Few things are as durable for journalistic fodder and in social analysis as generational warfare. Generational friction affects us all, since, at the very least, we have parents and grandparents. Many of us have children of our own. (The reason that grandparents and grandchildren have such a special relationship is that they have a common enemy.) As my mom once told me, life is simply a series of challenges, no one will leave this world without experiencing setbacks and struggle.
My daily reading of what was once called the prints (now it’s perhaps the screens) indicates that challenges from unaffordable housing in many areas, low turnover in some job categories, and unsustainable Social Security are being blamed on Boomers (Americans born between 1946 and 1964).
How things change, even perhaps as they remain mostly the same. The youthful Boomers who famously gave their collective middle finger to their parents now find themselves under fire from the even larger generation of Millennials (Born 1981 to 1996) they spawned. Well educated—with the student loans to prove it—Millennials are allegedly finding “adulting” difficult.
The Wall Street Journal dug into this issue in a data driven piece, “Did Millennials or Boomers Have It Harder? We Went Searching for the Answer.” (April 11, 2026)
The authors—perhaps Gen Xers (born 1965 to 1980), long frustrated by being caught in the middle and looking to please both of the large generations that bestride them, punted, concluding, “the question is next to impossible to answer.” They did, however, dig into some objective indicators of prosperity and struggle, including housing costs, income, and net worth.
The housing market is an expensive mess in many places. I figured this would be a slam dunk in favor of the youngsters. Yet, comparing housing prices for the same age groups by using constant dollars, it turns out there are plenty of hard knocks to go around.
The Boomers suffered through the high interest rates of the late 1970s and the 1980s in their formative years. “Millennials who are trying to buy a house today have a really tough time,” said Joe Pinsker, the piece’s lead author, in a WSJ Podcast. “Prices have gone up a lot. Rates are higher than they were a few years ago.” But he then adds, “if you go back to that early 80s period when mortgage rates were really high, affordability was actually even worse for Baby Boomers when they were a similar age.”
Who earned more? To answer this question, the authors examined income by age, again by using constant dollars.
The Millennials have the edge here. Turns out all those college degrees—and the loans required to pay for them—are paying off on average.
How about net worth--you know, the total amount of money, minus debt, that a person commands? By now you won’t be surprised to know that it’s the struggling Millennials who win here too. They are not as wealthy as boomers, for the simple reason that they are not as old. They are wealthier than Boomers when Boomers were their age.
So, chin up Boomers. If you’re getting lambasted by your kids over their plight, you’re now armed to fire back. On average, they have you routed three to zero. If you have them beat in your particular case, may I suggest a retort. Tell them that it’s not your fault that you’re either above average or they are average or below.
My intention here is not to rant against the struggling youngsters, who are now reaching middle age. Many have it tough, I know. I love them and work with them. I recently wrote an entire book, Start Simple, Grow Big (2025), for them. I outline in some detail simple financial systems they can use to create financial freedom. I want to facilitate intergenerational peace and understanding. I don’t even have a dog in this fight, as I’m a Gen Xer, arriving in this world a few months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon.
This does beg another question: what about us? Did we not struggle as well?
It turns out we did. The WSJ, prompted by a deluge of letters, returned to the fold just six days later with, “Sorry, Gen X. We Looked at the Data, and You Had It Rough Too.” (April 17, 2026).
Gen X got knocked around by the housing collapse, the dot-com bust, and a few other calamities, yet the song remains the same. In this piece, the authors put it all together in an age-adjusted constant dollar graph that compares the three cohorts. Any guess how it stacks up?
If you guess that, on average, the American dream is alive and well, you’re correct. Us Gen Xers have topped Boomers in real net worth since we reached age 45. Millennials lurched ahead of both Boomers and Gen Xers when they reached 30, with no sign of giving up the gains. The rank order of prosperity is Millennials, Gen X, then Boomers.
This won’t end the conflict or the debate. It’ll certainly be joined by Gen Z (Born 1997 to 2012) when they are old enough to produce some measurable data.
This is just the natural order of things. When boomers were starting out, they were dogged by some of the same anxieties as Millennials,” Pinsker writes, hammering the piece closed with this observation: “In 1983, Money Magazine teased a story about baby boomers on its cover by asking, “Can They Ever Live as Well as Their Parents?”