A few decades ago, Leslie McIntire thought she was doing everything right for a comfortable life. She was a tax accountant in Washington, D.C., and co-owned a not-for-profit bookstore. “I had good savings,” she says. “I was quite happy, quite frankly, and I was preparing to go back to school.”

Then a car accident dislocated her hip and jaw, left her psychologically rattled and derailed her career.

McIntire held on in her rent-controlled apartment for a while, even after she was forced to go on disability and started burning through savings. She eventually realized she needed more help, but then had to endure a three-year wait to get into the federally subsidized senior housing where she now lives.

“And by the time I got in here, I was seriously considering going into a shelter,” she says. “I paid my rent, my utilities. I had SNAP benefits for food. And I had $25 left over. And you just can’t live on that in the long run.”

McIntire is 69, part of the baby boomer generation that is entering older age amid a historic affordable housing shortage and rising wealth inequality in the U.S.

  • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
    324·
    11 months ago

    Couple tone deaf comments here talking shit about boomers. Yeah, plenty of people support evil politicians and policies. Also: most of the time the difference between one party winning an election versus another is a few percentage points. If 54% are assholes we shouldn’t tell the other 46% “too bad boomer, hope you die.”

    Going further, the U.S. is an imperfect democracy at best. We’ve got inherently unequal representation because each state gets two senators regardless of population. We have gerrymandered congressional districts and state districts. A supreme court unanswerable to the public. Corporate funded politicians.

    Are all the bad things that happen to you your own fault? You should have voted harder right?

    Have some compassion, and think strategically.

      • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
        5·
        11 months ago

        You’re right, people should absolutely make themselves heard, should vote and also get active. We should make systemic changes that improve everyone’s lives and also disadvantage antisocial/unsustainable forces.

        I think the stats you shared reinforce my point - there are many millions of people who did not vote for Reagan et al., and unlike those comments I mentioned in this thread, we shouldn’t have a knee jerk reaction of, “tough luck boomer, you brought this on yourself.”

  • o0joshua0o@lemmy.world
    2011·
    11 months ago

    If you’re a Boomer in this situation, tell me who you’ve been voting for, then I will tell you whether or not I have sympathy.

  • teft@startrek.website
    2016·
    11 months ago

    Oh look, boomer chickens are coming home to roost. Maybe they shouldn’t have gutted all the social safety nets for a quick buck?

    I have no sympathy for them

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      295·
      11 months ago

      fuck off, my mom didn’t gut your social programs. she’s human just like you and me, raised three kids as a single mother working long hours, and now she cant afford her rent either. we’re all in the same pot of shit and your contempt for an entire generation based on a few rich assholes who face zero consequences is just tone deaf and cruel

      • ganksy@lemmy.world
        62·
        11 months ago

        The few rich assholes only have power and zero consequences because they were supported. My dad supports those aholes and will get what they promised him. My mom has never voted for them and she will too, unfortunately. Who is worse the grifting manipulators or their enablers?

          • ganksy@lemmy.world
            11·
            11 months ago

            More of a clarification. Did your mom reap what she sowed? My dad did. I’m not mad at anyone for pointing that out. Neither am I assuming anyone is condemning my mom for being a boomer even though she didn’t vote for this stuff.

      • teft@startrek.website
        914·
        11 months ago

        Maybe she should have voted for people who cared about social safety instead of assholes like Reagan who gutted it.

          • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
            146·
            11 months ago

            To bad majority of boomers didn’t. Face it your mom and my moms generation fuck us All and now they are paying the consequences. It going be far worse for us when we are their age. So no I have no time but to feel contemp for them.

            • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
              52·
              11 months ago

              Buddy, you’re jumping the gun, seriously.

              Boomers have voted for their own interests at the cost of anyone else their entire lives, what makes you think this’ll be different?

              They’ll take all the money social security had left and cancel it for gen x onwards, regardless of us paying into it for 30 years

              • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
                11·
                11 months ago

                Your right but their are boomers like my cunt mom who were poor and didn’t do any of that but still voted for the ones who did.

                • Dkarma@lemmy.world
                  22·
                  11 months ago

                  That makes her post of the problem. No sympathy for people who lived through the greatest economy in history and failed to make it. Then voted for ppl to ruin it for the rest of us

      • Mango@lemmy.world
        21·
        11 months ago

        Honestly, I’ll eat anyone who’s sitting on their hands and not showing up for Saturday dungeons and dragons while they complain they don’t get enough magical items.

        There is no change from within. The whole system is geared against that. Fall in line or your superiors will see you out. Change from without is the only way anything ever changed.

      • teft@startrek.website
        78·
        11 months ago

        The boomers supported the rich and voted them in, leading to our current capitalist hellscape. Eat them all.

        • Cheers@sh.itjust.works
          21·
          11 months ago

          Most of us use Google, Microsoft and Amazon. They’re ingrained and destroying our futures but they’re convenient. Two generations from now will be saying the same about us. We as individuals can resist, but it won’t make a trillion dollar company into a million dollar company. We eat the rich, none of this generation hate.

  • FelixMortaneEnglish
    41·
    11 months ago

    The debate in the comment section is always the same when comparing generations, and the problem is people flip flopping. You cannot cite examples of general patterns for one part of your point, then anecdotal specific people’s experience for the other. Pick one or the other, and sadly your anecdotal points are basically useless.

    I am sure you mom / dad / aunt / uncle / grandma / grandpa are all nice people who don’t deserve the hardships they are going throw. The difference is that the younger generations are there as well, and they didn’t even have the chance to “prepare” with savings, or a chance to vote, campaign, protest, strike or anything else related.

    I am almost 40, and I am dreading the day my kid questions me about “what did your generation do to help the future” and I have to say absolutely fucking nothing because they sat at home, feeding on crumbs tossed to us and had no backbone to stand up for them when they couldn’t, myself included.