Report Examines What’s Behind Millennials’ Growing Resentment For Boomers

If you’re a millennial (born between 1981 and 1996), you’re probably not the biggest fan of the demographic preceding you—those gosh darn baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964). And vice versa, most boomers aren’t a total fan of those good-for-nothing millennials (at least, that’s how they see it in their eyes!).

Boomers have a reputation for talking about how millennials are lazy and don’t want to work hard for their money, the way boomers feel they had to when they were the age of a millennial.

But millennials don’t feel that way at all. In fact, milennials feel that boomers had it easier than they do—they went to college, found a job, and that was that. Times were different back then and there are a lot more complications and things they never had to deal with now.

However, the thing is, millennials feel like they’re able to manage that with flying colors, maybe even more professionally than even a boomer. So they have no idea why they have this reputation for being lazy or greedy when it comes to money.

“Millennials have faced unique hardships that set our generation apart,” says millennial journalist Jill Filipovic, author of the new book, “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” “We’re only now starting to grasp the degree to which we have gotten screwed. And we’re responding with desperation and sometimes anger. That’s where ‘OK Boomer’ comes from: It’s a final, frustrated dismissal from people suffering years of political and economic neglect.”

This notion has really taken even more of a leap after the state of the economy post COVID-19 pandemic, and how much that has affected millennials (as well as Generation Z, the demographic under millennials).

“‘OK Boomer’ is more than just an imperious insult,” she continues. “It’s frustrated millennial shorthand for the ways the same people who created so many of our problems now pin the blame on us.”

In a recent video, economics correspondent Paul Solman talked to some millennials to hear their side on the matters and get their perspectives. Check out the video report below from PBS NewsHour to learn how they’re really feeling!

Are you a millennial or a boomer? Do you agree or disagree with what these milennials are saying and how they’re portrayed to boomers? How do you think the pandemic has affected what boomers say about milennials in terms of jobs and the like?