on BBdom by one years and my parents are the wartime generation. DB was a BB though as he is 6 yrs older than me. I must admit my memories of my parents were very much make-do-and-mend or do without. I couldn't quite reconcile that with the way older people on here were being described - selfish, self-centred and undeserving.

My gran would plan for the eventuality that someone might pop round too. So there was always some mr kipling cakes, some sunblest bread and a nice tine of ham :o in the pantry 'just in case'

morebeta I am a late generation x'er and have heard our generation described as the baby bust generation, the offspring of baby boomers paying the price for their selfishness and wastefulness.

I think that's most probably true Compo.

I am officially a BB, born in 62. Left school in 78, there were over 3 million unemployed at the time.

Got married in 84. Worked three jobs and 14 hrs a day, lived with in laws for 2 years to save a deposit. First home cost 21k. We had no heating, no carpets and everything else was a hand me down.

1989 brought interest rates of 16%, we could not afford to eat or heat.
Working 16 hours a day 7days-week.

Home was repossessed, two DCs and homeless.

Eventually rented a house, which we purchased in 2000, the value of which after renovating had trebled, sold and bought 3 houses.

Now I listen to people telling me how easy I had it.

If we are making sweeping statements about a whole generation then I will say that young adults today want everything now and wouldn't know what hard work was if they saw it.

I thought baby boomers were the post war generation?

Official definition is those born from 1946 to 1964 According to wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer

I am a bb too and I am busy working, paying a mortgage and bringing up two children at the moment

Too many sweeping generalisations on this thread

I wouldn't have said you qualified as BBer Neverlong but on googling, have seen one definition that includes people up to 1964. So you may just sneak in right at the end! Had thought the cutoff was 1960. But I wonder how many people have early 60s births in mind when they talk about BBers, though.

Anyways, anybody who was able to buy in 2000 before the recent colossal boom is lucky in that respect. Especially if they cashed in at the right time. This is true whatever their age, and whatever good or bad luck they may have had before that. The resulting increase in the value of your home will be due partially to your hard work- not luck, therefore earned- and partially due to the market- luck, therefore not earned. As someone born in 1984, I don't begrudge anyone who bought in 2000 their good luck. But I do hope they'll acknowledge the part it played, and not pretend that the only reason I'm not in their shoes is a fear of hard work or indeed any failing on my part.