RASCAL REPORT
Eye On Baby Boomers Since 2022
I believe the second half of one’s life is meant to be better than the first half. The first half is finding out how you do it. And the second half is enjoying it.
-Activist and writer, Frances Lear
The 92 year old queen who shaped the future of drag
On November 13, a line snaked down the sidewalk on NW Third Avenue in Portland, Oregon. People were bundled up in coats, most holding wrapped gifts and chatting. As newcomers made their way to the back of the hour-long line, they exchanged hugs and kisses with others waiting; occasionally a performer, many times half in drag, bustled past the line and into the venue. It was all for the 92nd birthday celebration of Darcelle XV, the oldest performing drag queen in the world, according to Guinness World Records, and founder of the Darcelle XV Showplace, a Portland mainstay Darcelle opened more than 50 years earlier that boasts the longest continually running drag show on the West Coast.
Reality submerged in fantasy: The Villages is a boomer’s utopia—and demographic time bomb
Florida’s Trump-loving retirement community was meticulously created “to make boomers in particular feel comfortable and happy,” as Philip Bump writes in his forthcoming book, Aftermath. But behind its idyllic façade lurks a crisis that the Villages—and the rest of the country—has yet to reckon with.
Pandemic hit boomers hard financially
Forty-three percent of baby boomers — the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — are worse off financially than they were a year ago, according to the results of a recent survey by Fidelity Investments. The number declines in younger cohorts. Thirty-eight percent of Gen Xers — born between 1965 and 1980 — express that they are worse off than a year ago, compared with 32% of millennials — born between 1981 and 1996 — and 27% of Gen Z, born from 1997 through the 2010s. Fewer boomers (13%) and Gen Xers (25%) said they are better off than a year ago, whereas 39% of millennials and 43% of Gen Zers said they are better off.
Yet here comes the greatest transfer of wealth in history
Intergenerational wealth transfer is the movement of wealth between generations. Intergenerational wealth planning, therefore, is the strategy which ensures that process unfolds smoothly and in line with you and your family’s wishes. Today, we’re also hearing another term – ‘The Great Wealth Transfer’. This applies specifically to the transfer of wealth from the Baby Boomer generation – a process which Forbes magazine described as the ‘greatest wealth transfer in history’.
Surprise: Boomers are fastest adopters of smart home tech
The fastest adopters of smart home tech were found to be baby boomers — 66% said they started using their smart home devices daily “straight away.” The slowest adopters: Gen Z, where 46% surprisingly said it takes them at least four days to get acclimated to their devices.
However, Gen Z was likely to have the least amount of opposition to owning smart home devices (63%), while millennials had the most amount of initial opposition (25%).