The Boomer Blockade: How One Generation Reshaped Work and Left Everyone Behind

The Boomer Blockade: How One Generation Reshaped Work and Left Everyone Behind(think-boundless.com)

48 points by joker3 6 years ago | 27 comments

mc32 6 years ago |

This will be true of economies that go through quick growth. It’s already hit Japan and led to the “lost decades”, it will hit China in 20 years or so...

But the issue is more complex. Today there is global competition and your jobs (never mind promotions) get shipped off.

So they don’t even have a chance at a working stiff’s job at all. That’s where desperation comes from.

topkai22 6 years ago |

Great article. I'm very suspicious of attempts to "blame it on the boomers", but this has some very good analysis that should be built upon.

There are some confounding factors - the baby boom's sheer relative to the preceding and succeeding generations means that at least some of the noted effects would occur even if the "age you got promoted" probability distribution remained the same.

The specific complaints about the consulting and legal industries expansion of the career path have the issue that the size of those firms have grown massively over the time period indicated- McKinsey had 88 staff in 1951, 7700 in the early 2000s and 27000+ by 2018. That’s simply not the same company/industry and not really due to demographic trends.

Overall though, it makes raises some good points (particularly the implication that there is/was positive ageism toward boomers in the selection of executive roles) that are worth reflecting on.

BTW- it’s really Gen X (and the younger boomers) that got hosed here. The boomers really are retiring now and millennials will have plenty of career ahead after that.

pmillerd 6 years ago | |

thanks for the feedback - definitely agree on the consulting point and I think when I dove in that was what most surprised me - its probably Gen X that will be screwed, not the millennials.

pmillerd 6 years ago |

Thanks for all the feedback. If people are interested in following along, I'm sharing some selected feedback in my newsletter this week => http://boundless.substack.com

johnebgd 6 years ago |

Hacker News hug of death took it down.

okareaman 6 years ago |

I'm a boomer and I can think of a few things off the top of my head that made the 80's and 90' a great time for a young person to be alive. 1) The previous generation was small because of the depression and ww2 - not a lot of older workers. 2) Paul Volcker came in with Ronald Reagan and tamed the crippling inflation that was hurting everyone. 3) No one at work or at home had a personal computer on their desk - the computer revolution took off 4) The Soviet Union collapsed leaving the US once again the sole super power. 5) People became health conscious and quit smoking. Medical technology advanced and prolonged our working life. There are probably things I am forgetting, but indeed, it wasn't hard to make money, buy a house and start a family.

Edit: I don't see how anyone can blame boomers because it's harder now. I gave my millennial kids a good start.

olliej 6 years ago | |

No you didn’t - you supported massive reductions in social services, reductions in tax rates that benefited primarily businesses and the already wealthy.

Boomers voted to decrease how much they paid for everything once they were earning money. The way they did that was purely by increasing how much the following generations had to pay for every service, while also reducing their employment protection and actively preventing their wages from increasing at the same rate living costs were being made to increase.

Your generation did nothing but make it harder for the following generation after benefit from all the work you parents generation did to improve your opportunities.

Things your parents produced for you: cheaper/free high level, a functional Medicare system that covered the majority of the people who needed it, employment protection, retirement benefits, ...

Things your generation did: killed free higher education, actively defunding it so you paid less taxes having already got your free education, vigorously worked to remove layout protections, defunded Medicare, defunded infrastructure investment, blamed “millennials” for all the problems your selfish choices caused.

The fact that you can’t understand basic cause and effect of your actions warrants it:

Ok, boomer.

joeblow9999 6 years ago | | |

please. you are way overstating the situation. if anything its boomers who massively increased the scope and reach of govt social programs and spending.

plankers 6 years ago | |

It's all the millenial kids that you didn't give a good start and who are getting those 63% of new jobs that pay below-average who are suffering.

sizzzzlerz 6 years ago | | |

And what would you like for him to do about that?

SketchySeaBeast 6 years ago | |

Is it that hard to accept that, job wise, things have gotten bleaker for the later generations? No, it's not your fault, but the dynamics that helped a generation be successful have changed for the worse. The boomers are as caught up in it as the later generations, they just happen to be the ones with the advantage.

OedipusRex 6 years ago |

Website's currently down:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200131200026/https://think-bou...

foogazi 6 years ago |

> For the first time in the last 60 years, the 55+ cohort is bigger than any other ten year age cohort.

How much of this is due to the boomer gen being larger in size and more of them having to stick around working

Doesn’t sound like all of them got to retire

> If boomers are increasing their share of wealth, it is clearly at the expense of the following generations.

how is this clear? Wealth can’t be created only taken ?

geogra4 6 years ago |

Interesting article - but it's even worse than that. I had a friend of mine who is a lawyer at a large hospital system. When the boomer head of the legal department retired they gave him the same job she had with half of the salary. Even when the boomer blockade stands down, what's left isn't what it used to be.

zaphod12 6 years ago | |

while halving seems extreme, this isn't that ridiculous when you think about it (nor is it uncommon). The previous head of legal had probably been getting promotions for many years as (s)he continued to grow and become better at the role. Whenever I am promoted, I don't expect my entry salary will be identical to someone with the same title and 10 more years of experience doing the job.

JoeAltmaier 6 years ago | |

Its all too common to lose a VP and hire a director.

SketchySeaBeast 6 years ago | |

I don't know if it's lucky that the job didn't just cease to exist or not in that case. I know when my father retired his job disappeared. One could ask if the job was that important if they could remove it, but in this case it was deemed non-vital, so no effort was made to replace him.

Ironically, it was focused on evaluating ways to transfer knowledge to new hires to account for the brain drain incurred due to retiring boomer population.

jhayward 6 years ago |

Think about the rhetoric being used whenever someone refers to "boomers" today.

First, identify a sub-group. Begin referring to the group as "they", as "other" than "us". Make sure they are not seen as heterogenous individuals - "they" are a single, malevolent entity.

Next, ascribe to them great power, unearned, over "us".

Then, ascribe to them ill-gotten wealth, power, control. All nefarious and self-aggrandizing.

Now describe them as "the problem", as "intractable", implying that something must be done - about them - to them.

Begin to use the language of violence, attributing it to "them". A blockade is an act of war, committed by an aggressor.

What do you think the outcome of this kind of rhetoric will be?

SketchySeaBeast 6 years ago | |

In this case that group is, in fact, our parents. It's not an abstract group - it's people we know in our life. In order to make it an abstract "other", the people need to stay abstract. I don't begrudge my parents their success, I just know that I may not share the same.

abathur 6 years ago | |

I agree that it's important to be conscious of the rhetorical currents we create, and vigilant about what follows from carrying them to their logical conclusions. This is, for example, why we don't call people vermin or cockroaches. It's rhetoric that has obvious logical conclusions.

But inter-generational strife isn't quite the same thing. It's conflict largely between parents and their children, shaped by that intimacy. And it's a conflict that cuts both ways...

Think about the rhetoric being used whenever someone refers to "millennials" today.

First, identify a sub-group. Begin referring to the group as "they", as "other" than "us". Make sure they are not seen as heterogenous individuals - "they" are a single, entitled entity.

Next, give them trophies, unearned.

Then, ascribe to them the rise of avocado toast, end of homeownership, and lack of ambition. All overeducated and self-defeating.

Now describe them as "increasingly falling for socialism's trick", as "unpatriotic", implying that something must be done - about them - to them.

Begin to use the language of violence, attributing it to "them". Killing the date, and romance, and marriage, and golf, and the motorcycle.

What do you think the outcome of this kind of rhetoric will be?

plussed_reader 6 years ago | |

A conflict in pursuit of the demise/revisioning of atrophied systems?

jhayward 6 years ago | | |

> pursuit of the demise/revisioning of atrophied systems?

So, you see the outcome as killing off the olds?