America's baby boomers are in a collective funk. Members of the big generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than are adults who are younger or older, according to a new Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey.

Boomers See Trouble Ahead ...Not merely practise boomers give their overall quality of life a lower rating than adults in other generations, they besides are more likely to worry that their incomes won't keep upwards with inflation — this despite the fact that boomers savour the highest incomes of whatsoever historic period grouping.

More so than those in other generations, boomers believe information technology is harder to get ahead now than it was 10 years ago. And they are less apt than others to say their standard of living exceeds the one their parents had when their parents were the age they are now.

These gloomy assessments come from a generation that always has been identified with youth (witness the resilience of their label: "baby boomers") but that'due south at present well into — and even beyond — middle historic period. (Boomers plow 44 to 62 this year.)

However, it is by no means sure that the boomers' current dour mood is a function of their current phase of life. When information technology comes to quality-of-life assessments, information propose the boomers more often than not accept been downbeat, compared with other historic period groups, for the past ii decades — starting back when some were still in their twenties. And so their current sour ratings may be related to getting older, but they likewise may be related to the attitudes and expectations about life they formed when they were immature.

The Pew survey was conducted by telephone from January 24 through February 19, 2008 among a randomly selected nationally representative sample of 2,413 adults. Baby boomers are defined as adults ages 43-62 at the time the survey was taken.

On a question that asked respondents to rate their present life on a scale of zero to x, boomers, on average, requite their lives a rating of 6.2. In dissimilarity, adults older than boomers (those who are ages 63 and above) give their lives an boilerplate rating of vi.vii. Adults younger than boomers (those who are ages xviii to 41) requite their lives an average rating of six.5.

This "quality of life" gap between boomers and non-boomers absolutely is modest. A design of gaps, however, has lasted throughout the two decades the Pew Research Center has been asking this question, although in some years the differences are too small to exist statistically significant.

Self-Rating of Life Quality

Since 1989 — dorsum when boomers ranged in age from 25 through 43 — their self-rankings have trailed those of adults who are older than them. As for adults who are younger than boomers, the pattern is more than mixed. For the past four years, boomers take also trailed this younger group. Only in the tardily 1990s through 2002, boomers gave their lives a slightly ameliorate rating than younger adults gave theirs. A tabular array at the end of this assay shows the trend in quality of life ratings for each of these age groups since 1989.

Boomers See Tough Times for AllWorried About Money

The latest Pew survey finds that the boomers' glum assessments about their lives overall are matched by relatively high levels of anxiety almost their personal finances. Some 55% say it is likely that their incomes will not keep upwardly with the cost of living over the adjacent year. That majority makes them the exception among all adults. Only 4-in-x younger Americans (44%) or older ones (43%) accept that business organization.

The anomaly here is that boomers are in their pinnacle earning years. Equally a group, they relish college median household incomes than exercise younger or older adults, according to the Census Bureau's 2006 American Customs Survey. Americans ages 45 to 64 — roughly the aforementioned age range as the boomers — take a median household income of nearly $lx,000. That compares with near $53,000 for adults ages 25 to 44, and about $30,000 for those ages 65 and older.

In the Pew survey, boomers too are more likely than younger or older adults to own stocks or bonds, and to have retirement accounts.

Even so, boomers are more than anxious than other Americans that they volition have to cut household spending in the coming year because money is tight. Nearly three-in-ten boomers (28%) say it is very likely they will have to practise and so, compared with 22% of younger adults and 18% of older ones.

Asked virtually changes in their finances over the past year, virtually boomers (59%) report they had to spend less because coin was tight, but so practise most younger Americans (58%). By other measures, boomers are less fiscally strained than younger adults. They are less likely (22% to 32%) to say someone in their household had to go to work in the past twelvemonth or accept on an extra job to brand ends come across. They are less likely to say they have had trouble paying for medical care (22% to 29%) or for housing (13% to 24%). Boomers besides are less likely than younger adults (xiii% to nineteen%) to have been laid off in the by year. On the other hand, they too are less likely to have received a pay raise (43% to 52%).

Progress in Life — Looking Forward and Backward

Asked to compare their standard of living with that of their parents at the same age, boomers are more downbeat than younger or older adults. Almost four-in-ten (39%) baby boomers say their standard of living is worse, or no better, than that of their parents. That is a higher proportion than among younger adults (32%) or older ones (27%) who say the aforementioned thing.

Boomers are Gloomier

Peering into the future, almost baby boomers do not believe their own children will have a higher standard of living than they do. Only 44% of baby boomers believe their sons and daughters will be improve off as adults than they are now. That is nigh the same proportion as among older Americans (41%), just much lower than the 58% of younger Americans who think their children will fare better than they have.

It's Not Merely Me

Younger Boomers More OptimisticBaby boomers are pessimistic not only about their own finances, but also about anybody else'south. They are more likely than younger or older Americans to believe that it is harder to make progress, and easier to lose ground, than it was in the past.

Two-thirds of baby boomers say information technology is harder for people to get alee now than a decade agone. That is a more downbeat assessment than other age groups give. Amidst younger adults, 55% say it is harder to get ahead. Among older adults, 58% say and then.

Looking backward, boomers likewise believe it is easier to autumn behind than it was a decade ago: More 3-quarters (76%) say so. On this, they as well have bleaker views than other age groups. Two-thirds of younger Americans (67%) say information technology is easier to fall behind, as practice 59% of older Americans.

Most Americans say it is more difficult for middle course people to maintain their standard of living than it was five years ago, simply baby boomers are particularly likely to believe this. A whopping 86% say it is harder than it used to exist to keep up a middle class lifestyle, compared with 77% of younger people and 73% of older ones.

Are Older Boomers Different From Younger Ones?

The baby nail generation is not monolithic. One way that economists and then
cial scientists look at its differences is to compare younger boomers, ages 43-52, with older ones, ages 53-62. In general, younger boomers are more than optimistic.

To some extent, these differences within the baby boom generation reflect a broader historic period pattern in the survey. Younger people are more than probable than older ones to say they accept moved up the ladder of life in recent years, or to predict that they volition in the nigh future. Simply, in one more measure of their gloominess, boomers are as likely equally adults who are older than they are to say they have slipped on the ladder of life; a third say then.

Asked to rank their quality of life on a goose egg to x calibration, boomers divide themselves adequately evenly among low (0-v), medium (6-7) and high (8-x) ratings. There is little departure between older and younger boomers in current rankings on the so-chosen ladder of life.

But amidst younger boomers, four-in-ten (42%) say they take made progress over the past five years. Amongst older boomers, just iii-in-x (31%) say they have. Older boomers are more probable than younger ones to say they take non budged (34% to 23%). About a third of both groups say they have slipped down the ladder.

Asked where they expect to stand on the ladder of life in 5 years, near younger boomers (60%) predict they will exist on one of the highest rungs. Just 34% of older boomers say and then. Looked at another manner, lx% of younger boomers believe they will motility up the ladder of life over the next v years, compared with 34% of older boomers who think then. Older boomers are more likely than younger ones to say they volition exist in the same place (36% to 21%) or to predict they will accept moved downwards (xx% to 10%).

Why So Glum?

In the cease, these survey data do not say definitively why infant boomers are sour compared with other adults, but these numbers and other inquiry propose some possibilities. Seven-in-ten boomers say they are dissatisfied with the direction in which the state is going, which is considerably higher than the share of younger adults who say so (54%) and about the same every bit the share of older adults who do (68%). They are more likely than either younger or older adults to agree with the statement that the rich just get richer these days while the poor get poorer.

Intriguingly, younger boomers marry themselves with Americans ages xx-27– the then-called "Generation Next"– in their trend to affirm that success in life is determined mainly by outside forces. Virtually four-in-10 say so. Amid older boomers and other age groups, only about three-in-10 say then.

Demographically speaking, this is a generation at the peak of its earning ability, simply with a lot on its plate. Near boomers have children to worry about, and most take at to the lowest degree one living parent. 3-quarters are homeowners, at a time when abode values are stagnant and the mortgage crisis is heating up. Boomers are edging toward retirement, which potentially means living on a fixed income. Overall, 17% already are retired, just that proportion rises to 31% among older boomers.

Too, some babe boomers may exist feeling financially stretched because they observe themselves in a "sandwich" phase of life — supporting children or aging parents, or sometimes both. A 2005 Pew Research Center survey plant that half of all boomers were raising one or more young children and/or providing master fiscal support to ane or more developed children. Another 17%, who were parents of children 18 and older, provided some financial support to at least ane adult child. An additional two-in-ten were providing some financial assistance to a parent.

Quality of Life

Looking into their fiscal futures, only 26% of the baby boomers said then that they expected to live very comfortably in retirement. That was a lower percentage than either younger people (37%) or older ones (33%), many of whom already are retired.

On the other hand, another theory is offered by University of Chicago sociologist Yang Yang, who suggests that the huge size of the baby boom generation — 76 meg — created more competition for schooling and jobs than smaller generations encountered. This competition, so the theory goes, creates stress. In a recently published research paper,1 she proposed the theory to explicate why 3 decades of data from the Full general Social Survey indicate that boomers have experienced less happiness on boilerplate during their lives than younger or older adults.

It's also possible that the seeds of the boomers' discontent were planted long ago — back when they were young and their generation reveled in the culture of youth. Boomers are a big, complicated generation, only 1 matter can be said about them without fearfulness of contradiction: They are no longer immature.