5 Things About... Baby Boomers (Patreon)

5 Things is a new patreon series where I provide five statistics, historical anecdotes, or facts about a topic. Going forward, most of these posts will be supplementing JSYK Videos, Two Minute History videos, Primers, and essays. For example, this post is tied to a video dropping later this week called "How Past Generations Were Worse Than Ours". Feel free to suggest topics! 

The Baby Boomers were born between the early 1940s and the mid-1960s.

1. Baby boomers control over 80% of personal assets in this country

Why? Their generation experienced extreme job growth, along with having cheap education and healthcare. Their parents were of the Great Depression, and many served in WWII, later gaining many of the positive benefits from the GI bill. They also received less-explored benefits like SIGNIFICANTLY reduced working hours. In the past thirty years, the average family's working hours has risen by a quarter. 

Source 

2. They are often wrongly associated with the 1960s counterculture

It's true that many baby boomers became hippies and indulged in the sexual revolution, but it was also a STRONG majority of this generation that went on to become conservatives. They strengthened the partisan divide and encouraged family values and the help yourself attitude. Which is hilarious because the young people of this country actually take care of baby boomers. As put by Gene Marks:

One of the major reasons our national debt is so high is because 40 percent of our government’s spending goes to some type of insurance: social insurance, retirement, health benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. These systems are bankrupt. But they’re needed to pay for the boomers’ healthcare and pension plans. People that were born after 1965 are working hard to make sure that the boomer generation gets their retirement and disability paid for by the government. But it’s still not enough. So our government has to borrow and print money. And our debts balloon. Who will pay these debts? Ah, who cares says the boomers. Not my problem. (Source) 

3. They Neglected the Environment (and continue to do so)

Despite warning from scientists, baby boomers didn't implement recycling programs and pumped a lot of chemicals in the air. We know they neglect the environment because they continue to support politicians who claim climate change isn't real. (see #5)

"On cue, organizations funded and directed by the Kochs tore into global warming science and the experts behind it," Mayer wrote. From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs spent almost $25 million funding anti-climate groups, according to the book.

Such groups poured money into political campaigns, directed at candidates (often Republicans) who voiced doubts about the established science. According to a 2013 study, organizations connected to fossil fuel companies have spent almost half a billion dollars on "a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public's understanding of climate."

Source 

4. They were the largest eligible voting bloc...

but they were just surpassed by millennials. However, eligibility doesn't exactly translate to actual voting. Baby boomers are still more likely to vote than millennials. Which explains why...

5. Trump received 42.3 percent support from those over the age of 65 and 41.9 percent of the vote of those 45 to 64 years old.

Source