This has been a thought provoking topic for me, but only in the last couple of years. I think my POV may ago be a bit different, having grown up in the UK rather than the US where post war experiences were quite different. Until recently, my encounters with the generation idea was the boomer generation were the ones both in the post war baby boom and generation X (myself) were their children. For me generations are grandparents, parents, children, so I thought that was how it worried wither, but I don't think it was really dissected back then like it is today. Incidentally, my grandparents are what the graph would term the greatest generation.

My sister had her son early and he is generation Y (now called millennial), again making sense to me at the time with the generations and they were called that because Y comes after X. So I naturally assumed my children would be Y, but my eldest was the one who taught me the latest generation divides are by the years they're born, so my girls are apparently gen Z. The labels didn't matter to me, it was always just a fun concept on how the decades we grew up in gave us such different experiences, but now it seems to have become a blame war.

Currently the millennial seem to blame the boomers for everything they perceive they can't do or have, due to a way of life they see them having set in motion. Yet what they blame on the boomers, I never saw. Some of this could be due to what country we're looking at. As an American you describe a post war boom, which was certainly happening in the US. However, for Europe (and even Australia to an extent) it was a different story. My father remembers the post war rationing (born 1949) which continued for quite a while after the war. Australia too had the "make do and mend" philosophy happening at this time. The UK was rebuilding after the bombing and helping to rebuild a blitzed Germany too, so I believe it continued for a bit longer in Europe.

Admittedly, the boomers gradually saw am improvement in life and got to experience the support of a welfare system, but they knew how to sacrifice to be able to keep a roof over their families heads and feed them. They had fewer children, so they could give them a better start than they themselves experienced. They had the chance to get on the property market, but it didn't come without careful budgeting and going without luxuries.

The millennials are struggling to get on the property market and it's not easy now. However, I also see them with the latest technology, the latest phone plans, they don't want to walk anywhere, but have to drive everywhere. All the while complaining that the boomers consumption has caused the economic and ecologic problems they're having to deal with? Boomers may have paved the way for gen Y and Z to have these opportunities for luxuries, but each generation following them have actually been the ones to consume more and more. Perhaps we are the ones who need to evaluate our choices. It's probably easier for me as a gen X to do so, because I've seen the example with my parents and grandparents of how to make do. Yes, my parents are now comfortably retired and I don't see that easy a future even for the Xs, but they fought and sacrificed to get where they are and are possibly lucky enough to be the last generation to experience this.

Now, looking at your statistics on which generations are sitting where, I'm starting to think that the blame on the boomers could be triggered by the fact that they have been running America for the last few decades! 😂 The amount of gen Xs in the technology industry makes sense, because this was the first generation to have these opportunities and this sudden jump forward in technology which was likely triggered by the war time push in technology (necessity being the mother of invention). The following generations can continue to build on this.

I do think we need to the a step back on this blame game and realise that experiences are a bigger factor in how each generation and person develops, with experiences varying from country to country as well the time that you grew up in. The world currently seems to be focusing on America's problems and bringing them into their own countries where they don't fit and it's getting disconcerting. I'd rather be focusing on the good we can learn from each and every country. At the moment America is fast becoming the target of resentment and blame. Although, on the positive side that's taking the attention away from the Brits and the resentment of what the British Empire did. 😉😆

Anyway, I'll leave it there, before it becomes a book!