We’ve almost hit that very special time of year when everyone downs tools at work and returns home for that all-important festive event: arguing with your parents and older relatives at the dinner table. This year, however, I’m sensing a potential change in the tenor of these conversations. In fact, I’m issuing a Christmas PSA to all boomers: younger generations are angry with you. Very angry, in fact.
My WhatsApp group chats are littered with enraged millennials (and some older Gen Zs) who are increasingly furious with what they see as a broken social contract between the generations – and the hypocrisy of being told to “work hard and save money” in an economic reality that is especially weighted against the young. After all, boomers came of age in a halcyon period of economic growth, rapid wage growth and low house prices – whereas my peers and I graduated into the 2008 financial crisis and have staggered from calamity to catastrophe ever since, IKEA flatpack furniture in tow, to furnish rentals let by older landlords who make up to two-thirds of the market.
Then, there’s the fact that older generations benefited from free tuition at university, while most millennials are still paying back their student loans – and then some. The Government was recently accused of a £7.4bn “stealth tax” on graduates after the Chancellor froze the student loan repayment thresholds, which the National Union of Students has warned may hit graduates “dangerously close” to minimum wage.
Young people are, as always, at the sharp end of the current jobs downturn, which the Resolution Foundation says is being worsened by a “deficit of jobs” – a situation that will only intensify as AI wipes out entry-level work. (Boomers ooh-ed over films like Blade Runner and Westworld in cinemas; we get to fend for ourselves in a job market where robots have actually started to replace humans – lucky us.) These injustices all add up to the ideal conditions for intergenerational war – or at the very least, prolonged resentment. Those in my cohort are only too aware that Grandma and Grandpa get to enjoy gold-plated pensions, while we’ll be the ones paying for those comfortable retirements.
To any boomers reading this: I’m sorry for the harsh words. Humans are understandably geared to believe that their wealth and achievements are the result of hard graft and determination, not the vagaries of economic fortune. But consider this: In 1975, you could buy a house for about £11,000 – less than two and a half times the average salary. In 2025, those figures don’t just sound laughable – they’re downright fantastical.
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What’s the solution? I’m no economist, but it strikes me that there needs to be a reformulation of this social contract – or at least a recognition that older people have never had it so good and the young have never had it so bad.
Labour is already tweaking rules around inheritance tax and has unveiled a £500m National Youth Strategy to invest in younger generations. But we need bolder thinking – and that should start with scrapping the triple lock on state pensions. It is an idea that was once thought of as political suicide, but is now gaining increasing traction from the left and the right – including from the centre-right Centre for Social Justice and former Tory MP Miriam Cates, who has described the UK as sleepwalking into a “gerontocracy” in which the needs of older people trump young people.
But, speaking to my fellow age-based comrades in this war against boomers, I wonder if we also need a little more compassion for our elders, particularly those who recognise that they benefited from living through a blessed age of economic prosperity and stability and believe their wealth can – and should – be redistributed fairly. After all, the average retiree volunteer is surely motivated by the same urge to give back – you just need to supersize that on a society-wide level. And don’t forget: the wealth of the average boomer is also trumped by the staggering fortunes accumulated by the ultra-rich, who are still finding ways to wriggle out of paying less tax than any of us.
Yes, many boomers may no longer fit the stereotype of the hard-up pensioner living in penury and they may be sitting on more cash than we may ever see in our lifetimes. But they want the exact same things we want: a fairer society, a functioning healthcare system, a stable and functioning democracy, a better future for their children and grandchildren. In other words, we don’t have to throw the baby out with the boomer bathwater. Maybe what we need in the war between generations is a peace delegation.
So, if the war on words escalates between you and your boomer uncle over the turkey, give me a call – I’ll be more than happy to broker a Christmas truce.
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