The economic tension between younger and older Americans — millennials and Gen Zers in their 20s, 30s and 40s versus baby boomers and older Gen Xers in their 60s, 70s and 80s — has become Greco-Roman in scale.
From the younger adults’ perspective, much of their financial lives can be defined by what they lack compared to their parents: They can’t afford to buy a home, they feel like their wages have stagnated, they don’t feel “comfortable” with how much money they’ve got saved, they’re worried about AI obliterating their job prospects, consumer products aren’t quality anymore, all the furniture is cheap and, oh, right, they’ll be living through the more acute impacts of the climate crisis, explicitly caused by capitalistic oil boomers of the roaring 1980s.
