Mark Casci: Baby Boomers are getting a tough rap but do they deserve it?

'All good men and women must take responsibility to create legacies that will take the next generation to a level we could only imagine,' wrote Jim Rohn the great American entrepreneur.
Are the Baby Boomers getting an unfair rap?Are the Baby Boomers getting an unfair rap?
Are the Baby Boomers getting an unfair rap?

Rohn was writing at a time of unprecedented economic growth, as incomes steadily improved throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s providing the post war generation, so-called Baby Boomers, with the bedrock for what would prove to be one of the most prosperous and financially secure demographics in history.

People aged between 60 and 75 had it all. Soaring property prices, final salary pension schemes, a by then well-established NHS and a financial system that protected the high street banks from risky trading added up to a healthy brew of favourable circumstances that has allowed many to retire well in advance of age in which their Government pension kicks in and still enjoy a very good quality of life.

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Leading wealth managers Brewin Dolphin, based in Leeds, commissioned YouGov to poll on this matter. The results were staggering.

Millennials face paying £44,000 more on rent typically by the time they turn 30 than the baby boomer generation, analysis from a think-tank has found.Millennials face paying £44,000 more on rent typically by the time they turn 30 than the baby boomer generation, analysis from a think-tank has found.
Millennials face paying £44,000 more on rent typically by the time they turn 30 than the baby boomer generation, analysis from a think-tank has found.

Well over half of respondents (62%) believe that the younger generation will be financially worse off than themselves as they grow older, with only a fifth (18%) thinking that they will be better off.

More worrying is the generation that comes immediately afterwards. Those in their 40s and 50s face twin pressures, namely those of being required to look after their ageing relatives and provide the best for their children.

Baby Boomers have met with a great deal of criticism regarding the legacy they are leaving behind, particularly following the Brexit vote in which much was made of the fact that the overwhelming backing for leaving the EU came from over 60s, in the stark contrast to younger generations who by enlarge favoured remain and felt cheated by the result.

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However, politics aside, it is hard to see how much we can blame this much-maligned generation for their progeny’s travails.

Much of the approprium thrown their way is born out of bitterness.

The concept of a Final Salary Pension is completely unsustainable in modern Britain. Indeed the whole pension system remains hopelessly out of kilter with the requirements that the soon-to-retire possess. Indeed only two per cent of Baby Boomers said they anticipated their children’s pensions being worth more than theirs.

Property prices reflect a market reality that proved politically advantageous for successive governments and regulatory burdens have made the construction of affordable homes prohibitive for developers.

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In essence all this much-maligned group of people have done is taken advantage of favourable circumstances, how many generations both before and after them would have done any different?

Millennials face paying £44,000 more on rent typically by the time they turn 30 than the baby boomer generation, analysis from a think-tank has found.Millennials face paying £44,000 more on rent typically by the time they turn 30 than the baby boomer generation, analysis from a think-tank has found.
Millennials face paying £44,000 more on rent typically by the time they turn 30 than the baby boomer generation, analysis from a think-tank has found.

There is a significant flipside to this argument too, and one that is seldom aired in public.

It is unquestionably true that younger people, especially those in their twenties, face significant barriers, particularly in terms of accessing the property ladder.

Indeed many people under 35 doubt that there will ever come a time when they are able to retire with a sustainable pension.

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And while the Brexit vote did leave many young people with a result they did not desire, we should not forget that the turnout for the referendum vote was significantly lower among young people than older, a state of being that is generally replicated across all elections.

A case in point is the current groundswell of support for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, with many of his acolytes shrugging off the fact that he is one of the least likely leaders of the opposition to achieve electoral success in decades, saying that victory at the ballot box is not a primary concern for them, with the focus more on raising issues.

This illogical thinking speaks to the general disenfranchisement felt by many young people from mainstream politics and life in general, something we could again lay the blame for at the door of the Baby Boomers who manufactured these circumstances.

So are the Baby Boomers failing the young or are the young failing themselves.

At the moment, I think it is a little bit of both.