Baby boom generation11/30/2023 On the other hand, they also are less likely to have received a pay raise (43% to 52%). Boomers also are less likely than younger adults (13% to 19%) to have been laid off in the past year. They are less likely to say they have had trouble paying for medical care (22% to 29%) or for housing (13% to 24%). They are less likely (22% to 32%) to say someone in their household had to go to work in the past year or take on an extra job to make ends meet. By other measures, boomers are less fiscally strained than younger adults. Nearly three-in-ten boomers (28%) say it is very likely they will have to do so, compared with 22% of younger adults and 18% of older ones.Īsked about changes in their finances over the past year, most boomers (59%) report they had to spend less because money was tight, but so do most younger Americans (58%). In the Pew survey, boomers also are more likely than younger or older adults to own stocks or bonds, and to have retirement accounts.Įven so, boomers are more anxious than other Americans that they will have to cut household spending in the coming year because money is tight. That compares with about $53,000 for adults ages 25 to 44, and about $30,000 for those ages 65 and older. Americans ages 45 to 64 - roughly the same age range as the boomers - have a median household income of nearly $60,000. As a group, they enjoy higher median household incomes than do younger or older adults, according to the Census Bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey. The anomaly here is that boomers are in their peak earning years. Only four-in-ten younger Americans (44%) or older ones (43%) have that concern. That majority makes them the exception among all adults. Some 55% say it is likely that their incomes will not keep up with the cost of living over the next year. The latest Pew survey finds that the boomers’ glum assessments about their lives overall are matched by relatively high levels of anxiety about their personal finances. A table at the end of this analysis shows the trend in quality of life ratings for each of these age groups since 1989. But in the late 1990s through 2002, boomers gave their lives a slightly better rating than younger adults gave theirs. For the past four years, boomers have also trailed this younger group. As for adults who are younger than boomers, the pattern is more mixed. Since 1989 - back when boomers ranged in age from 25 through 43 - their self-rankings have trailed those of adults who are older than them. A pattern of gaps, however, has lasted throughout the two decades the Pew Research Center has been asking this question, although in some years the differences are too small to be statistically significant. This “quality of life” gap between boomers and non-boomers admittedly is modest. Adults younger than boomers (those who are ages 18 to 41) give their lives an average rating of 6.5. In contrast, adults older than boomers (those who are ages 63 and above) give their lives an average rating of 6.7. On a question that asked respondents to rate their present life on a scale of zero to 10, boomers, on average, give their lives a rating of 6.2. Baby boomers are defined as adults ages 43-62 at the time the survey was taken. The Pew survey was conducted by telephone from January 24 through Februamong a randomly selected nationally representative sample of 2,413 adults. So their current sour ratings may be related to getting older, but they also may be related to the attitudes and expectations about life they formed when they were young. When it comes to quality-of-life assessments, data suggest the boomers generally have been downbeat, compared with other age groups, for the past two decades - starting back when some were still in their twenties. However, it is by no means certain that the boomers’ current bleak mood is a function of their current stage of life. These gloomy assessments come from a generation that always has been identified with youth (witness the resilience of their label: “baby boomers”) but that’s now well into - and even beyond - middle age. And they are less apt than others to say their standard of living exceeds the one their parents had when their parents were the age they are now. More so than those in other generations, boomers believe it is harder to get ahead now than it was 10 years ago. Not only do boomers give their overall quality of life a lower rating than adults in other generations, they also are more likely to worry that their incomes won’t keep up with inflation - this despite the fact that boomers enjoy the highest incomes of any age group. Members of the large generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than are adults who are younger or older, according to a new Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey. America’s baby boomers are in a collective funk.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |