One reason millennials and generation x cohorts resent the boomer generation is because they see them as undeservedly wealthy with advantages they never had. There is some truth to that. When I went to college tuition was $400 a year at a state institution for an undergraduate degree. Houses were much cheaper too.
It's not that we didn't struggle. When a lot of the younger boomers entered the job market in the mid seventies the oil crisis and other events made entry level jobs very hard to find, at least for liberal arts majors. There was a teacher glut. In my case I went on to get a library science degree. Then I found out there was a librarian glut. Tiny libraries in South Jersey would post a beginning position and get hundreds of resumes from all over the country. It took me ten years and two cross country moves to take a salary cut to land a beginning reference position.
Another problem the boomers had was the cultural one. Growing up in the sixties, we were led to expect that we would all be able to live a bohemian lifestyle as adults. The long hairs, the rock bands, the counterculture led us to believe that we would make livings from pottery, playing the guitar and acting in avant garde productions.
The fifties and sixties were a time for great wealth for Americans. Unfortunately, that wealth became dissipated as the march of time progressed. Like the great houses in England in the 1920s slowly had to be sold after World War 2. Today the survivors of that generation are living in London and working for non profits. Today's young people have to live in reduced circumstances, at least until the baby boomers depart for Heaven leaving their homes and stocks to their heirs.
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