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Many Humble Dollar readers, including myself, are on the older side – approaching retirement or already retired. Readership tends to be relatively affluent and educated. Our financial and social perspective may at times be influenced by a generational outlook. At the risk of overgeneralizing, here are some possible baby boomer versus Under 40 year old viewpoints:
Artificial Intelligence
Baby boomer: A new development with many unknowns and exciting possibilities. AI could play a dangerous role in future scams targeting them.
Under 40: A helpful resource for day-to-day usage. AI could pose a threat to their jobs and future career path.
Social Security
Baby boomer: A dependable economic safety net which hopefully will not change.
Under 40: An employment tax which may or may not provide benefits by the time they retire.
Homeownership
Baby boomer: A foundational investment which provides a major source of savings and wealth.
Under 40: Limited inventory and priced out of certain markets. It could feel unattainable without some parental support.
Work / Life Balance
Baby boomer: An entitlement after a lifetime of hard work.
Under 40: Why should they have to wait until they are older to enjoy life? Will working even harder matter anyway?
Economics of Family
Baby boomer: Having a family has been part of traditional planning.
Under 40: When is the right time (if at all) for children given financial challenges?
Have you noticed any differing perspectives between generations which may be interesting to explore?
The younger generation faces considerable educational challenges due to the rapid pace of change plus AI. Adaptability and continuous updating of educational skills have become crucial.
I will say one place where the younger generation has shined is the value they place on education, which has been a bedrock of our country’s success for many, many years. Millennials and Gen Z have a much larger share of people with college degrees, and most would say that their education is an essential factor of their success. Despite college being just a little more expensive than a summer’s wages these days, many still see and pursue the value of higher ed.
Generally very true, but I’d like to see a comparison between the types of degrees earned between then and now.
Most popular majors from 1970-2013
https://flowingdata.com/2016/12/07/fields-of-study-ranked-over-past-few-decades/
Business is up from 3rd in 1970 to 1st since 1980. Health professionals are up from 9th to 2nd.
I promise you a B.A. in Underwater Basket Weaving is likely as prominent in 1950 as it is in 2025. 🙄 I actually doubt it’s changed a whole lot, the big ones like business, medicine, education, engineering, social sciences, etc. are likely the top dogs over time.
I’d add:
Politeness
Baby boomer: Please and thank you. OK some aren’t but in general in my experience this is our norm. Maybe because we are thankful to be alive? i know i am..
Under 40:
It depends.. but please and thank you seem much less common from my observations.
I’m well under 40 and I use please and thank you all the time. Definitely don’t agree with this take. The rudest people when I worked retail were always older folks, and stay at home moms. Of course, that was a small, small minority of all the people I interacted with, so I would never generalize against those groups based on a handful of anecdotal evidence.
I agree Liam, I don’t think any generation has a monopoly on politeness or rudeness.
I notice this is less common as well. Seems like it would be easy to send a ‘thank you’ text.
It is some sort of cultural narcissism? I don’t understand it to be honest.
The under 40 act like they are the only generation to have a hard time. I was born in 1956, the oldest of 6 kids (4 boys, 2 girls). Myself and my bothers and sisters all had to get newspaper delivery routes when we were in junior high school in the middle 1960’s. That was so we could pay for our own school books. Although my dad had a good paying united auto workers job with American Motors, he had to get an additional part time job to support his stay at home wife and 6 children. I graduated from high school in 1974. Twice over the next 20 years I lost good paying factory jobs because of bad recessions in 1975 and 1980 and had to start over.
Under 40’s also seem to think the government is supposed to protect them from making bad choices. They take out school loans with no regard to the amount or if the collage degree they are after will lead to a good enough job to let them pay back the loan.
They complain they can’t find a house and that interest rates are too high. Most won’t buy a fixer upper. I lived at home until I was 35 and had saved enough for a 10% down payment for a house. My first and only house was a fixer upper that I could afford in a run down but up and coming neighborhood. I thought I was lucky to get a mortgage with an interest rate of “only” 8% on a 15 year loan in 1992. In 7 years I had paid off the loan and when I retired 3 years ago had no debt hanging over my head.
Let us have a little compassion for our children’s generation and not judge them too harshly as a generation of victims of their own follies. Each generation faces a different economic pressure, making comparisons between generations unhelpful.
Who created economic environment that our children now face? look into our own mirrors. Our children were too young to know about the 1993 NAFTA and the subsequent change in the economic landscape. It is our “adult” CEOs that exported jobs outside our borders, suppressed the unions, and demanded that a college degree for any job with a meaningful career path. It’s our own school administrations that cut out vocational program funding for high schools. The government that we elected made student loans easy for everyone, allowing our “adult” university administrations to jack up the tuitions far above the inflation rate while not taking any responsibility that the degrees they confer may not help the students repay the loans. When an enterprise sells a worthless product on easy credit, the buyers get debt and lemons. Who’s to blame: sellers, lenders or borrowers?
I own my share of responsibilities for giving the younger generation a world not any better, or even worse, than what was handed to me.
I am afraid that I share that perspective.
I graduated from a Top engineering school in 1981 with minimal debt; but found myself out of work in the 1982 recession. It was a long road back that included pawning items to buy groceries, shopping with a calculator to see what we could afford, and purchasing a foreclosure as our first home (with a double-digit interest rate).
I hear about how difficult it is for my son’s generation, but I don’t see any of them doing those types of things.
Well I’m a boomer and my wife and I have two children in their 30’s, but they don’t share many of their contemporarie’s views. They both own their own homes (and yes we helped with the down payment), but they learned early on that hard work and frugality was key in their long term success. They recognize that no one is going to give them something for nothing and that you get out of life what you put in it. They also rely on God as their sole source and believe that their income, their savings, and investments are simply resources.
Baby Boomers:
All music (after a certain date) is just ‘noise’.
Our music is the greatest music since Bach/Beethoven/Mozart.
Baby Boomer Parents:
Turn down that noise!
Under 40:
Taylor Swift (or whomever) writes the greatest music since Bach/Beethoven/Mozart.
Say it ain’t so – nothing ages someone more than allegiance to a particular era or genre of music. Classic rock dinosaur radio stations et al.
There are plenty of GOATs:
JSB
Offenbach
The King
Beatles/Stones
Cash
Aretha
Smokey Robinson
Simon & Garfunkel
Pistols
Blondie
Public Enemy
Nirvana
Daft Punk
Jay-Z
Beyonce
Swift
Alien Ant Farm
Currently Wet Leg, Soft Play and Amyl and the Sniffers show promise in a sarky, nu punk sort of way
One of these may not be a genuine contender
Baby boomers: I don’t have to walk and look at my phone for that social media post, I can wait until I’m home.
Under 40: walking and looking at my phone are a necessity
Heck, I’m not sure if under-40 males can even use a public bathroom’s urinal without whipping out their phone. I see this all the time! One hand scrolling while the other hand is…taking care of business. I’m thinking, “You can’t even go 25 seconds without looking at your phone??”
As a male who is 40 (not under) I often see this too, and find it amazing. I’ll even admit that I’m usually hoping to see them drop the phone.
Every generation is different, different challenges, different opportunities and different things to complain about.
My parents born in 1910 and 1918 were a generation with many problems and challenges and lived paycheck to paycheck all their lives. But I don’t recall them ever complaining that they could not buy a house.
I see the generational demand for more and better and bigger as the cause of obstacles the under 40 now complain about. Previous generation were satisfied with less of everything.
The 30-year mortgage rate is now about 6.85% I bought four residences between 1970 and 2018 and never had a mortgage rate that low and with a higher down payment required. Yes, except the last purchase they were less expensive than the average today, but they were very old and smaller too.
It seems to me the under 40 are seeking too many assurances and guarantees. I must admit from the day I graduated high school in 1961 I never thought about what I might have more or less than my parents.
It was ingrained in me you just worked toward what you needed or wanted no matter how long it took. When I bought my first car it was the cheapest least equipped possible. Fifty years later I bought the car I wanted.
Do the under 40 have that patience? I suggest they see hardship has having to wait or do with less or without…and may blame circumstances or others for it.
Thanks Dan. Agree generalizing about different generations is not simple. But trying to understand generational perspectives helps avoid over simplifying topics.
At the risk of over generalizing I think you nailed it pretty well. I still enjoy wrestling a real book versus an electronic version. I love wasting time listening to an old-school stereo and reading the liner notes included with the record; most youngsters have little or no interest my tradition.
I don’t disagree with other commenters saying, hey, it’s not that simple, but for the most part I think you got it right.
Amen to reading album liner notes, lyrics, contributing musicians, and production personnel.
I used to do that, but now I settle for lyrics on Spotify.
If I’m being honest Randy, I am not at all adverse to streaming. I like a service called Tidal, it’s near digital quality and sounds great on the old record player, and it travels well.
Randy & Dan – I only stream if I have to. Services like Spotify and Apple music screw the artists on their royalties. If at all possible I use Bandcamp for streaming because it is artist friendly in terms of royalties. I usually buy the physical media (directly from the artist if possible) and then upload it to iTunes Match. That way I have paid the artist and cut Apple out of the process.
I’ve bought a few things on Bandcamp, sometimes on “Bandcamp Friday” when the artist gets all the money. But I find Spotify hard to beat for discovering new and old music that suits my tastes.
Wow, why haven’t I heard of this before. I’m on the website now listening to stuff I’ve never heard before. Thanks Jeff.
If you like instrumental rock, listen to the latest Electromags album.
There are many ways to slice up data including how people feel about the topics mentioned in this post. Certainly generational is one such perspective. Unfortunately, there are many Baby Boomers who aren’t as successful economically as the readers of Humble Dollar. Likewise, in my neighborhood of million dollar homes, most are being purchased by under 40 successful tech worker couples. I don’t thinks these home buyers share the views of the less financially successful members of their age group. Certainly, many are having children.
There is a huge gulf throughout our society separating those who succeed and those who do not. I think this is a much larger factor than what generation you were born into.
I was thinking about how our kids live life vs how it was when we were raising them. The biggest difference I see is that they spend more of their time and money on experiences than we did. I think this is a good thing. We lived away from our extended families when they were kids, so most of our limited excess time and money was spent visiting family. We still live away from the extended family, and visits are far fewer for our kids to the grandparents now.
I also wanted to mention that Spouse and I are younger baby boomers and our life experience has been more like gen x than the older boomers. We ended up ok, but it was a slog to get there. Chris
Boomers have essentially won the game ( bar the final one which everyone loses). U40s have far more uncertainty. The Gen Xers in between are probably very mixed in terms of their security depending on life choices and the decline of DB pensions.
I find in general people tend not to act as “old” as their parents did at similar ages.But hey original punks may be in their 70s.