Boomers Don't Get Extra Sympathy From This Gen Xer

Yesterday the Cincinnati Enquirer highlighted the difficulties of Baby Boomers who lost their jobs during the Recession.  I don't have a ton of sympathy.  Those mentioned in the article are over 55 and most over 60.  These are people who are close to retirement age and often early retirement.  They are the type of person who it was extremely difficult to layoff in the recession because of their age, and the discrimination prevention laws that exist for people based on being older.

As a member of Generation X, I don't have any extra sympathy for Boomers on this issue.  Generation X has long been subjected to the collective excesses and selfishness of Baby Boomers, to our detriment.  Here the issue is Retirement.  Boomers don't seem to want to retire or maybe far too many of them are ill prepared to retire as they reach the appropriate age.  So, instead of retiring, like their parents did, they continue to work or in case of this article, continue to seek jobs.

For the people involved, they have no choice, they have bills to pay.  On a personal level, that is understandable and I hope they all succeed.  Collectively I wonder why so many Boomers, and maybe this is pointed to the older Boomer already past 65, are not retiring?  Why are they not getting out of the way for those younger?  How many people delayed retirement during the recession because they lost money in their 401K and wanted to wait to make sure they retired at the level they are accustomed.  They should have been invested in a way to prevent such a radical loss.  They instead took a risk, lost, and forced someone younger to lose their job because laying off an older person is not possible, even though they may be less qualified.

Younger generations are suffering just as much as these Boomer are.  Sure, a 41 year old father of two likely has a far wider skill set that would allow him to get other jobs more often, but he has far less of a safety net, having had far less time to prepare for these types of problems. More of my sympathy goes out to the 41 year old who lost his job.