He is interviewed by the millennial action project president. After words is a Weekly Program interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. Congratulations jens, on the publication of, your book. I am so excited to scuss it today with you and i are both really interested in. The generational shift that is occurring in this country right now at, a time where so much of the focus seems to be on Younger Generations. What made you want to write something about boomers . Well, yeah. I mean, to your point, ive long been interested in the way which generations are talked about in the United States. It probably started back when i worked the Atlantic Wire and was writing a piece there every. So often every couple of years, theres one of these little brouhaha pieces in the media about what defines generations, whos what generation, yada, yada, yada. Im one of those that could and i actually call it the Census Bureau talked to them and they were like, look, the only generation we recognize is the baby because it has clear demographic markers that the other generations dont. So that sort of started me down this path of every time i start hearing about generations would be like, well, generations arent really, so why do we use them and how do we use them . What is it about generational identity that actually serves as useful for whats happening in american politics and culture . And so then that became the genesis of the book. And before we get to deep tell about how does generational identity get formed and as you did the for for this how did you avoid overgeneralization or stereotype around what is often referred to as a monolith. And i think very much so is not a monolith. Yeah. I mean, look and quite frankly, i would do is i would make a broad generalization and then say it was generalization. I mean, its hard not to do that, right. And its hard not to sort of say look, here are some characteristics of this Massive Group of people has. Obviously, it doesnt apply everyone but right. Thats just sort of theres not really any way to get around that unless start detailing the lives of you know however many tens of millions of people. So, you know when we consider a generation as i said, the Census Bureau only looks at the baby boom as a defined generation because can see the sharp spike in births that in the immediate aftermath of World War Two and then continues on for about the next 20 years. Otherwise, when we talk about generational identity, were really just talking age cohorts. Were talking about groups of people were born in certain year periods, right. And thats useful. Its useful to us to sort of collectively to talk about culturally. We all what it means when we contrasted genx, gen z, for example, or when we talk about the silent generation as opposed to millennials, we understand those distinctions because its easier than saying, you know, people born before World War Two or, you know, people born in the last 30 years. Right. Those are just easier of talking about it. But then, of course, there are also useful aspects. Generations, pollsters find it useful marketers, find it useful, and it is more useful to say this group of people shares this particular thing. And weve seen over the course of time that being born in sort of, you know, within the span of a certain period does tend to to certain shared inclinations that becomes useful for people who are doing analysis of what america is all about. So what does it mean to a boomer and how is that different from what it means . Be, for example, a millennial. Sure. So i mean, what it means is different than essentially how the generations constituted. Right. And so when we talk about how the generations are constituted, there are some really sharp and important distinctions between boomers and millennials or more broadly, people of boomer age and older and of millennial age and younger, of gen x, of which im a member sort of constantly being that forgotten middle child as, as im about to do here. But the baby boom itself, you know, consider that the baby boom emerged at a time in the United States when immigration was really at a low. There had been a backlash to immigration from europe in the early part of the 20th century. There were laws on the books even as the boom preventing immigration or tamping down on immigration broadly. And so at the time when the baby boom started, immigration, the average immigrant, someones grandpa, right . This was someone who had immigrated from europe, you know, 20, 30 years prior. It was a whole different scenario. And then after the boom, immigration was relaxed again. Immigration laws were relaxed. So you start to get a lot more people from asia or people from mexico and Central America. And that really changed what america like, you know, in a way that has become a really fundamental part of how we talk about american politics, which im sure were going get to. But, you know, it means that the baby boom really is much more white then Younger Generations, that the Younger Generations literally look different than did the baby boomers. At the same time, Younger Generations continued the pattern that we saw really start with the baby boomers of being more likely to go to college and less likely otherwise to participate in institutions being Less Beholden to Political Parties. The boom had a lot aspects of that relative to their elders, but weve really that continue with Younger Generations. And so now we have Younger Generations, much more highly educated than was the boom. Theyre much less likely to participate in institutions much less religious, much less likely to be members of Political Parties and all of those things are differentiators both culturally and politically, from people who are members of the baby boom. Mm hmm. And so how did members of the baby boom generation potentially create this reality . My generation has been born into, right . Their impact on the workforce, the economy, on culture itself, sort of what did what we have boomers to thank for. Yeah. I mean, literally everything. I mean, modern was built by the baby boom. Right. And you know, the way to think about it is first. I mean, we were bad understanding the scale, the baby boom in part because all of us living in america that was created by the boom. There are very few americans who are still alive today who preceded or can even remember what life was like before the boom emerged. But consider that in 1945, there are about 140 Million People in America Total over the course of the next 20 years, about 4 million more people were born, right . So more than 50 of the total population in 1945 was born in the 20 years following that year. Right. Thats a massive shift. And so what you started to see is as the baby boom got older you started to see a lot of things start to break. You started to see, for example, hey, look, all of a sudden the diaper industry is this boom industry, you know, like a bronzing shoes became this massive, massive business interest that made tons of money. And then very quickly that ended, you know, the boom. Then those werent lucrative anymore. And we saw that same pattern that the analogy its often used is a snake swallowing a pig, right . That you start here and the snake gets fat and then it gets thin again as the pig baszler. Its an extremely gross analogy, but i think its an apt one. And so we see that as the boom is moving through through American Culture and society, we said you have to build a bunch of schools because the baby boomers arriving, you have to start figuring out what youre going to once they graduate from high school like, you know, where are the jobs for them . Maybe they should all start going to college. Thats one of the spurs for why people start going to college. You had the vietnam war, right . You a lot of people being drafted into the military to go serve in vietnam. There are all these aspects of that are related to. This the scale of the boom and. Then you also have i know this is a long question, long answer, but here we have it. You also have the fact that the baby boom is helping to drive economics broadly. Right. So they get to their teenage years. Theyve got to do a lot of disposable income. You have the emergence of television right at that moment. You have the emergence of things like, you know, transistor radios, cars. These things all combine to create this massive cultural and economic thats focused on the baby boomers. And my thesis is in part that time the baby boomers got used to being that center of attention. And so now as that power is starting to go to Younger Generations, the baby boomers in the unusual position of being the ones out of power or with decreased attention paid to them. And i think that too is undergirding some of the tension were seeing. Mm hmm. Well, i have to say, i appreciate calling the baby boomers the me generation, because as a millennial i have been on the other end of receiving the me, me, me generation moniker. So i appreciate you pointing it at others. And this right of the snake swallowed a pig is is kind of gross but very apt. And i will say were very talented at dealing with metaphors in your book because you deal with something unpleasant. True. Which is that as generations are born, so too must they perish in. I dont think ive ever met somebody who can talk about death with. So metaphors and different ways of sort of talking about it, smoothing it out. Yeah. Yeah. And so. So tell about, you know, in many ways sort of this cultural, economic power that boomers had that theres maybe one final act of of power left in the boomers briefcase. Yeah right. So, i mean, the people who are most fine with talking about baby boomers dying is either baby boomers or people who do research on death. Right. I talk to them like, oh, yeah, theyre going to die. But, you know, i mean, its just its its a little shocking because its, you know, outside of our cultural norm in terms of how we talk about it. Yes. Baby boomers are getting older, right . Right now theyre in their midfifties the mid seventies. Theyre aging baby boomers are increasingly they make up most of the retiree population at this point. They are increasingly making up more of the number of people of, americans, who are dying each year. But that said most you know, there are still a large chunk of baby boomers are in their midfifties. Right. The baby boomers are going to be around for decades to come. And so there are a lot of questions about what happens. So, yeah, if we think about it with the peg going through the snake or going through the python, be more alliterative. You know, eventually to the end of the snake. Right. But youre still seeing that swelling at the end of the of the snake. And so i spoke, for example with a woman whos involved in the Senior Housing industry and theyre just like stoked, you know . I mean, theyve been waiting since the mid 1940s for a to be there turned to reach their end of the python. Theyre here. Although its to note Senior Housing is really aimed at people even still older than the boomers. So they havent even gotten that. You know, the pigs are starting approach them, but theyre all these factors, the all these end of life decisions, all of these factors that come into play when youre talking about elderly that are now starting to apply to the baby boom. So, for example, medical costs, right . Care, care of of of elderly people, the fact that america is going to be much older in the immediate future than has been in the past also means that there arent going to be as many people paying into government that are needed to help take care of the elderly. Right. So so theres going to be this new additional strain by this massive generation. Finally, the age at which they start to retire and start looking towards end of life. And its really not even clear how america is going to be able to adapt to that, given patterns that weve seen. Mm. And so, you know, i think thats such interesting point and one that was very salient, as we think about the concerns Everyday Americans have today is, the economy, jobs, their Financial Futures and knowing that we are store for potentially quite a large disruption the workforce over the next couple of decades. Where do you see some of the opportunities for our country or for folks who are in charge making these Big Decisions to really prepare selves for this oncoming reality. Yeah. I mean were already starting to baby boomers become a declining portion of the workforce. Right. I mean to this is what happens you know is is is is very much foreseeable. But i mean, i think to some extent, i mean, obviously, there are a lot of the economic picture over the course the past two years in the wake of the pandemic has been extremely complicated. Thats certainly true. But absolutely one aspect of the search for to find people to fill jobs is that you have more people retiring. So the people with whom i spoke did one of the things they pointed out was we need to figure out how were going to bring more people into the country. We simply need to either we either we need to substantially contract the economy or we need to bring more people in to do those jobs. The birthrates not doing it, the american birthrate has been fairly and declining over the course of the past several decades. I say that like sort of doing it off the cuff, but its been declining over the over the short term. And so when you speak with sociologists, when you speak with demographers, one thing they say is we need to figure out immigration. We need to have we need to we need to have a if were going to have a society that looks like what it looks like now, that has people are filling, particularly the Service Sector jobs are going to be increasingly left open. We need to figure that out and of the things they point out, is immigration. Mm. Yeah. And so you mentioned in the book, im going to read a quote here, the political choices that the voters make will be more concerned, essential for the direction of the country than their own Financial Investment and consumption. And so for all of their participation in our economy and the workforce, you see their politics is actually one of the more significant contributing factors to american society. Why is that . Why do you see that . Well, there are two reasons, really. The first is that when we talk about how the baby boom has approached power as its gotten older is there have been a lot of examples of baby boomers sort of building up barriers around own power. And when i say power using power in a very broad sense, im not just talking about, you know, holding the gavel in the house of representatives, talking about, you know, homeownership. Im talking about things like investments right there. There are all ways in which power as manifested in this Massive Group of people, its really, of course, to have the caveat that im saying that all baby boomers are rich. Baby boomers have a lot of aggregated wealth. But thats because there are so many boomers, you know, on a per person basis, the boomers are no wealthier than any other generation. But because of such a massive generation, they hold much more wealth and they have held much more power and theyve managed to make changes to preserve power, a way that reflects the that they just simply have so many more people who are interested in doing so. So you have that issue. You have the issue of baby boomers who are trying to preserve power. But, you know, more broadly, you also simply have this this increasing challenge between the boomers and Younger Generations over what power looks like. If baby boomers choose at this point in time, while they still have power to either side with the millennial side, with Younger Generations or unilaterally in places where have the ability to do so, to do things that change what american politics looks like, what american economics looks like, to increase example the supply of housing there all these choices that can be made while they have power to then reshape what the future, both immediate and longer term, look like, should they choose to do so. And thats thats the point of what ive seen. Mm hmm. Yeah. So and we recently saw a house leadership, actually, in age by a 93 years with former Speaker Pelosi passing the gavel to or passing the the title to two hakeem jeffries, the other three. And so that kind of jump right in 93 was almost a century younger in in. What does that do for potential future of of congress the potential future of policymaking . Yeah. No, that was a really fascinating you know, what was additionally fascinating about that moment was that the conversation prior to that happening was really on generational change. There was a lot of conversation within the Democratic Party, even when joe biden was running for president in 2020. We need to have generational and better reflect younger america. And in part, thats because democrats are more likely to be young than are republicans. Right. This is a whole different aspect that the overlap of younger america and democrats which im sure well talk. But yes, we saw broad conversation about the need for generational change. And one of the other things that you see, too, is that when you track the age of congress over time, basically from when the baby boomers got to the age, when their kids first start serving in the house, you saw the average age of Congress Sort of with the boom. And just now, for the first time, you start to see it start to dip back down. Youre starting to see boomers lose hold of that power, which again, of course, is, you know, part of the part of the genesis of the book itself. So, yeah, that was a really fascinating change. And i think it really reflects the Democratic Party recogni