Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a rate ‘not seen since the Great Depression’

On an unrelated note, suddenly, boomers care about affordable housing for no apparent reason.

For them. Everyone else needs to use their bootstraps.
- Bingo!
Suddenly boomers believe in a massive increase to social security taxes to pay for them.
I look forward to watching them die off.
- That's a hell of a lot of hate to admit to online.
Ageist comments are weirdly popular on lemmy. Why is ageism encouraged when sexism and racism are not?
- Disclaimer: These are obviously over generalizations and don't match all individuals.
  Because it's not the age people are against, it's the generation. The boomer generation had some of the most prosperous years in American history and wasted them. The general idea is you're supposed to make the world a better place for the people that come next, and they did the opposite. They cut social systems, defunded education, let public transportation die, outsourced everything, and lined their pockets with investments in oil that are killing the planet.
  I won't blame someone for being old, but I will judge them by what they did and supported during their life. And as a whole, the boomers have a lot to answer for.
- Because old people are insufferable and leech off of society while continually making things worse, even well past their expiration date.
I still everyone thinks that boomer`s houses magically built themself and cost nothing. No interest was payed for the loan and the time there where built money rained from the sky.
- Tell me more about how you want every to know that you know nothing about the changes to monetary policy, socio-economic issues, or regulatory change that has happened since the mid-70's.
- If you think that, I know you're unfamiliar with the economy and real estate.
  They bought them, yes. In fact, they had higher interest rates! My dad's first mortgage in the 80s was at 17%...but the loan was less than 2 years of his salary which made his payments pretty easy. Now I'm expecting to have to pay 5-6x my salary for a similar home.
  And to get ahead of some rebuttals: adjusted for inflation, I am making more than he did at the time so it's not that. And the homes I'm looking at are in less desirable neighborhoods than I grew up in so it's not that either.
  Furthermore, his parents' generation wasn't hoarding real estate for Airbnb rentals.
- Money does rain from the sky if you properly tax the rich.
- Nobody with a brain believes that straw man.
  The topic is complex and nuanced but it isn't hard to see that, say, single family homes are harder to afford now versus in the past by several measures.
  Here are some examples articles...
  https://anytimeestimate.com/research/housing-prices-vs-inflation/
  Though the title of the following sounds like it disproves me until you get to the part about wages not keeping up.
  https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/
  Now compare the rise in the median price of a home to the median income of Americans.
  if you adjust for inflation, the median income of Americans has only increased by 33%. The median housing prices, however, have increased by 60%. It’s even worse when you look at the income of younger adults. For instance, the median income of people between 25 and 34 only increased by $30 in 44 years (1974 to 2017). It’s no wonder homeownership rates among Millennials are lower than for previous generations.
  Particularly in the last few years things have gotten worse.
  https://cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/24/homes/home-affordability-worst-since-1984/index.html
- Okay boomer
- Obvious troll is obvious
- Nice strawman argument, clown shoes.
- People also fail to factor in the difference in ameneties between boomers' 2 bedroom, single floor, no-garage house vs what people demand today
- You didn’t hear ? Things are only hard now.

I blame the removal of pensions and replacement with inadequate 401k plans.

Social security was never meant to be a retirement plan.

Maybe it should be. Decoupling retirement and Wall Street would probably let us take a more honest look at the costs and benefits of for profit corporations in our society.
- We need regulations (laws) to make them viable for retirement.
  A forced match plus a 10% pay paid for by the employer.
  Most people just can’t save enough in a 401k to make it solid retirement program. You’re capped at little under 20k a year. I may mine every year.
  I wouldn’t even mind a national pension plan or something similar.
  The current system isn’t viable for many reasons.
  My mom is retired but she has two pensions and social equity plus some other income. She’s in a rare spot that she’s very comfortable in retirement.
- agreed. retirement and healthcare should not be tied to employment. Want a snazzier retirement. Fine that is 401k/ira material. Retirement plus health insurance should be enough to pay for a retirment home private room where you won't be molested (i.e. - pays enough that folks don't want to lose their job)
Actually, it kind of literally was. Though it's frustrating how common it is for people to share that misconception.
- AFAIK it literally wasn't. It was meant to be "one leg" of a "three-legged stool". One leg was Social Securty, one leg was company pensions, and the third leg was personal retirement savings.
Or more accurately, social security should be a proper national pension plan. Fund it by increasing contribution rates and uncapping contributions.
I stick with my underpaid government job solely for my state pension. At 55, I can start to get 70% of my final salary guaranteed, with annual COLA adjustments. I may not be rich in retirement, but I can get by.
401k plans are ripe for abuse by predatory financial advisors.. a smile and a wink and your grandpa's retirement is getting drained.
401k works fine if you actually use it. A big problem is people didn't contribute, where pensions generally had mandatory contributions. Also letting people borrow on them was a bad idea.
- And borrowing on them is just a bad idea. At least in the case of my 401k, there's no early payoff, you don't make interest off it while it's borrowed, it really can hurt in the long term unless the loan amount is very small.
  I looked out of curiosity because I want to buy a house somewhere in the next 5 years, and immediately ruled out any consideration of borrowing off 401k.

They should cut back on avocado toast and get rid of cable.

They should get rid of that land line, you know they still have one
Nah, they should've sold their houses to Aquaman, and move...
Why can I almost never see the hidden replies?

Have they tried trickle down economics or maybe pulling themselves up by their bootstraps??

Enlarged prostate and arthritis are making that difficult
- It’s a good thing they have an easy to use heath care system to rely on!!

"Fuck you, I got mine" turns into "Fuck, they got mine".

Maybe voting just for soi and against vous wasn't that clever after all? Will they stop voting Republican?

Unfortunately, no. They're going to watch Fox News talk about how this is all Biden's fault and only the GOP can save them from suffering the same fate. They will continue to follow the same pied Piper that led them here.
Dear Boomers,
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. [YOU ARE HERE]
Yeah it's like Republicans are not going to help you, other than enflaming culture wars and talking about woke. When they funnel all taxes and assets to the wealthy, and deregulate all industries, and make vaccines illegal, etc, all you'll have left is a tattered red hat and a shopping cart full of your belongings.
It will literally continue to be like this until they die out
The best thing we can do is get them out of office.

Anyone here who comments about how they deserved this fate or how they got what was coming to them needs to grow the fuck up.

There are very, very few people in this world who have done something bad enough to have this kind of condition even be remotely justified. They're gonna either be on the streets or in basic Medicaid nursing homes for the rest of their lives. Many will get beaten and robbed. Many will probably just commit suicide to avoid the nightmarish conditions. And people here are celebrating this?!

Newsflash, the baby boomer generation are also people who also deserve to have someone give a shit about them. You people are sick.

In any case, it's going to overwhelmingly not be reaganites who are going homeless. If someone spent decades shilling for austerity and had it bite them in the ass, that's one thing, but this is the economic bottom dropping out, so it's mostly not those people.
So, the kids won't let you move in, you're running out of options, and you're here on lemmy telling us how sick we are (after how many years of boomers telling millienials we are the problem) because you're about to be homeless?
- Do you not think that the vitriol against boomers is just another example of getting different groups of people to hate each other so they're distracted from the real issues?
  If it's not immigrants and minorities, why not get different generations at each others throats. Seems to be working.

Oh no! It's the consequences of my own actions!

In other news, popcorn and confetti sales skyrocketing!

Ugh, I just knew what this gross comments section was gonna look like.

Look, whatever perceived collective guilt an entire cohort of humanity has in your view, it's really disgusting to celebrate and gloat over a report about the elderly becoming homeless.

When subsequent generations decide they have the right to dance on our graves for whatever it is they decide we did, I hope your ghosts aren't too whiny about it.

If we made life significantly worse for our next generations, then they sure as hell should dance on our graves.
- Even those that tried their best to avoid causing problems and/or /revert the effects? You’re blaming the entirety for the crimes of the minority. This is dumb.
The article doesn't say, but I'm assuming the demographics of these newly homeless boomers is not predominantly white male. I still say boomer remover tho so i'm not exactly above generational warfare, it's just the worst boomers get hurt the least from poverty
- I think you make a valid point, unlike the federated smuglord that you replied to. This is mostly going to hurt people that least deserved it, as is often the case. Yeah, I know one or two boomer chuds that will likely get hit by that, but that's not worth it overall.
The material conditions and sociopolitical norms for a large demographic group of people were such that the majority of them actively and deliberately destroyed social safety nets and privatized everything they could in the hopes of making a quick buck and sticking it to the (slurs), and you're only upset that some people fucked over by that group are feeling schadenfreude about that group now experiencing what they had been dishing out.
- Tldr: collective guilt 👍
Can't see the 11 replies. So frustrating.

I'm pretty sure there were Zero homeless boomers during the great depression.

But also all of them had zero homes.

"over-50 demographic"

Hey, hey, hey, don't group all of us in with those assholes...

Enjoying the trickle down of piss? This is what you wanted

Bruh they were and still are brainwashed by so much anticommunist propaganda. They had to survive in those material conditions, and if they made it they had to buy into the lie of American Exceptionalism for their prosperity and not the Dollar becoming the worlds reserve currency and propping up European Social Democracy, Dictators, and Kings. They reaped benefits they were actively being kept in the dark about, if they are waking up cause piss is tricking down their face, i will still celebrate them waking up. We need all the people we can to wake up and realize how the elite have stolen from the working class and are only taking more and more as we continue to kill our planet to give them more wealth...
- Cognitive dissonance is really strong if you have to question the way you were living your whole life when questioning the current situation. This makes those people far more likely to be easy prey for far-right propaganda than to be waking up, I'm afraid.
- Solidarity friend 🤝

Like there aren't babyboomers who also have no say in policies and those that haven't struggled their entire lives
The more things change, the more they stay the same
- As a genx I had to struggle my whole life.
  Because boomers around me were arrogant morons who didn't understand they didn't understand anything, and they weren't entitled just for being born.

if they only voted blue 😭

Don't worry, as the saying goes "pull yourself up by the dick", and maybe they will gain enough wealth to become expats and gain more in foreign wealth and sex on Southeast and East Asia..., /s (Edited for clarification)

Instructions unclear, tried unsuccessfully multiple times and now I just feel like God hates me.
- You just gotta pull yourself back up harder, my friend, remember the bootstraps and remember you d***, that's the important part...

There are many books and at least one Oscar-winning movie about this

Meanwhile amount of empty homes is increasing. I WONDER WHY.

Wait, the people who caused all of this are now suffering the consequences? Oh no, whatever will at do?!

Because there were so many Baby Boomers alive during the Great Depression...

They mean elderly during the Great Depression. It was a driving force behind Social Security.
Yeah, that was my first thought