RASCAL REPORT
An Eye on Baby Boomers Since 2022
The times are fraught again
1968 alone, campus protests against the war in Vietnam, the police riot at the Democratic national convention in Chicago, Black Power, along with the political assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., RFK, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, radicalized the youth generation years before Watergate completely severed their trust in their parents’ institutions. The author argues that today we exist, at the moment, in a tectonic time when “The Dream” means different things to different people, when the basic facts and rules required for democratic dialogue are no longer agreed upon, alerting us like the harbinger of a society in dissolution. Today, there is only “my truth”, not “our truth”. It’s a delicate balance in a crowded world with stricken resources and growing armies and resentments.
Names going extinct
Some names from the extinct list will be recognized as previously having been extremely popular amongst Generation X (born in 1965 to 1980) and the Baby Boom Generation (born in 1946 - 1964); including Carolyn, Debra, Gladys, and Meryl for girls and Billie, Chandler, Greg, Stevie, and Walt for boys.
Top rising names for girls: Ivy, Harper and Luna
Top rising names for boys: Theodore, Tommy and Arlo.
The argument for student debt as a generational burden
The greatest irony of the conversation surrounding student loan forgiveness is that it is older Baby Boomers (like most of Congress) who pushed younger generations to earn that college degree — the debt of which is now degrading credit scores, limiting buying power, making it harder to start families and businesses and preventing the accumulation of generational wealth — are the very same people who look down at borrowers now and say, “You were stupid enough to take out the loans. Now you have to pay them back.”
What they’re actually saying is, “You were stupid enough to listen to us, and now you have to pay for it — literally and figuratively.”
Young Americans failing to match boomer wealth gains
An epic four-decade boom in housing and stock prices have made Baby Boomers the richest generation in US history. Wealth in the US is aging. In the past several decades, all generations started their careers with approximately the same amount of wealth, roughly 1.5 times income. But Americans born from 1940 to 1960 have significantly outperformed: By age 60, older Baby Boomers accumulated 10 years of income on average – up from five to six years of income in previous generations. The wealth gap between adults over 60 and those under 40 has more than doubled since the 1960s and 1970s. And inequality has increased across all generations.
babyboomer.org: a trusted source of news and info for boomers?
Their research suggests Baby Boomers are struggling to find a trusted news source offering the latest and most reliable information on their interests and needs. The say that while boomers may have found some trusted sources for certain segments of their lives, it is very challenging for them to find everything they want. Their goal is to provide Baby Boomers with one trusted resource which collects and curates all the news, resources and programs of interest to them. Curious, huh?