What did the Boomers ever do for me?

[Nomama]

In the interests if balance, you understand!

I shall start with the Ford machinists:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968

Equal Pay Act 1970

My thanks to you, Baby Boomers. Without you I couldn't have earned the same honest day's pay as the man working next to me. Hell, I couldn't even have got the job in the first place.

Now this generation needs to thoroughly break the Glass Ceiling!

[TheChandler]

That's nonsense about solicitors by the way, Tinkly. Speaking as one, I would say I meet far more trainees and young solicitors from quite non-elite backgrounds. In some fields, its considered a positive advantage!

[Nomama]

That's a really interesting differentiation between the boomers who stood up and were counted in their teens and those who came into power much later.

Interesting and worrying, the reset button of the Thatcher years and ongoing deregulation has made an enormous difference to everyone's lives.

But that still leave a nasty taste in my mouth to describe it as 'at the expense of' as though it were a deliberate and considered outcome of anyone's action. It is simply market forces and consumerism in action - what we all wanted, apparently!

But not being a member of Generation Jones I can't really explain that either. I am a member of Generation X

Compared with previous generations, Generation X represents a more apparently heterogeneous generation, openly acknowledging and embracing social diversity in terms of such characteristics as race, class, religion, ethnicity, culture, language, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

Unlike their parents who challenged leaders with an intent to replace them, Gen Xers are less likely to idolize leaders and are more inclined to work toward long-term institutional and systematic change through economic, media and consumer actions who discovered that there is no job security and everywhere there are cutbacks on staff, salaries and benefits

Generation Y - the Millennials, Generation Wii - are the oversharing, technology based, self absorbed generation. And Gen Z, thankfully, show signs of the circle turning (Malala Yousafzai, for example).

I really don't think there is ever a generation that doesn't carry its stereotype, I am just alarmed at the current blame game that irresponsible media hype has engendered.

[thegreylady]

I was born in 1944 to a working class family in the North East. In 1950 we moved to a new council house and in 1955 I passed the 11+ and went to Grammar School, the first in my family to do so. I trained as a teacher, got a degree later and worked until I retired. I have a decent pension and I have no mortgage. My parents were in council housing until tney died so no inheritance for me.
My own dc and step dc are all graduates, married, parents and with professional jobs. None of us leech on others, none of us had anything on a plate. What did we do for you? We gave you life, more rights than we had and a country with less prejudice than when we were young. Our generation did its best (politicians were as ever less than perfect). What will your generation do for your children? Tomorrow's politicians are your contemporaries. We gave you a world make of it what you will. We'll all be dead soon then you will be the scapegoats for your descendants.

[Aherdofmims]

Viniculture? Road building?

(sorry if that has been done but I haven't RTFT!)

[Nomama]

It hasn't, but we have all been thinking it

[JanetBookLover]

One difference between my generation and my children's is mine had war parents so we have a very made do and mend spirit. We turn lights off. We don't waste a match etc. The grandchildren of those WWII parents did not have quite so much of that influence of WWII, bombs, rationing, shortages of food, national service and the like.

My generation were at the forefront of ensuring women can work. We spent our teenage years reading feminist books and fighting to ensure women can reach the top. I think we did a very good job although there still remains much work to be done on that score.

i would certainly support no winter fuel allowance etc for those under 85 as we have protected pensioners a bit too much in the recession.

i have never thought life was easy in the past. It wasn't for just about anyone I know.

[SecretSquirrels]

I guess DH and I are boomers. I'm confused as to whether our crime is job hogging or retiring early? I have to wait until I am 66 to retire so how do I do that without blocking a job for a younger person?

I think it's true that in general people's views tend to become more right wing as they get older. Not in my case as I cling to my old liberal leftie views and polish my old CND badge. wonders whether I am still on MI5 list
Having said that I see very little evidence among teenagers of the earnest political opinions that we all seemed to hold back then.
I also remember the dark days of the 3 day week.

[Floisme]

I think young people have always kicked against the older generation. It seems to be hard wired into our DNA.

My parents were born in the 1920s. Their generation lived through the Depression, facism and afterwards worked hard to make the world a better place. Were we grateful? Were we hell! All we could see was a world on the brink of nuclear destruction and guess who we held responsible?

Now that most of them are gone, I regret that attitude, just like many young people will I'm sure, come to view the boomers differently once we're dead. But by that time it will be your turn to be reviled by Generation Z and so it will go on, which is a shame because we could all learn a lot if we listened to each other more.

[Andrewofgg]

SecretSquirrels If we mustn't job-hog because the next generation need the joy and mustn't draw the final salary pensions (which we signed up for and contributed to) because the next generation can't afford it - I guess that leaves no choice but the clinic in Switzerland. And they'll expect us to pay for that.

[SecretSquirrels]

Andrewofgg That's the answer! Oh no wait, if we pay for it then we will be squandering our children's inheritance inheritance.

[JanetBookLover]

I think most of us like my father will have to pay our life savings to fund our old age care. He did just after he used them all up.

[DustBunnyFarmer]

Cheer up Boomers, I expect hungry Milennials and Generation Ys will be dispatching us Soylent Green-style to keep meat (long pig) on the menu as we head into our sunset years. We'll look back on this period and rail against you Boomers for being allowed to live out your full four score and ten (and then some).

[twoopsie]

Classic boomer stuff here, taking credit and patting themselves on the back for stuff that was nothing to do with them and claiming not to of pulled the ladder up behind them. Will they take the claim for falling social mobility and falling living of stanards for younger generation?

Mil and fil are very embarrassed to part of a generation that lived well beyond its means and then left the next to generations to pay for it, and have have a decreasing quality of life.

The boomer stance is don't blame us blame them (bankers, MPs) or blame the young people that are so disenfranchised that they don't vote. Its always blame passing.

Boomers will not go down well in history.

Things will start to change as people start to understand they are funding a lifestyle for other people they they won't receive themselves.

[Nomama]

Are you serious, twoopsie?

You have parents living high in the hog, denying you your just desserts and PILs who truly wish for the Soylent Green moment?

That boomer stance doesn't exist here. I am not a boomer, many others posting here are not - I am surprised how few posting on this thread are - yet you continue to rail against them!

The whole point of me starting this thread was that you are blaming Boomers, yes! That blame passing thing you so decry! And you are doing it with very little actual basis. You make statements, emote, but have not yet given any concrete incidences, other than you apparently selfish parents and, now, your apologetically waiting to die PILs!

[twoopsie]

There is plenty of basis.

[Nomama]

Go on... enlighten us!

[twoopsie]

You've happily ignored the facts people posted here that you don't align with your viewpoint.

Go to the insitute of fiscal studies and read any report with boomers in, but don't quote it out of context.

[JanetBookLover]

What are the ages of boomers? I think my parents were too old and I think I'm too young but both they and I have had a pretty difficult time/life of it.
I don't really remember a time when life wasn't hard for most people.

My parents never lived beyond their means and my father worked until he was virtually dead so I don't see any living high on the hog in that generation.

The best thing most people can realise is life will always be pretty tough so the sooner you realise that, tolerate it and work really hard the more likely that self responsibility will help you help yourself. The blame game might make some people feel better for sounding off but it rarely actually gets them the result they want, whatever that result might be.

[Clawdy]

Baby boomers were born in the first few years after the Second World War ended, peak year being 1947.

[SecretSquirrels]

JanetBookLover I think the boomers are supposed to be those born between 1946 and 1964.

My parents were born in the 30s and I was born in the 50s. It's hard to see why some poster feel that ordinary people like me are somehow responsible for the way their lives have turned out . I voted. I worked all my life and paid tax. I didn't go to university myself, no one I knew did. I have never lived beyond my means, never borrowed money other than a mortgage. I am now faced with two DC having to get upwards of £50K in debt to go to university. If there is something I could have done differently to avoid that I'd love to know what it is?

[Nomama]

"You've happily ignored the facts people posted here that you don't align with your viewpoint.

Go to the insitute of fiscal studies and read any report with boomers in, but don't quote it out of context."

What? What facts? Ignored what? What out of context quotes?

Facts like, announced today, UCAS, for the first time more than half a million students have been placed, for every 3 males, there are 4 females. That was not something boomers, or Gen Xrs, could ever have hoped for. And, despite the meeja hype, it is free at the point of entry, only paid back if you reap the benefits of it.

[Andrewofgg]

SecretSquirrels As far as I can see our offence is actuarial - we are living too long. Our pensions will cost more than seemed likely when we signed up to them. So we are greedy to expect them.

I remember in 1980 doing the probate for a man who was born in 1890. He had had a successful business career and sold out in 1950 when (having no children) he bought an annuity on two lives from an insurance company. And at that time buying index linking cost very little so he did it. Inflation was then very low; it took off in 1968. So when he died at age 90 (his wife having died first) the annuity had paid out much
More than it had cost him.

Too bad, of course, the company had to pay and did pay. But some of the Boomer-haters would probably be looking for reasons why it should not have to.

[Nomama]

IFS www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/comms/r95.pdf

16% of 65- to 69-year-old women are in work in 2010–11 and we expect this to rise to 37% in 2022–23. Our model projects that 60- to 64-year-old women will be as likely to be in paid work as men of that age by 2018–19, with the equivalent being true of 65- to 69-year-old women by 2020–21.

That is boomers working longer, 70 in 2022 born in 1952.

We project that between 2010–11 and 2022–23 the average real gross income among those aged 65 to 74 will grow by an average of 3.8% per year. Average growth within the top quintile of the individual gross income distribution is projected to be greater than that within the bottom quintile (4.9% compared with 1.5%). ... This increase in mean earnings occurs as the state pension age rises and some people remain in work for longer. In addition, real median earnings for 65- to 74-year-old women in paid work are projected to rise over the period, suggesting the additional older workers are earning more on average than workers aged 65 and over were in the past.

So that's boomers, working longer, earning more - job hogging or retiring early on benefits you pay for - which is it?

Many of our most striking findings are the projected changes for older women, not least because each generation of women has had very different experiences from the one preceding it. This is precisely the type of change that a dynamic (rather than a static) microsimulation model is designed to allow for. Employment rates for women in their late 60s, which are already at their highest level since the late 1960s, are set to increase faster, approaching or even overtaking men’s in the early 2020s. We project that 37% of women aged 65 to 69 will be in paid work in 2020–21, compared with 16% in 2010–11 and just 8% in 2000.

So the IFS does say that older people are living longer, healthier lives and are in receipt of more money - but also that individually they are costing less (healthier) and are working longer.... and abject poverty of the retired is reducing - a good thing, surely?

Things are not as black and white as they may seem. As I have said many times, the things you read in the paper are not the whole story!

[BackOnlyBriefly]

Things will start to change as people start to understand they are funding a lifestyle for other people they they won't receive themselves.

And what do you think will happen,twoopsie? or what do you daydream will happen?

[WetAugust]

and if you do continue to work into your later years you will probably find that the lack if a degree us a bar to further promotions as graduates are perceived as the minimum level if education fir dime posts, regardless if the amount of experience you may have attained in a specialist field during your career to date.

you may also find that you are perceived as 'over the hill' by your younger work colleagues. A friend if mine working post 60 experienced very bad ageism and that ruined the final years if an otherwise glittering career.

so you're damned if you retire and damned if you continue to work