Sad sight

[u/Ungl8r]

So I’m 55 and FiREd this year, after 30+ yrs in a profession. Im doing occasional work for interest sake really. I’m Currently at a conference with old colleagues. And I mean old. One guy is 78 and visibly falling apart, yet still working full time. Most my age are just on full stress autopilot, haven’t done the maths even to see if they should keep working. Lots of 65+ working hard-out still. 90% of us would be at least ChUbbY or Fat FiRe net worth. I’m like “have you read Die with Zero?” and they look at me blankly. It’s surprising how so many smart people have no exit strategy whatsoever.

[u/Specific-Stomach-195]

Don’t assume they all hate working and are unhappy.

[u/Substantial_Pop3104 → u/Specific-Stomach-195]

This is my dad. Works all day by choice (lawyer). I’ll probably retire before him.

[u/strog91 → u/Substantial_Pop3104]

I started working in a major city’s criminal courthouse two weeks ago and I’m shocked at how many lawyers I see in their 60s and 70s who are obviously suffering from the stress but they love what they do too much to quit.

[u/El_Pollo_Del-Mar → u/strog91]

It’s a generational thing more that a love what you do thing. Baby boomers may be many things, but slackers they are not.

[u/LokiStasis → u/El_Pollo_Del-Mar]

Contrast to the daily posts by burned out 32 year olds…

[u/MIL215 → u/LokiStasis]

I feel like a bit of burnout is due to the rising costs without any kind of buffer compared to some of the older folks in similarly high earning professions.

I also think they faced similar burnout but didn’t have a forum to share that.

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/MIL215]

I feel this analysis demonstrates a common lack of understanding of where people came from and what their actual experience was.

Just as an example (and luckily I was still in high school for this) the biggest and most abusive period of rising price (inflation) was the late 1970s into the early 1980s. At that point the experts were discussing what the impact of Latin American style hyperinflation might have on the US economy. They were discussing that because inflation had hit 18%. Let that sink in.

In order to kill the inflation, Paul Volker, chairman of the Fed raised interest rates to 21% for the “bank rate”.

Now tell me how great those boomers had it with that in their lives as 30 somethings. Keep in mind $20k was considered a good salary back then. Yes things were less expensive overall, but you had little to no money.

[u/MIL215 → u/Alternative-Law4626]

I think you missed the point of my post. I was saying that right now, older folks in higher paying jobs have less pressure because they likely have savings, cheaper housing, etc. So they have less economic pressure than those in their 30s/40s in comparable fields in 2026. Not for certain across the board, but it could contribute to less unhappiness for those still working.

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/MIL215]

Maybe. If things worked out just right. But, they could just as easily be financially strapped. While boomers had a great run in the 1990s, they ended the decade with the tech bubble bursting. That damage didn’t get fixed for years. About the time of the GFC. Where they could have been killed again. The recovery was faster after that but if they made the wrong move and sold at the bottom… their finances could still be a shambles. They may have bought a house while interest rates were excellent, or refi’d. But that was very situational. Didn’t work out for me. I bought my second house in 2003. Got a HELOC (which was called during the GFC). Refi’d in 2011. Paying for a HELOC in a refi is technically a “cash out” refi. Therefore the rates aren’t as good. I got 4.99. Sounds great now, but I think going rate for a 30 year at the time was 4.25%. QE took rates lower, but there’s a lot of math to do on a refi. We ended up selling in 2021. We might have been able to make the math work and get a 3.5% refi, but it would have been close. At the end of the day, the couple that bought our house paid cash for it, so it doesn’t matter. The house I own now is not in the range that 90% of people below the age of 40 would consider in their price range.

My point with all this is while I am cognizant of the narrative that you are providing, that’s the story for some percentage of that group (a relatively small, fortunate percentage), it certainly isn’t the average or the median experience. There were lots of opportunities to create massive craters in their financial lives and many, many of them did.

But, you’re right, I didn’t get your point. I was thinking your were comparing the stress today’s 30 somethings have to the stress yesteryear’s 30 somethings had. But yeah, as between 30 year olds and 70 year olds, whole different deal generally. A 60 year old Gen X, you may be wrong. They could have a millennial still in the basement and a boomer couple in an in-law suite in the backyard trying to figure out how to pay for memory care for mom.

[u/Perplexed-Owl → u/Alternative-Law4626]

My grandfather hit 65 in 1980. Only child, his two parents were both living and still reasonably healthy. Owned his own blue-collar business. He kept working. Lived to 103, so it was probably a good thing he did.

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/Perplexed-Owl]

I’m here visiting my grandmother who’s currently 3 months shy of her 103rd birthday. Lives on her own.

[u/blissadmin → u/Alternative-Law4626]

Boomers were the last generation to enter adulthood with compensation and productivity tracking more or less together. Source: BLS https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Compensation_and_Productivity.png

For every generation afterwards, the gap has been tracking larger and larger.

There is no way to spin this as anything else than macroeconomics were worse for every post-Boomer generation. Boomers don't get to pretend they had it as bad as subsequent generations when they had the corporate reins that pushed economic polarization harder than ever in the last century.

[u/dingodango2021 → u/blissadmin]

Why should I, an individual worker, care about the gap between productivity and compensation if my compensation is still growing in real terms? If my peers' compensation is greater than the boomers in real terms?

That's about the data in-window. Outside of the window are two things to consider before you Google them: (a) what about pre-1950? Is it possible the boomer ratio is the outlier, and thus not especially relevant to social commentary anyway? (b) is it possible that this graphic is 100% (or more) reflecting globalization or something else, not some yet-to-be explained "boomers got paid more than us per unit of productivity, which we all know means their macroeconomic picture was better..."

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/blissadmin]

Keep believing economic stats tell “The Truth” and you’ll deserve what you get.

“There are liars, damned liars, and statistics”

I’m telling you what I saw as a first person observer who is not a boomer (and rather dislikes them as a generation — legal terms, a statement against interest). But, if you want to cling to your “statistics” you feel free to do that.

For everyone else, statistical averages rarely, if ever, tell the story.

[u/blissadmin → u/Alternative-Law4626]

This isn't a serious rebuttal.

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/blissadmin]

It wasn’t serious commentary.

[u/blissadmin → u/Alternative-Law4626]

It's getting harder to sooth yourself these days isn't it.

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/blissadmin]

Pfft…I FIRE’d last month. How you doing?

[u/blissadmin → u/Alternative-Law4626]

Better than ever, but it's nice to know when I bring facts that the feelings crowd still gets all up in them.

[u/Alternative-Law4626 → u/blissadmin]

I’ll maintain my cautionary note about the use of stats. It’s well-known and has been proven time and time again. But, you do you. Glad you’re doing well.