May 18, 2011
The Boomers at 65: What Happened?
Landon Jones
Author of Great Expectations:
America and the Baby Boom Generation (1980)
Minutes of the 31st Meeting of the 69th Year
President Robert Varrin called the meeting of the Old Guard of Princeton to order at 10:15. Tom Fulmer led the invocation. The scores of guests were not individually introduced for the final meeting of the year, but the overall tally was a resounding 122.
Lynn Livingston did a beautiful job of presenting the minutes of the prior week trying to capture Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter’s remarks on American Foreign Policy in under six minutes. Mr. Varrin recognized three members of the Old Guard for exemplary service, Guy Dean, Jock MacFarland, and Joe Bolster.
Claire Jacobus introduced the speaker, Landon Jones, who wrote the bestselling book, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation by saying he led publications such as Money and People magazines, garnering many awards and honors, -- as well as The Princeton Alumni Weekly. She brought him up brightly, saying, “Here Comes the Sun.”
Lanny Jones riveted the audience with the demographics and social footprint of the Boomer generation in his review of what has happened to the Boomers (born 1946-1964) since the publication of his prescient book in 1980 – 31 years ago! The oldest have now reached 65.
Jones asked, how did the generation we greeted as the best and brightest America had ever produced become reduced to a series of epithets – self-centered, self-absorbed, self-confident, self-righteous – considered to be narcissists when they were young and soon-to-be burdens on society when old?
The baby boom after WWII made us think they were something new under the sun. They were so special we needed new names for them: War Babies, Spock Babies, Sputnik Generation, Pepsi Generation, Rock Generation, Love Generation, Vietnam Generation, Me Generation, Yuppies, Muppies… None stuck because the Boomers are a moving target.
Many books have been written about them. Lanny found a total of 1,500 titles on “baby boomers” on Amazon.com. They fall into several categories including personal testimonials – “My life as a Baby Boomer.”
2011 is notable since the first of the boomers. born in 1946, are turning 65. For the next two decades, around 8,000 will turn 65 every day. A growth market for the Old Guard!
The rise in babies born after WWII, climbed to four million in 1954 for the first time (that was the entire US population in 1790). That number, four million a year, continued until 1964. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand experienced similar baby booms.
Children became a consumer market. They were the engine of demand that built the suburbs (showed slide of an original Levittown). California opened a school a week in the 1950s.
The emblematic children’s fad was the Davy Crockett craze of 1955. The price of raccoon skins jumped from 25 cents a pound to $8 a pound. Then, just as suddenly, the fad ended and the price collapsed. This pattern may be seen in popped bubbles like tennis courts and housing.
The stereotypical image of the 1950s family was shaped by TV shows like Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, and Leave it to Beaver. The fact is these TV families were an anomaly.
Superior education continues to be a boomers cohort characteristic. Birthrates began to fall. Educated women married later, less often, had fewer children, and divorced more often than their mothers. The decline in fertility rates was nudged by arrival of the birth control pill and entry of women into the work force.
25 million women followed Rosie the Riveter to work in the 30 years after WWII. They did this in part because couples needed to pool their incomes to achieve the living standards they sought.
Lanny described other generations and their monikers. I note here only “the Lucky Few” generation (born 1929 through 1945) – today between the ages of 66 and 82 -- not unlike many in this room. Their aspirations were modest; their achievements many. Favorable job market; less competition!
As boomers entered their 40s, they began to redefine yet another part of the life cycle: middle age. (Our perceptions of “young” and “old” are revised as we go through life.)
20-30 years have been added over the last century to the middle years – a whole new stage for Americans. The typical boomer now believes old age starts at 72. The good news here is the generation that once said, “Don’t trust anyone over 30” now thinks new members of the Old Guard of Princeton are middle-aged.
Mr. Jones noted an industry out there attempting to persuade the boomers they are not getting older, anyway, just better. So we have a Longevity Industry, and Improve your Memory Industry, and middle-aged skydivers, mountain climbers, rock climbers.
For decades the wealth accumulation of Baby Boomers had been equal to or greater than previous cohorts. That was a little surprising, since they were saving less, but capital gains in real estate and equities made up the difference.
But then came the Great Recession, with exquisitely bad timing for the boomers. The collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting plunge in the stock market destroyed more than $10 trillion in household wealth. Projections now show that most boomers will be almost entirely dependent on their Social Security income after they stop working.
Older boomers cannot afford to retire any time soon. Today more than one-third of American men aged 65-69 are in the labor force. In France, just 4% of people that age are working or looking for work. Twenty years from now, when the oldest baby boomers turn 85, about 70 million Americans will be over 65 and 8.5 million over 85 years.
Four questions were raised and answered, before a rousing round of applause for Lanny’s insightful revisit of his best-selling book of three decades ago on the Baby Boomers and what happened to them.
Respectfully submitted,
Scott McVay
Lynn Livingston did a beautiful job of presenting the minutes of the prior week trying to capture Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter’s remarks on American Foreign Policy in under six minutes. Mr. Varrin recognized three members of the Old Guard for exemplary service, Guy Dean, Jock MacFarland, and Joe Bolster.
Claire Jacobus introduced the speaker, Landon Jones, who wrote the bestselling book, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation by saying he led publications such as Money and People magazines, garnering many awards and honors, -- as well as The Princeton Alumni Weekly. She brought him up brightly, saying, “Here Comes the Sun.”
Lanny Jones riveted the audience with the demographics and social footprint of the Boomer generation in his review of what has happened to the Boomers (born 1946-1964) since the publication of his prescient book in 1980 – 31 years ago! The oldest have now reached 65.
Jones asked, how did the generation we greeted as the best and brightest America had ever produced become reduced to a series of epithets – self-centered, self-absorbed, self-confident, self-righteous – considered to be narcissists when they were young and soon-to-be burdens on society when old?
The baby boom after WWII made us think they were something new under the sun. They were so special we needed new names for them: War Babies, Spock Babies, Sputnik Generation, Pepsi Generation, Rock Generation, Love Generation, Vietnam Generation, Me Generation, Yuppies, Muppies… None stuck because the Boomers are a moving target.
Many books have been written about them. Lanny found a total of 1,500 titles on “baby boomers” on Amazon.com. They fall into several categories including personal testimonials – “My life as a Baby Boomer.”
2011 is notable since the first of the boomers. born in 1946, are turning 65. For the next two decades, around 8,000 will turn 65 every day. A growth market for the Old Guard!
The rise in babies born after WWII, climbed to four million in 1954 for the first time (that was the entire US population in 1790). That number, four million a year, continued until 1964. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand experienced similar baby booms.
Children became a consumer market. They were the engine of demand that built the suburbs (showed slide of an original Levittown). California opened a school a week in the 1950s.
The emblematic children’s fad was the Davy Crockett craze of 1955. The price of raccoon skins jumped from 25 cents a pound to $8 a pound. Then, just as suddenly, the fad ended and the price collapsed. This pattern may be seen in popped bubbles like tennis courts and housing.
The stereotypical image of the 1950s family was shaped by TV shows like Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, and Leave it to Beaver. The fact is these TV families were an anomaly.
Superior education continues to be a boomers cohort characteristic. Birthrates began to fall. Educated women married later, less often, had fewer children, and divorced more often than their mothers. The decline in fertility rates was nudged by arrival of the birth control pill and entry of women into the work force.
25 million women followed Rosie the Riveter to work in the 30 years after WWII. They did this in part because couples needed to pool their incomes to achieve the living standards they sought.
Lanny described other generations and their monikers. I note here only “the Lucky Few” generation (born 1929 through 1945) – today between the ages of 66 and 82 -- not unlike many in this room. Their aspirations were modest; their achievements many. Favorable job market; less competition!
As boomers entered their 40s, they began to redefine yet another part of the life cycle: middle age. (Our perceptions of “young” and “old” are revised as we go through life.)
20-30 years have been added over the last century to the middle years – a whole new stage for Americans. The typical boomer now believes old age starts at 72. The good news here is the generation that once said, “Don’t trust anyone over 30” now thinks new members of the Old Guard of Princeton are middle-aged.
Mr. Jones noted an industry out there attempting to persuade the boomers they are not getting older, anyway, just better. So we have a Longevity Industry, and Improve your Memory Industry, and middle-aged skydivers, mountain climbers, rock climbers.
For decades the wealth accumulation of Baby Boomers had been equal to or greater than previous cohorts. That was a little surprising, since they were saving less, but capital gains in real estate and equities made up the difference.
But then came the Great Recession, with exquisitely bad timing for the boomers. The collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting plunge in the stock market destroyed more than $10 trillion in household wealth. Projections now show that most boomers will be almost entirely dependent on their Social Security income after they stop working.
Older boomers cannot afford to retire any time soon. Today more than one-third of American men aged 65-69 are in the labor force. In France, just 4% of people that age are working or looking for work. Twenty years from now, when the oldest baby boomers turn 85, about 70 million Americans will be over 65 and 8.5 million over 85 years.
Four questions were raised and answered, before a rousing round of applause for Lanny’s insightful revisit of his best-selling book of three decades ago on the Baby Boomers and what happened to them.
Respectfully submitted,
Scott McVay