individuals pointed to a major event, like the death of a spouse or a medical emergency, as the trigger.
Gee, if only we had a healthcare system that wasn’t solely focused on making a profit and growing the amount of profit quarter after quarter.
It’s not just that, it’s Boomers as a generation not saving.
Obviously some did, but most have lived their entire lives paycheck to paycheck and have zero security net. It’s why they’re not retiring like other generations, it’s not a choice, they just can’t ever stop working.
And they can’t recover from any speed bumps they hit. Losing a spouse for those people also means losing an income. And that can mean losing housing.
What is it that half the boomer threads complain that boomers are hoarding all the money in their 401Ks, and the other half say that boomers didn’t save anything?
Because despite how the internet likes to talk, you can’t generalize an entire generation in a single lemmy comment while still being accurate
I agree, but man do they do it. Search Lemmy for this headline (just “Baby boomers are becoming homeless” because there are variations), then skim the comments and imagine they were written about any other demographic. It’s pretty frightening.
It boils down to we were mostly raised by boomers and we’re mad at our parents
And teachers. Every adult millennials dealt with either was literally a Boomer or had enough of their politics to shove their bullshit down our throats our whole lives.
We are angry because it was all self serving lies.
Because there was a fair portion of the boomer gen that inherited wads of cash and housing from their parents.
The rest of us were disowned, worked low-paying jobs and/or tried to help our kids do better than we did.
I guess I’m in the middle. I got a good education paid for by my parents, but nothing after that. I’ve worked decent paying jobs and tried to help our kids. Not rich, but should be able to retire fine.
Because only a few of the boomers became ceos, the rest are just “useful idiots” that vote against their own best interests.
A significant amount never planned to retire or else thought OASDI would be all they’d need. By the time they realized they were fucked, it was too late.
It looks to me like boomers’ retirement savings aren’t vastly different from other age ranges. I believe this is 2020 data, so boomers would be 56 to 74.
Lol, an unsourced image…
A boomer would think that’s a valid source
You, of course, could have taken the thirty seconds to do a search and see if the data I linked is out of bed with the myriad other sources on the subject, and even could have done a reverse image search to see where mine came from, but it’s more fun for you to be dismissive of anyone from an age group you think is less worthy of respect than all the others.
That data is from a TD Ameritrade/Harris poll. I pulled it from this article because I liked the way it’s graphed, but you can find others that say the same thing.
If you think the range of years my birthday falls into is all you need to know about me, we can talk about credentials if you’d like. Personally, I try to be respectful of everyone until they show me that they, as an individual, aren’t deserving respect.
See?
All you had to do was link the source and I could have immediately told you what you’re not understanding…
Under the caption it says “currently in savings”.
No shit the longer someone is retired the more of their savings they’ve gone thru.
Be nicer next time you think you know what you’re talking about, and people may help you more.
I’m not putting any effort into teaching you basic logic you should have learned 50 years ago in elementary
Because sample size of n = 1
Both of those things can be true, though i think you’re right that the criticisms get a little incoherent.
Honestly. Medical bills are the number one cause for bankruptcy in the US
So nobody gives a shit that the younger generations can’t afford a house, but it’s “unconscionable” when boomers can’t?
You don’t earn the title “Me” generation without being legendarily self important.
That was my first thought, homelessness has risen all across the board, especially among children, but boomers are still made the focus.
Honestly, maybe this is an effective strategy. Rather than continue to try to convince them to care about others, we just have to convince them that they are in danger themselves. Republicans discovered that fear motivates boomers better than avocado motivates millennials, so it’s time to start using the tools we have available to drive the point home.
And then we can finally get our hands on all that sweet avocado and toast…
“Well, well, well…if it isn’t the consequences of my actions”
The young people who can’t BUY a house still have housing. This is about unhoused people who are in a decidedly worse position.
I don’t know what’s it’s like where you are, but there are definitely also a lot of young homeless people where I live. I don’t just mean house-less, I mean living in tents or worse.
It really sucks that so many people are suffering, and there isn’t even a good reason for it.
You can work your arse off day in, day out, only to get hit by someone driving drunk. Then, you get stuck on insufficient disability payments, even through you had no fault in what happened to you. Even if you manage get a decent court payout in a good country, you’re still probably looking at a lot of expenses accessibility-wise (ESPECIALLY if you live somewhere like the US.) A lot of that stuff isn’t cheap. Plus, you would have to try to make that payment last for the rest of your life. Food, bills, rent, clothing, and more would all still be costs you would have.
It sucks that so many people push back against any kind of support for these individuals. It really makes you wonder what they would do if they woke up with the shoe on the other foot.
the people complaining they can’t buy a house aren’t the unhoused crowd to begin with.
If it was easier to buy a house, rent would likely also be lower, due the lower demand.
That’s true but it doesn’t change my point which is that the person complaining they cannot afford to buy a home isn’t an unhoused person.
That’s true, but that person wasn’t me.
I wasn’t defending their comment. I was making a factual statement.
Boomer retirement plans and savings aren’t enough? Sheesh what hope do any of us have, then? They are the wealthiest generation this country has ever seen…
Maybe they should stop buying lattes and avocado toast 😉 something…something…boot straps
Maybe boomers (or anyone) shouldn’t live for too long /s
Drop the /s. There’s 8 billions of us out there, this discussion will arise sooner or later.
Sad but true
Have you seen the size of the average American home?
It doesn’t matter how much money you make if you spend it all after you’ve already exceeded your ability to earn income through work when you still have decades left to live .
I don’t subscribe to “all boomers blew their money.” My parents worked hard all their lives, and were as successful as any average couple. They are fortunate enough to have a roof over their head and some assets to liquidate, but there’s no question they were not where they anticipated being financially entering retirement.
It’s just hard out here. Every year the rug gets a little longer, the treadmill runs a bit faster. Even if you get ahead, do everything right, it just takes one market downturn or medical diagnosis to still lose.
How did these boomers vote?
What policies did they support for their entire lives that have impacted this?
Not every boomer supported the GOP or Reagan.
An awful lot of them did, though.
Every thread where boomers get mentioned, there’s so much hate, and a lot of questionable information. I don’t think this community would stand for it if people said “I can’t wait until they’re all dead” about any other group, but I see it regularly about boomers.
Here’s a Pew research chart on the 2020 election demographics by age. Yes, it does show that there are more older Trump voters than older Biden voters, but bit look at the magnitude of the differences - it’s very small. Also notice that the difference between the number of younger Trump voters and younger Biden voters isn’t that great either.
People think all the older people are wearing MAGA hats and all the younger people are wearing pride shirts, but the reality is the amount that the age groups skew one way or the other isn’t that huge. There are tons of liberal older people (like me) and lots of conservative younger people.
wow, they’re barely different. thanks for sharing the stats 🙂
None of what you said pertains to my comment. Did you respond to me by accident?
I’m not seeing the disconnect. Your said an awful lot of boomers are GOP voters. I said that it’s more than half, but not a lot more, and the percentage of younger GOP voters wasn’t a lot less than half. What did I miss?
Was I wrong?
If you want to adopt the boomer tag and be offended go right ahead, but the point is, the boomer generation had the leg up on voting during their prime years and they chose to elect pieces of shit that slowed world’s progress and harmed millions of innocent people. Sure there were boomers who didn’t but I’m not talking about them.
I think you’re wrong. Look back on the chart I linked, at the first column in each set. That’s the demographics back in 96, since we’re talking about laws enacted that we’re living with. We could go back further, but this one is handy and the data doesn’t change drastically.
You’re saying boomers have been voting conservative and elected in all those shitty Republicans who passed laws favoring the rich. Well here’s the data. Keep in mind that in 1996, boomers were 32 to 50 years old.
- The same percentage of people 18 to 29 voted for Republicans as Democrats.
- For people 30 to 49 (the vast majority are boomers), 43% voted Republican and 41% voted Democrat, just a 2% difference
- For people 50 to 64, 22% voted Republican and 21% voted Democrat, a 1% difference
- For people 65 and older, 18% voted Republican and 20% voted Democrat, a 2% difference
So where’s the wild split saying boomers were overwhelmingly conservative? Oh, and take a look at this chart showing average political leaning by year of birth. It just doesn’t hold water. The silent generation shows as much more conservative, but you know what? It’s because that data was taken when they were old. When they were young, it wasn’t nearly as true. Old boomers now are more conservative than younger boomers on average; is basically true for every generation and there’s zero evidence that it don’t be true for whichever one you fall into.
For every hippy progressive, there were at least 5 Leave it to Beavers ready to take up the conservative mantle. Sure, not every Boomer supported the GOP, but a ton definitely did.
Well, they brought it on themselves.
No sympathy, not even a little.
When we can’t afford housing we’re told to get a second job, get a better job, stop buying things we can’t afford, eat only 2 meals a day, etc. When the reality is that we can’t afford housing because of the world they created, how they vote, and because they pulled up the ladder with them just before they told us to find our own way.
Well, those same policies and voting habits are finally biting them in the ass and we’re supposed to give a shit?
Nah, they’re attitude has always been “fuck you, got mine” well, fuck them too, they also got mine.Yep and when they complain about paying taxes or how things got so expensive you tell them to get a job and they gasp and say “I paid my dues…I’m retired”.
Tarring an entire generation with the same brush is dumb as hell. It’s dumb when boomers whine about the young and it’s dumb when people try and pin the blame for this mess on literally everyone in a similar age group.
It’s not that they all wanted this to a person but the majority, and not just a slim majority but a big one, wanted this. We can’t just turn a blind eye to that. This is democracy functioning as designed: People get what they ask for.
There were actually no homeless Boomers during the great depression.
That’s why the numbers haven’t been seen before.
Hey this is what they wanted, right? Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, ya chucklefucks! Stop buying all that diabetic medicine and eating out at Bob Evans every day!
Let’s see how many of those same boomers still blame everyone else, including liberals, for how their life is ending up and continue voting for the same party that stripped them of the social safetynets and policies that may have helped them out in a situation like this.
Implying that Boomers only vote Republican is reductionist and unproductive. They vote proportionately similar to the rest of the country. There’s just THAT many retards across all age groups, including Gen Z, in America that vote against their economic interests.
I’m not disagreeing that retards exist in all age groups but saying Boomers vote proportionally similar to the rest of the country isn’t accurate either.
Ages 18-29 voted 60% for Biden and 36% for Trump. Ages 65 and older voted 45% for Biden and 52% for Trump.
Can we use a different word
What’s wrong with Boomer?
Here’s why…
…They all have been voting republican since Reagan.
Full stop.
Maybe I’m dumb for not lumping an entire generation of people into this huge group of bad actors who intentionally and maliciously hurt all subsequent generations.
The issue is money. What part of “people don’t have money” is so hard to digest?
The disparity has become much much wider over the years, and that is the issue.
The ones hording wealth and property are not the ones going homeless.
Here’s a
.Lest you think that a one-off,
.Boomers loved that withered, hateful, hollowed out motherfucker.
(Yeah that’s the electoral college and the popular vote was a lot closer, but that’s a level of support no President has had since in even one election let alone two.)
deleted by creator
TFW you live through one of the most prosperous times in the most prosperous nation in the world (a time when you could go to college, buy a house, and have a family on a job that anyone could apply to) and you STILL end up poor. Talk about dumb.
It’s because as conditions changed, they never lost that mentality.
My boomer parents make twice the food they need to eat for dinner every single time and then just throw out or freeze and forget the leftovers, they could literally cut their food budgets in half just by being more reasonable with their portion sizes.
They have coffee at home and a nice coffeemaker, they go out for coffee almost every day driving a round trip of ~50km for the exact same brand of coffee they have at home, and when I mentioned this to them the last time they were having financial problems they said something to the effect of “oh well it’s only a few dollars each” not even understanding that the gas they use and the wear they put on their vehicles is part of it too, and maybe it only costs a few dollars (plus gas etc) that when you do it every day it adds up.
It’s literally the same as talking to my preteen nieces and nephews, they just have no concept of the value of a dollar, and are completely unwilling to change a single aspect of their lives to save money, and then get confused as to how they keep running out of money before the end of the month. I know that sooner or later I am going to have to take them in, or put them in a home, because they can’t even manage their own finances and get angry and defensive any time I try to make suggestions to help them.
I still remember being really frustrated with an ex’s teenage brother and his inability to save money. It was like only the short term existed, and somehow inexplicably the short term always kind of sucked.
At least he was a teenager. A lot of adults never advance
I agree with what you said, but until your household jointly makes 75k+, it’s really hard to save money when just existing eats up most of your expenses. I felt like I could breathe at 75k when my wife wasn’t working, 100k was when I could cover all bills and still have enough to save up a bit of money. That’s with my being lucky in that I bought my house 5 years ago and my mortgage is only like $900/mo…(modest 2br home in not a great neighborhood ) total monthly bills ends up being about $3k(including groceries, gas, utilities, car insurance and car payment being about $600 for both cars) Wife started working again so with her 50k and my 100k I can finally have financial goals instead of thinking about just surviving. Rent in my city starts at $1500 and I have no idea how normal people are getting by.
One of the worst things about being poor is that it becomes a mentality. If you have spare money after your bills are paid, you get used to it disappearing by life’s circumstances such as an issue with your car, so people have the mentality of “I need to spend it before it gets spent on something else.” That’s why when people do their taxes and get money back for child tax credits and stuff and suddenly they go from a couple dollars in the account to $3000-$5000+ they go out and buy sofas or nice televisions.
That is definitely not their problem.
Do they also eat a lot of avocado toast?
Is this why grandma has an OnlyFans?
Oh this is the perfect thread for a trickle down economics joke.
That caught me off guard.
Nah, she’s just freaky.
That was serious funny right there.
This is terrible, and nobody deserves this. As a millennial that has ben constantly screwed by boomers and their collective decisions, I can’t help but to think that “you rip what you saw. Maybe they should try to make the coffee at home to save money, instead of going to Starbucks. Also, they’ll be fine if they stop eating so many expensive avocados.”
you rip what you saw
reap, you reap what you sow, because if you sow wheat on fertile ground, you can later reap wheat.
rip what you saw kinda works if you’re talking about ripping plywood 😁
"you rip what you saw.
You reap what you sew.
As in; you harvest the plants that grew from the seeds you planted.
Sow, sewing is mending clothes, Sowing is planting seeds
Although “you rip what you sew” kinda works though. Going full circle here.
Egg and my face are in alignment.
Live by the sword. Die by the sword I guess.
This sparks joy. Welcome to the party you created.
I agree and understand however the ones going homeless were most likely victimized by the ones who created this situation in their peer group
