The World Boomers Built Is Costing Everyone Who Came After — 'They Got The Benefits, We Got Stuck With The Bill'
Congratulations! Your starter pack includes rent, debt, and existential dread.
Vandervelden | Unsplash “Every generation thinks it’s smarter than the one that went before and wiser than the one that comes after.” — George Orwell (who never tried to refinance a 12.5% student loan)
Our parents (and grandparents) grew up in a country where a single union wage bought a house, a Chevelle, and a family trip to Disney. Fast-forward to 2025, and the median thirty-year-old’s net worth is 40 percent lower than Boomers had at the same age, according to 2024 research from the Federal Reserve. Wages? Flat. Student-loan balances? Thicc. Asset prices? Inflated like a tech-bro’s ego.
The world Baby Boomers built is costing everyone who came after
Millennials came of age during the two-for-one special of 9/11 and the Great Recession; Gen-Z graduated into a pandemic. Gen-X gets left out of every headline, but they’re the exhausted middle child watching Mom (Congress) raid the fridge while the toddler (Boomers) screams for more pudding.
The American Dream used to have pretty simple instructions:
- Work hard.
- Play by the rules.
- Live better than your parents.
However, for Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z, that ladder seems to have snapped somewhere around the third rung. Instead of climbing toward a better life, most of us are squatting under the weight of student debt, soaring housing costs, flat wages, and the weirdly persistent cultural guilt that somehow we’re the problem. (Looking at you, avocado toast.)
The old story was this: Each generation would do better than the one before. But today’s reality feels more like a boomerang that forgot to come back. Here’s the scoreboard on how we’ve been doing compared to our predecessors:
- Median Net Worth (age 30–35)
Millennials: $12,500
Boomers at the same age: $20,700 - Real Median Income (ages 18–34)
Down 5% since 1980 - Average Student Loan Debt
$38,400 per borrower - Home-Price-to-Income Ratio
4.9× in 2024 vs. 3.1× in 1990 - Share of Household Wealth (under 40 years old)
7% today vs. 12% in 1989
If you’ve been wondering why your wallet feels lighter but your rent feels like a prank, well — here’s your answer. Boomers didn’t invent every problem we face, but they certainly supercharged them. They were the architects of globalization’s most aggressive decades, the champions of policies that heavily favored capital over labor, and the biggest cheerleaders of low taxes for the rich and “trickle-down” economics — which, spoiler alert, rarely trickled.
And while Gen-X (the sometimes-forgotten middle child) didn’t build the system from scratch, they did lean into it, passing some of the tax cuts and financial deregulation that quietly widened the generational divide.
We didn’t just lose the ladder. They pulled it up behind them and posted a “good luck” sign on the bottom rung.
Millennials and Gen-Z: The fallout generation
Millennials (born 1981–1996) and Gen-Z (born 1997–2012) were handed a world of busted promises. We entered adulthood just in time to experience a two-for-one deal on crises:
- 9/11 and the endless wars
- The 2008 financial collapse
- The student debt explosion
- The 2020 pandemic
- A housing market that’s somehow allergic to buyers under 40
The story of Millennials is often told as if we’re lazy, entitled, and phone-addicted, but the data suggests otherwise: we’re the most educated, most debt-saddled, and most underpaid generation in modern U.S. history.
Meanwhile, Gen-Z walked into a pandemic-soaked job market with social media pushing 24/7 crisis content directly into their brains. They’re still trying to figure out what a stable adulthood even looks like.
Gen-X: The exhausted middle child
fizkes / Shutterstock
And then there’s Gen-X (born 1965–1980), the peanut butter in the generational sandwich — too young to reap the full boomer benefits, too old to qualify for millennial “woe is me” memes. Gen-X quietly caught the first waves of job insecurity and rising college costs, all while getting forgotten in every “OK Boomer vs. Gen-Z” article.
They’re the ones now stuck managing both their aging parents and their broke adult kids. They bought into the hustle, but now the hustle is eating them alive.
Rage is the immune response of a social contract gone septic. If younger generations seem furious, it’s not because we’re confused — it’s because we’ve done the math.
The social contract told us that if we went to school, worked hard, and followed the rules, we’d live comfortably. But now, with wages stagnant, housing out of reach, student loans ballooning, and the cost of living marching uphill, it’s clear the contract’s been shredded. And guess who’s holding the pieces?
We see Boomers (and the Gen-Xers who backed them) making decisions that favor their portfolios while calling us irresponsible for struggling in a system they rigged. It’s like watching someone burn down a house and then scold you for not moving in.
The college university is a gated castle
“Higher education is supposed to open doors. Instead, it became the bouncer.”
There was a time when going to college was like buying a plane ticket — you got on, and eventually, you arrived at a better life. Now, college is more like buying a lottery ticket. You might get lucky, but it’ll probably just cost you a fortune.
Somewhere along the way, higher education stopped being the great equalizer and started acting like a velvet-roped club. It still sells the dream: Work hard, get your degree, and doors will open. But those doors now come with a hefty cover charge, a steep interest rate, and a suspiciously selective guest list.
Let’s start with the flagship example: Harvard. In the 1980s, Harvard’s freshman class size was about 1,600 students per year. Fast forward to 2024? Still about 1,600 students. Meanwhile, they've reported their endowment has grown over five times larger after adjusting for inflation.
When your assets quintuple but you don’t increase access, you’re not in the business of public service anymore — you’re selling exclusivity. Harvard isn’t an education pipeline; it’s a luxury brand. If Chanel made diplomas, this would be it.
Elite colleges have become status symbols, not social mobility machines. They tout diversity and financial aid, but these gestures often feel like table scraps tossed to maintain the illusion of accessibility.
The student loan sinkhole
But it’s not just the Ivy Leagues. Across the country, public college tuition has more than doubled since 1990, even after adjusting for inflation. That’s not growth — that’s price gouging with a syllabus.
Meanwhile, the Census Bureau reported that real wages for young people have been stagnant for decades. Translation: College got more expensive while starting pay stayed flat. So, the only way to afford school? Debt.
Today, the average student loan balance is about $38,400 per borrower. And that’s just the average. For many, the number is much higher.
Student loans aren’t a quirky “millennial problem” anymore — they’re a generational chain around the necks of Millennials, Gen-Z, and even Gen-X, many of whom are still paying off their degrees while trying to help their kids go to school.
It’s like paying off a pizza from 1998 that you didn’t even like. The worst part? The odds of getting into these elite institutions keep shrinking. The acceptance rate at Harvard is around 3.4% in 2024. The chances of going viral on TikTok might be better.
It’s not just about how few people get in — it’s about how little the schools have done to expand their capacity. Harvard’s endowment now hovers around $50 billion. For scale, that’s more than the GDP of some small countries. And yet, they’ve chosen to keep their freshman class size flat for decades.
When the supply is artificially limited, it’s no longer about talent — it’s about scarcity. And scarcity is what makes luxury goods so desirable. Education isn’t supposed to be a luxury good.
The Gen X and Millennial hand-off
This isn’t just a Millennial and Gen-Z issue. Gen-X caught the leading edge of the college cost explosion. They saw tuition rise and jobs evaporate during the 1990s tech bubble and the 2008 financial crisis.
By the time Gen-X finally got a seat at the grown-up table, the game had already changed. Tuition was up, wages were down, and elite colleges had already turned into fortresses of selective admission. Gen-X was forced to play the system while also co-signing on loans for their kids — Millennials — who walked straight into the debt trap.
Millennials, in turn, are now watching Gen-Z step into an even more expensive version of the same game, with more competition, higher stakes, and fewer safety nets.
But wait, it gets worse.. If you’re still holding onto the belief that “it’ll all work out after graduation,” let’s just casually mention that starting salaries haven’t kept pace with the cost of education or inflation.
Many graduates are starting their careers already tens of thousands of dollars in debt, renting apartments they can barely afford, in cities where buying a home is about as likely as being adopted by Beyoncé.
Remember the American Dream? Somewhere along the way, it turned into the American Subscription Model. You can’t own it — you just lease access to it for 30 years. The system isn’t broken — it’s functioning exactly as designed:
- Keep higher education scarce to inflate its prestige.
- Inflate the cost of entry to keep you financially dependent.
- Sell the myth that you just didn’t try hard enough if you can’t keep up.
Meanwhile, those sitting on endowments the size of oil nations pat themselves on the back for “diversity milestones” while quietly reinforcing the same old gatekeeping. “You can sit with us… but only if you can pay the cover.”
Capital vs. sweat AKA the Asset Olympics
“If you work hard, you’ll get ahead.” Correction: If you own hard, you’ll get ahead.
For generations, the promise was simple: Put in the work, clock the hours, and you’ll build a good life. But here’s the twist nobody printed on the motivational posters: Labor isn’t what made people rich. Capital did.
In America, it’s not what you earn — it’s what you own. The system stopped rewarding sweat and started throwing parades for stocks, houses, and assets that do the heavy lifting while you sleep. And if you don’t already own them? Well, you’re probably just “not working hard enough,” right? Cute.
Since 1974, real median labor income has gone up about 40%. Not bad — until you realize that the S&P 500 went up over 4,000% in the same window.
Let’s pause on that. Your paycheck crawled while the stock market sprinted in Nike Vaporflys. The rewards didn’t go to the people breaking their backs — they went to the people holding the assets.
It’s like running a marathon next to someone who’s riding a Segway and getting a participation ribbon while they cash a trophy check. How did we bake this into the system? The tax code did a lot of the heavy lifting:
- Capital gains (profits from selling stocks or property) are taxed lower rate than wages.
- Real estate can appreciate tax-free until you sell, and even then, you can “roll” those profits into another property to defer taxes again.
- Step-Up-In-Basis allows heirs to inherit assets without paying taxes on decades of appreciation. Translation: generational wealth hops like it’s playing hopscotch through tax loopholes.
Meanwhile, workers pay payroll taxes on every dollar, whether they’re flipping burgers or writing code. Labor is taxed like a necessity. Capital is taxed like a favor.
Let’s say you were lucky enough to buy Amazon stock in 2008 at $7 per share. Today? It’s trading north of $170. Apple? Bought it at $7? You’re looking at $160+ per share now. Netflix? From $12 to $600+.
Older generations had a front-row seat to these growth windows. Boomers and early Gen-Xers bought the house, the stocks, the land — sometimes by accident. Young people? We’re buying secondhand furniture on Facebook Marketplace and renting forever. This isn’t generational bitterness — it’s arithmetic.
Housing: the gameboard of wealth
The home-price-to-income ratio hit a record 4.9× in 2024, up from about 3.1X in 1990. Translation: homes now cost nearly five years’ worth of gross income, not three.
Meanwhile, local zoning laws in many cities still ban duplexes, triplexes, and modest starter homes. We created housing scarcity on purpose. There are entire neighborhoods where you can’t legally build anything but a single-family house on a sprawling lot.
Local motto: “Diversity is welcome… just not next door.”
Homeownership is where a lot of generational wealth gets stored. It’s the on-ramp to security, equity, and asset appreciation. But younger generations? We’re locked out, priced out, and shut out.
Boomers? Bought homes when prices were low and interest rates were tolerable. Many Gen-Xers snuck in before things fully exploded. Millennials and Gen-Z? We’re playing Monopoly in a game where someone else already owns Boardwalk, Park Place, and three-quarters of the hotels.
And if you can’t buy, you rent — which is increasingly a financial cul-de-sac. Over 22 million U.S. households now pay more than 30% of their income on rent. High rents crush saving potential, which means no down payment, which means no house, which means no equity, which means…you see where this is going.
Even worse, those who do manage to buy often end up house-poor — squeezing every last penny to meet their mortgage while skipping vacations, healthcare, or any semblance of peace.
Welcome to the Asset Olympics:
- If you got in early? You’re golden.
- If you missed the starting gun? Enjoy the spectator seats.
Gen-X (1965–1980) is often left out of the headlines, but they played an important middle role in the asset shift. They were the first generation to really experience the retirement plan pivot from pensions to 401(k)s — transferring the burden of wealth-building from employers to employees.
They were also the ones who first navigated the gig economy, the collapse of guaranteed benefits, and the rise of financial products that make stockbrokers rich but leave regular workers guessing.
Gen-X is tired. They inherited the boomer-built system but now watch their kids (Millennials and Gen-Z) walking into a rigged game. They’re too deep in the system to fully rage against it, but they know — quietly, painfully—that something’s broken.
Here’s the worst part: The system gaslights you. It tells you that if you can’t afford a house, it’s because you bought too much coffee. If you can’t build wealth, it’s because you didn’t try hard enough. The truth?
The treadmill is running faster. The starting line was moved back. And the rules were rewritten in favor of owners — not workers.
Budget priorities: The reverse Robin Hood
“Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. America’s budget does the opposite. And Congress claps.”
Let’s talk about how the money moves — or more accurately, where it doesn’t. We love to say America is “for the children.” But if you follow the federal budget, it looks like we’re mostly for the grandparents.
Over the last few decades, the U.S. quietly rewrote its national priorities: we spend lavishly on the old and toss crumbs to the young. It’s not a glitch. It’s the system.
YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV / Shutterstock
The budget loves Baby Boomers. Let’s start with the receipts. In 1985, the federal government spent about three times more per capita on seniors than it did on children. By 2019, that ratio ballooned to eight times more per person. Eight.
Today, nearly half of federal spending flows to programs for adults over 65 — mainly Social Security, Medicare, and other retirement benefits. Less than 9% of federal outlays go to children.
Think about that. We’ve become a nation where it’s easier to protect a tax-free retirement account than to fund a child’s public school.
This isn’t to say Social Security and Medicare aren’t essential — they are. But the tilt is so extreme it’s become almost farcical. Older Americans enjoy automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), while child tax credits — temporary, conditional, and always on the chopping block — come with expiration dates.
When policymakers do get around to helping kids — like the expanded Child Tax Credit in 2021 — it’s usually a one-time party that disappears before dessert. Meanwhile, Social Security checks keep rolling.
The budget is a mirror of what we value. And apparently, we value cruise ship buffets. Part of the problem is simple: Congress is old. The median age in the U.S. Senate is 64.7 years. In the House, it’s 57.5 years. The people making the rules often have more in common with your grandpa than your classmates.
Boomers and older Gen-Xers dominate leadership. They vote. They turn out in midterms. They chair the committees. They write the budgets. And — surprise — they tend to protect their benefits.
When a program for kids comes up, the math gets fuzzy. When does Medicare need more money? They move mountains. When does Social Security need defense? Suddenly, the deficit isn’t a problem.
This isn’t a conspiracy — it’s voter math. Older Americans vote at much higher rates than young people, especially in off-year elections. Politicians know this. They know whose doors to knock on. They know whose voices show up.
Want to get a bill passed? Scare retirees. Want to see a bill die? Pitch it for kids. Younger generations — Gen-X, Millennials, Gen-Z — don’t show up consistently enough to tip the scales. It’s like we forgot our cheat code.
Social Security: A Generational Ponzi Scheme?
Social Security was never supposed to turn into a cross-generational grudge match, but here we are. The Social Security trust fund is projected to run short by 2033. After that, the system will only be able to pay about 77% of promised benefits unless Congress acts.
Younger workers are funding a system that may not fully exist for them. Boomers and older Gen-Xers cashed in at peak benefit levels. Millennials and Gen-Z? We’re paying in… while lawmakers debate cutting the programs we might need later.
It’s the national equivalent of being stuck with the restaurant bill after half the table has already left.
While we’ve lavishly funded retiree programs, we’ve quietly allowed child poverty to rise. In 1970, senior poverty was about 17%. By 2020? Cut to 9%. Great! But child poverty increased from 16% to 19% over the same period.
So, we solved poverty for one group — and ignored the other. If we loved children half as much as we love tax-free inheritances, America would look very different.
When the expanded Child Tax Credit briefly existed in 2021, child poverty dropped by over 40% in just one year. And yet, Congress let it expire. Kids don’t have lobbyists, but retirees sure do.
Gen-X is stuck playing middle manager in all this. They’re now supporting their aging parents while still helping their adult children get launched. They watched Boomers lock in benefits, tax breaks, and affordable homes.
Now they’re watching Millennials and Gen-Z stare down the barrel of unaffordable childcare, evaporating housing options, and shrinking safety nets. Gen-X isn’t the villain in this story — but they also didn’t stop the train.
Younger generations are still footing the bill. Our taxes fund the benefits that flow (disproportionately) to older Americans.
When people say, “We can’t afford these new programs,” what they really mean is, “We don’t want to rebalance the existing ones.”
It’s not that the money isn’t there — it’s that the priorities aren’t.
“OK, so the system is rigged. Now what? Do we burn it down? Not yet. But we need to rearrange the furniture.”
After four parts of receipts, generational frustration, and mild financial despair, it’s fair to ask: Is there a way out of this? Yes. But it’s going to take more than sarcastic tweets and the occasional November ballot. It’s going to take deliberate structural changes.
And, let’s be honest — probably some intergenerational tension that makes your next family dinner… interesting. So let’s talk about how we get out of this mess before the house burns down, or worse, before Gen-Alpha just leaves us behind and starts their society on Discord.
Gen-Alpha: The silent rebellion
Gen-Alpha (born 2013–2025) may be the generation that ultimately rejects the broken systems altogether. They might refuse to buy homes at all. They might treat traditional college as optional.
They might build decentralized communities and simply walk away from the rigged game. And honestly? Good for them. But we have a chance — right now—to fix enough of this that they won’t have to opt out entirely.
So, do we burn it down? No. But we need to stop pretending that the house isn’t on fire. The system was built to reward capital, protect incumbents, and prioritize Boomers. It wasn’t always malicious, but it became wildly imbalanced.
The inheritance Millennials, Gen-Z, and Gen-Alpha are being offered is:
- Debt
- Housing scarcity
- A fading social safety net
- And lectures about coffee budgets
It doesn’t have to stay that way. Boomers built a world that’s hard to inherit. But we can still renovate — before the warranty expires.
Jane Stone is a writer, artist, and traveler who explores the messy, beautiful intersections of life, relationships, culture, and the things that linger in our heads too long. Outside of writing, Jane is also a painter and has a background in consumer finance.
