There’s a generational rigidity you may nearly really feel buzzing by way of group chats and household dinners. Millennials and Gen Z are sometimes informed they complain an excessive amount of about housing, jobs, debt, and the economic system. However once they push again with information and comparisons, one phrase surfaces repeatedly: “Boomers had it simpler.”

At first look, it sounds just like the form of factor each youthful technology says. However while you dig deeper into wages, value of dwelling, and alternative gaps, it begins to look much less like a whine and extra like a actuality verify. So, had been issues actually simpler for child boomers? Or are youthful generations simply struggling to regulate to the fashionable world?

A Take a look at the Numbers

It’s simple to romanticize the previous, however the numbers don’t lie. Within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, shopping for a home on a single earnings wasn’t simply attainable. It was regular. The average home cost in 1970 was round $17,000. Even when adjusted for inflation, it’s nowhere close to at this time’s sky-high actual property costs. In the meantime, wages had been rising steadily, and school tuition wasn’t a monetary dying sentence.

At this time’s youthful generations, in distinction, face stagnant wages, crushing pupil debt, astronomical lease, and the rising value of fundamentals like groceries, fuel, and childcare. A school diploma, as soon as a ticket to the center class, now usually results in years, typically a long time, of mortgage compensation and not using a assured payoff. In brief, youthful generations aren’t lazy. They’re taking part in a a lot more durable recreation.

The Job Market Isn’t What It Used to Be

Boomers got here into maturity throughout a time when jobs had been extra steady, pensions had been frequent, and employer loyalty was usually rewarded. The concept of staying with one firm for 30 years wasn’t a fantasy. It was a plan.

Now? The job market is way extra precarious. Gig work, contract roles, and job hopping are the brand new norm, and it’s not as a result of younger individuals are flaky. Relatively, it’s as a result of conventional profession ladders have eroded. Advantages like healthcare and retirement plans are more and more uncommon outdoors of company or authorities roles. And even then, burnout is rampant.

Youthful staff are sometimes compelled to commerce safety for flexibility, and even these working a number of jobs nonetheless wrestle to make ends meet. In a system the place loyalty is not rewarded and upward mobility is elusive, it’s no marvel younger individuals are skeptical of recommendation like “simply work more durable.”

The Worth of Freedom Has Gone Up

Boomers usually speak about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, however these boots got here with fewer obstacles. Faculty was inexpensive, minimal wage had extra shopping for energy, and social applications had been extra strong. Beginning a household, shopping for a home, or touring the world felt attainable, not aspirational.

Examine that to at this time’s value of independence. Shifting out at 18 is now a luxurious, not a milestone. Lease alone can eat up greater than half a paycheck, and inflation has hit on a regular basis bills more durable than headline numbers usually present. Younger adults aren’t making an attempt to skip steps; the steps simply acquired steeper.

A Cultural Divide in Expectations

There’s additionally a philosophical break up between generations. Many boomers had been taught to hunt safety, like getting a very good job, shopping for a home, and retiring with a pension. That path was supported by the financial situations of the time.

Youthful generations have grown up throughout recessions, housing crashes, and a pandemic. They’re extra skeptical of establishments, extra prone to query conventional milestones, and extra open to redefining success. However that doesn’t imply they’re not working exhausting. It simply means the world they’re working in has modified. So when boomers scoff at avocado toast or facet hustles, it’s much less about frivolity and extra about misunderstanding how survival seems to be in 2025.

Resentment or Actuality?

It’s simple to dismiss generational critiques as bitterness, however there’s worth in acknowledging how completely different the terrain has grow to be.  Boomers didn’t construct the system alone, and never all of them live massive. Many are struggling too. However when those that did profit from simpler situations deny that privilege ever existed, it solely deepens the divide. It fuels resentment as a substitute of fostering empathy.

What youthful generations are actually asking for isn’t revenge. It’s recognition. Acknowledgment that sure, issues are more durable now. That no, it’s not at all times a matter of effort. And that possibly, simply possibly, the recommendation they’re getting must evolve together with the economic system.

Do you suppose youthful generations are proper to say boomers had it simpler, or are they lacking one thing necessary? How can we bridge the generational divide?

Learn Extra:

Why Boomers Are Downsizing—and What Younger Buyers Can Learn From It

14 Great Habits Baby Boomers Still Do And So Should You

Riley is an Arizona native with over 9 years of writing expertise. From private finance to journey to digital advertising to popular culture, she’s written about every little thing underneath the solar. When she’s not writing, she’s spending her time outdoors, studying, or cuddling along with her two corgis.