Boomer, Gen X, and Millennial Slapfight

Looking at society through the generational perspective is like staring at a Magic Eye postcard. The picture looks like noise until you relax your vision. If you get distracted, it goes back to appearing undefined.

There’s a lot of value in Strauss & Howe’s take, but I’m not without my reservations.

There’s the whiff of the lack of falsifiability problem. How do you test your insights about generational descriptions? How much do the years that separate us matter? Now we’ve bumped up against my ignorance wall.

But I do enjoy reading about the stuff, so let’s gawk at an argument.

Boy Wins Sympathy

The New York Times published an article by Louis Uchitelle. The story does a lazy arc around one Scott Nicholson. He’s well educated, done with school, and desperate to land a job. He’s scouring the want ads and sending out resumes like clockwork.

It’s well-written and very human interestey, while buffeted with data. Spoiler alert: The job market isn’t exactly great for new graduates.

The college-educated among these young adults are better off. But nearly 17 percent are either unemployed or not seeking work, a record level (although some are in graduate school). The unemployment rate for college-educated young adults, 5.5 percent, is nearly double what it was on the eve of the Great Recession, in 2007, and the highest level — by almost two percentage points — since the bureau started to keep records in 1994 for those with at least four years of college.

Yet surveys show that the majority of the nation’s millennials remain confident, as Scott Nicholson is, that they will have satisfactory careers. They have a lot going for them. (Uchitelle)

Boy Loses Sympathy

Then Fortune ran a piece by Patricia Sellers wherein she expresses concern about what this means for  business.

There’s more evidence in today’s front-page story in the New York Times, “A New Generation, an Elusive American Dream.” While the article focuses on the horrible job market for today’s twenty-somethings, it suggests that these new adults are pretty much unfazed that they’re not launching into a dream career. Apart from 14% of young adults who are unemployed today, 23% are not even seeking work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The New York Times notes that the total, 37% of young adults unemployed or not seeking work, is the highest rate in more than three decades and reminiscent of the 1930s. (Sellers)

Then she wonders why these kids are more ambivalent. Personally, I have no idea, but others felt hurt.

This is the most patronizing and disgusting thing I’ve ever read. You have absolutely NO IDEA what it’s like to graduate in this climate with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt only to find that these corporations are more interested in shedding jobs to bolster their stock value than hiring people. How about you get back in your rocking chair and have a tall glass of Go F*** Yourself. (Nick, Arlington VA)

There are more like that. Clearly, Ms. Sellers struck a nerve.

Let the slapfight commence

In response, Maria Bustillos pitches a fit about it.

Where to begin with this. Maybe with the seethingly obvious question: why would these twenty-somethings be leaving their jobs? (If they are, that is—the source of this information is not provided.) Can it be because a load of self-infatuated corpocrats with river-view offices aren’t offering them job security, benefits or a decent salary? Or (more likely, in the current climate) is it because they are being restructured out in order to provide “gains” for shareholders? (Bustillos)

It’s so much a get off my lawn moment, writ large. We may have broadly different roles, but everyone gets to shake their fist at the young people. Why aren’t they more like us, right?

Even if the details are wrong, trying to understand this stuff is worthwhile. Some Boomers, Gen X’ers, and Millennials are bickering. Grab some popcorn. It’s going to be funny.

Pictured: A Boomer, Gen X'er, and Millennial having a discussion about who's to blame for the current mess. Not pictured: Silent and/or GI generation that doesn't think it's their mess either.