Generations3w ago · 92 comments
Should young people be genuinely angry at older generations over the economy?
Cheap houses, free degrees, then the ladder pulled up — or a tired excuse from a generation that won't grind? Who's actually right?
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Add your comment- Jordan _x2w ago
I'm 67. I bought my house in 1989 for what felt like a fortune at the time. I was terrified. Interest rates were brutal. But yes, in hindsight, I won a lottery I didn't know I'd entered. I'm not going to pretend otherwise to feel better about myself.
- Alex K.5d ago
I'm 67. I bought my house in 1988 for what felt like an enormous sacrifice at the time. I had no idea it would become a golden ticket. I feel genuine guilt about this and I don't know what to do with that guilt. My adult kids are struggling and I can't fix the system and I can't give them what it cost me nothing to have. If it helps at all: many of us know. We see it. We're ashamed.
- Alex4d ago
The comment about a parent secretly helping and feeling ashamed made me cry on the tube and I am now a mess. Thank you for sharing that. My mum does the same thing — slips me money with this look on her face like she's apologising for something she didn't do. I used to think it was just love. It's grief. She's grieving the world she thought she was handing me.
- Theo 212w ago
I'm 71 and I want young people to be furious. Furious enough to actually disrupt things. Polite requests haven't worked for forty years. Make it uncomfortable. Make it impossible to ignore. That's how every rights movement in history has worked.
- Jamie M.5d ago
My parents have actually been quietly helping me for years and never mentioned it because they felt ashamed it was necessary. When I found out I just cried. They worked incredibly hard and this is what they could give me. A secret subsidy because the economy doesn't pay me enough to live. That's not a political point it's just a thing that happened.
- Alex3w ago
My grandfather worked in a coal mine at 15 and still managed to buy a house before 30. You know why? Because a house then cost roughly 3x annual income. Right now the median home price is over 8x median income in most cities. It's not about work ethic. It's arithmetic.
- Kofi K.3w ago
Bought a house on one part-time salary, voted for the policies that made it impossible for us, and now calls us lazy for not doing the thing they made illegal. Yes, we're angry.
- Noah2w ago
I'll say what nobody wants to say: a lot of boomer wealth is genuinely accidental. They didn't outwork us. They were born at the right time. Being born at the right time isn't a virtue and it doesn't deserve defending.
- Ravi K.1w ago
The thing that nobody addresses: the emotional labour of being constantly told your circumstances are your fault. I have a master's degree, I work 50 hours a week, I don't drink, I don't go out, I have no car, and I cannot save a deposit. At some point the self-improvement advice becomes genuinely cruel.
- Avery5d ago
okay but can we stop pretending 18% interest rates on a $30,000 house is the same as 6% interest rates on a $700,000 house. the maths does not math
- Nina4d ago
The thing about 18% mortgage rates I keep hearing — yes, rates were high. The monthly payment on the AVERAGE house in 1985 was still about 25% of the average income. The monthly payment on the average house NOW is 45-50% of average income in most major cities. The number that matters isn't the rate. It's the ratio. Please stop spreading this talking point without the denominator.
- Kofi K.6d ago
I find this whole framing of generational war oddly convenient for people who don't want to talk about class. Wealth is not distributed by birth year. It's distributed by class. A 30-year-old property developer has more in common with a 70-year-old property developer than with a 70-year-old tenant. Follow the money, not the birthdate.
- Hana L.6d ago
This would be more convincing if voting patterns weren't so dramatically age-correlated on exactly the policies that affect housing, healthcare, and education costs. Class matters AND age cohorts vote in block patterns that serve their material interests. It's not either/or.
- Reese3w ago
The audacity of being told to 'stop eating avocado toast' by people who had employer-funded pensions, free dental through their union, and a house that tripled in value while they slept. The math isn't mathing.
- Marco K.2w ago
The 18% interest rate argument drives me absolutely insane. Yes rates were high. On a $45,000 house. Do the math on what those payments actually were versus what young people face today with 6% rates on a $600,000 house. I'll wait.
- Quinn2w ago
The framing of this whole debate bothers me. 'Should young people be angry' — as if anger requires permission. You don't ask whether anger is justified after someone runs over your foot. You just feel it. The real question is what you do with it.
- Riley2w ago
this comment had me feeling seen and then i remembered im paying $1800/month to live with two strangers so the 'build the life you can' part hit different
- Avery3w ago
I'm 67. I know we had it easier on housing and tuition. I know it. And I'm genuinely sorry that what I benefited from was partly built on policies that aren't available to you anymore. That's a fair grievance. But please don't paint every older person as your enemy — some of us are horrified by what's been left behind.
- Omar5d ago
Comment 9 is the most practical thing anyone has said in this entire thread and it has the fewest likes. That tells you everything about how this generation processes its anger. We'd rather feel validated online than sit in an uncomfortable folding chair for two hours and actually change a zoning law.
- Zara2w ago
I'm genuinely tired of being told to 'aim my anger at the system' as if the system isn't operated by specific human beings who make specific choices. Systems don't vote. People do.
- Feli T.2w ago
I work in mental health and the economic anxiety in people under 35 is unlike anything I saw in older cohorts at the same age. We're talking people who feel that adulthood — actual, stable, family-building adulthood — is simply not available to them. That's not a personal failing. That's grief for a life that was promised and withheld.
- Iris5d ago
The anger is legitimate. The target is sometimes too vague. The despair is understandable but dangerous. The system is broken AND specific people benefit from keeping it broken AND those people have names and addresses and vote every single time. Hold both things simultaneously or you'll spend twenty years being righteous and nothing will change.
- Alex T.1d ago
Twenty years ago my therapist told me my financial anxiety was a symptom of underlying emotional issues. I spent a decade working on those issues. I still can't afford rent. Turns out some anxiety is just correct threat assessment. Took me a while.
- Maya3w ago
I have a master's degree, no debt (scholarships), working 50 hours a week at a nonprofit, and I cannot afford to have a child. Not 'struggling to afford.' Cannot. The math does not work. That is not a personal failure. That is a policy failure.
- Morgan2w ago
The thing that gets me is the total lack of curiosity. My parents' generation doesn't ask 'why can't you afford this, let's look at the numbers together.' It's immediately defensive. Which tells me on some level they know.
- Drew1w ago
My mum spent her whole life saying our generation had it so tough back then and now genuinely cannot process that I own nothing at 31 with a good job. Not because she doesn't care. She literally cannot fit it into her mental model of how the world works. That gap is as tragic as it is maddening.
- Priya1w ago
This resonated hard. My dad keeps giving me advice that made total sense in 1987 and is useless now. He's not malicious. His map of the world just doesn't match the territory anymore. And he doesn't know it, which makes the advice feel even more like an accusation.
- Omar B.3w ago
okay but who do you think has been voting for the same politicians for 40 years? 'the system' doesn't vote. people vote. and older people vote at WAY higher rates than young people. so yes, there is a direct human link here.
- Ravi S.2w ago
This is such a middle class debate lmao. Poor young people and poor old people are both getting absolutely destroyed and are too busy being told to fight each other to notice who's actually holding the bag.
- Avery2w ago
Nobody is asking for a 3-bed house at 26. They're asking for any ownership stake in anything before age 40, which is what previous generations had. The starting point has moved, not the expectations.
- Maya T.2w ago
Also the 'small flat' you're describing costs more in rent than a mortgage on that same property would, so young people are literally paying for someone else's asset while being told they're not ready to have their own. The logic is backwards.
- Diego T.6d ago
Three years ago I was ready to emigrate. Genuinely researched New Zealand, Canada, Germany. Then I thought: why should I have to leave the country I was born in because policy choices made it unliveable for people like me? So I stayed and got political. Not sure if that was brave or stupid. Still here though.
- Nina6d ago
Brave. Definitely brave. The emigration impulse is completely understandable but every young person who leaves is one fewer vote for change.
- Riley3w ago
Yes actually. Vote for higher property taxes. Vote for inheritance tax reform. Support zoning changes even if it puts apartments near your house. Support free university funding. That's the ask. It's not mysterious.
- Elena2w ago
This framing of 'older generations vs younger generations' is how the donor class keeps everyone fighting each other instead of looking up. A 25-year-old renter and a 65-year-old retiree on a fixed income have more in common economically than either does with a hedge fund manager who owns 4,000 single-family homes.
- Noah K.1w ago
Had a screaming match with my dad at Christmas about this. He kept saying 'we sacrificed too you know' and I kept saying 'I know you did, and I love you, and also your generation's voting record on housing supply is a documented fact.' We didn't speak for two weeks. I don't regret saying it.
- Iris1w ago
I went to university, got into debt, couldn't find work in my field, worked retail for six years, just got my first career-track job at 32, still renting. According to some people in this thread I should be grateful I wasn't drafted. Okay.
- Nina2w ago
I actually think the anger is healthy on a societal level. Complacency is how you get 40 more years of the same. But I worry about the psychological cost of sustained rage at something you can't immediately change. For your own sake, build the life you can build, fight the fight you can fight, and try not to let the legitimate grievance eat you alive.
- Jamie3w ago
Okay but grandma did vote against every zoning reform and housing development in her suburb for thirty years so actually the metaphor kinda works
- Alex2w ago
ok but my boomer dad worked in a steel mill for 35 years and retired with basically nothing because the pension got gutted. not every old person is sitting on a pile of property wealth sipping pinot. this whole conversation erases working class boomers completely
- Riley2w ago
The wealth gap within the boomer generation is actually enormous. The top quartile of boomers own something like 70% of boomer wealth. So yes, the villain isn't your factory-working uncle. But the villain class also happens to be boomers. Both things are true.
- Kofi4d ago
My nan grew up in genuine postwar poverty. No central heating, shared bedroom with four siblings, left school at 15. She worked incredibly hard and ended up comfortable. She also benefited from council housing, free healthcare from birth, and a job market that didn't require a degree for skilled work. She is not my enemy and also the system that helped her no longer exists. Both. Things. Can. Be. True.
- Iris M.2w ago
My parents paid off their mortgage in 11 years. Eleven. I've been paying rent for 9 years and still have zero equity and zero realistic path to a deposit. I'm not angry at them personally. But I am angry. The anger has to go somewhere.
- Iris T.1w ago
The real villain is the concept of housing as an investment vehicle full stop. The moment we decided houses were wealth-building assets rather than places to live, we set up a permanent conflict between owners and non-owners that cuts across generations. Fix that and the generational war mostly evaporates.
- Jamie1w ago
Easier said than done. My retirement is largely tied up in my home because we didn't have adequate pension provision. I'd support reform going forward but don't expect people to voluntarily destroy their own financial security. That's not a political position, that's just human nature.
- Iris K.1w ago
And there it is. 'Don't touch my asset values.' Which is fine as a personal preference, but can we at least stop pretending it's anything other than that? You're describing a system that works for you and asking the generation it's failing to fix it without touching the part you benefit from.
- Maya3w ago
anger without a target is just noise. channel it into organizing, voting, running for office. or keep yelling at comment sections, sure.
- Avery3w ago
lol 'just vote harder bro' as if young people haven't been voting and still watching rents go up 30% in two years
- Reese2w ago
My grandmother worked three jobs and never owned property. My grandfather died of an occupational illness at 58. What exactly do I owe that generation's grievances? Every era has hard things. The specific hard things now are historically unprecedented in the housing market. That's not whining, that's data.
- Jordan1w ago
Historically unprecedented? The Great Depression would like a word. So would the Black Death, the World Wars, the flu pandemic of 1918... I get that housing is brutal but let's keep some perspective here.
- Kofi1w ago
You're comparing not being able to buy a house to the Black Death? That's not perspective, that's deflection. Nobody is saying this is the worst thing that ever happened. They're saying housing unaffordability is a specific, measurable, policy-driven problem and it should be fixed. Why is that controversial.
- Taylor4d ago
respectfully disagree with the person who said aim the anger at the system not your retired neighbour — when your retired neighbour shows up to every planning meeting to block apartment buildings because it might affect their 'neighbourhood character' (house price), they ARE part of the system. participation isn't neutral
- Alex R.3w ago
The people defending the current situation the hardest are almost always homeowners whose net worth depends on prices staying insane. Just say you have a conflict of interest and sit down.
- Sam2w ago
Yes I did. Even inflation-adjusted median home prices have gone up roughly 80% in real terms since 1980 while wages have been largely flat in real terms. This has been studied extensively. It's not even controversial among economists.
- Diego 215d ago
Here's the question nobody in this thread has actually answered: what's the concrete political action? Vote? I vote. March? I've marched. Sign petitions? Sure. At some point the gap between legitimate grievance and available remedy starts to feel unbridgeable and that's when movements either radicalise or collapse into apathy.
- Leo5d ago
Run for local office. I know everyone rolls their eyes at this. But planning decisions are LOCAL. Zoning is LOCAL. If every angry 28 year old in this thread showed up to one council meeting it would change things faster than any national campaign.
- Yuki2w ago
What action exactly? I've voted in every election since I was 18. I've canvassed. I've donated. I've written to representatives. Housing costs have gone up 40% since I started 'taking action.' At some point the civic participation answer feels like a cope.
- Zara2w ago
And who has been blocking those planning reforms in every local council meeting for thirty years? Check the average age of local councillors and planning committee members and come back to me.
- Yuki L.4d ago
I don't think young people should be angry at older generations. I think they should be absolutely incandescent with rage at the political class specifically — many of whom happen to be older — who turned housing into an investment asset class and then spent thirty years refusing to reverse it because their voter base owned those assets. There's a difference and it matters.
- Theo1w ago
I'm 24 and I don't really feel angry at old people specifically? I feel a kind of hollow despair that has no clear target. Is that worse? Probably. At least anger is energising.
- Avery1w ago
The hollow despair is actually the more accurate political response tbh. Anger implies a fixable problem with a clear cause. What we have is decades of interlocking policy failures with no single villain and no simple reversal. The despair is rational.
- Marco1w ago
Please don't tell a 24 year old that despair is rational. That's a terrible thing to hand someone. The situation is hard. The situation has been changed before and can be changed again. Cynicism dressed up as realism is still just giving up.
- Jordan 923w ago
Not everything is about houses btw. Try being 24 and your employer offers no pension, no sick pay, and a zero-hours contract while your retired uncle lectures you about financial responsibility. The entire employment relationship has been restructured against workers and nobody even talks about it.
- Zara4d ago
I've read every comment here and what strikes me is that the people saying 'stop whining, grind harder' never actually engage with any of the numbers. Not once. They just assert that effort is the variable. That's not an argument, it's a faith position.
- Kofi2w ago
Accidental wealth still buys real power and real influence and real political donations that protect it from redistribution. The 'accident' stopped being innocent the moment they started organizing to keep it.
- Omar L.2w ago
theoretically correct, practically useless. you can understand the structural argument AND still be angry at the specific humans who benefited from and actively defended the system. both things are true.
- Kofi 211d ago
Genuine question for the 'class not generation' crowd: if it's purely class, why did university become means-tested with massive debt AFTER the boomers all got through it for free? Why did social housing get sold off and not replaced AFTER that generation was housed by it? At some point the timing becomes evidence. Class is real AND specific policy choices were made by specific electorates at specific moments in time.
- Omar2w ago
My grandmother grew up in genuine poverty — no heat, sometimes no food, farm work as a child. She doesn't understand my complaints and I don't blame her. But she also doesn't own four investment properties while collecting pension. There are different kinds of 'older people' and they're not all the same enemy.
- Quinn4d ago
Anger is a luxury. I'm too exhausted from working three jobs to be angry. That's probably the point.
- Theo B.2w ago
Counterpoint: generational politics has genuinely shifted power in democracies before. The grey vote being monolithic isn't inevitable. Young voter turnout in several countries has jumped massively in the last decade. The anger is converting into something.
- Jordan2w ago
Genuine anger, yes. Generational hatred, no. Anger is a signal that something is wrong and that signal is completely valid. Hatred just makes you miserable and alienates potential allies who happen to be older.
- Elena1d ago
The frame of 'anger yes or no' is almost beside the point now isn't it. The question is what converts that anger into durable political power rather than content. Every election cycle young voter turnout disappoints, every cycle everyone is surprised, nothing changes. The anger is THERE. The infrastructure to turn it into consistent political power isn't. Build the infrastructure or accept the outcome.
- Diego3w ago
My parents literally cannot comprehend that my full-time job doesn't cover a one-bedroom. 'Just budget better.' There's nothing left to budget, mom.
- Taylor2w ago
Anger is fine. Anger is healthy. What I'd push back on is the idea that the solution is purely redistribution from old to young. The actual fix is building more housing, reforming planning laws, and properly funding public services. That benefits everyone regardless of age.
- Reese M.3w ago
Generational blame is a psychological comfort blanket. It makes a complex systemic failure feel like it has a human villain. It doesn't. Capitalism doesn't have a generation, it has shareholders.
- Morgan1w ago
Wait until the inheritance wave hits and watch the 'angry at boomers' narrative quietly dissolve among those who receive it. Intergenerational wealth transfer is already the biggest financial event in history. A lot of this debate will look different in fifteen years.
- Jamie1w ago
Except inheritance concentrates wealth further, not more equally. The kids of wealthy boomers get wealthier. The kids of working-class boomers get whatever's left after care home fees. 'Just wait for the inheritance' is literally an argument for aristocracy.
- Taylor M.1w ago
The care home fees point is so underrated in this debate. Enormous amounts of boomer housing wealth are going to be consumed by elderly care costs. The inheritance many young people are waiting for doesn't exist in the form they imagine.
- Hana L.3d ago
Counterpoint nobody wants to hear: there are 25-year-olds right now buying properties in cheaper regions, learning trades, building things. They don't post about it because it doesn't go viral. The narrative of total impossibility serves people who want an excuse as much as it serves people who want to avoid accountability. I'm not saying it's EASY. I'm saying 'impossible' is too strong a word and it stops people from trying.
- Theo3d ago
oh wow, 'move somewhere cheaper' — revolutionary economic advice from a guy who definitely hasn't thought about where the jobs are, where the families are, where healthcare is accessible, where schools are. Not everyone can detach from place like an asset manager shuffling tokens. People are rooted. That costs something.
- Iris1w ago
I want to push back on the lazy generalisation about 'boomers blocking everything.' I'm on my local planning committee. Most of us — yes, older — voted FOR the new development. It got killed by two NIMBYs who had very loud solicitors. The story is always more complicated than the meme.
- Feli1w ago
One planning committee in one town doesn't refute the aggregate data on planning rejection rates or the consistent voting patterns on housing policy at national level. I'm sure there are good individuals. The structural outcome is still the structural outcome.
- Hana 923w ago
Nobody pulled up a ladder. The economy changed because of globalization, technology shifts, and population growth in cities. Blaming 'boomers' for supply and demand is like blaming your grandma for gravity.
- Noah R.3w ago
legitimate question: what exactly do you want older people to DO? sell their homes at a loss? vote for parties that would tank their retirement savings? I'm sympathetic but the ask is never clear
- Avery1w ago
People keep citing 'the data' in these threads as if they've actually read it. What data? Where? UK? US? Australia? Canada? These markets have genuinely different dynamics. 'Housing is unaffordable' is true everywhere but the policy solutions and historical causes aren't identical.
- Zara K.3w ago
The anger's pointed at a generation when it should be pointed at a system. Your retired neighbor didn't design this. Aim higher than the dinner table.
- Quinn2w ago
every time i read takes like this i just think: ok so youre angry. then what. anger that doesnt convert to action is just vibes.
- Riley 923w ago
Every generation inherits a mess and whines about the last one. Boomers had a draft, stagflation, and 18% interest rates. Nobody had it easy, stop romanticizing.
- Ravi2w ago
hot take: some of this anger is valid but some of it is also young people expecting a certain standard of living immediately that their parents took 20 years to build up to. starting out in a small flat is normal. expecting a 3-bed house at 26 isn't an economic right.
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