December 24, 2023 | Miles Brucker

Boisterous Facts About Baby Boomers


One of the largest driving forces in the western world, particularly the United States, is the generation known as the baby boomers, who make up a majority of the population. Their actions, movements, and consumption patterns have helped steer the world to where it is today, and their political decisions are still impacting our trajectory, so here are some interesting things about the baby boomer generation.


49. Millions Strong

26% percent of the United States’ population is made up of baby boomers while the states with the highest population of them are California, with 9 million, and Texas with 5.6 million. What is fascinating about this is that these states are considered on the polar opposite ends of the political spectrum in the United States.

Baby Boomers

48. Maine Boomers

While there are many states with a higher population of baby boomers, Maine is actually the state with the highest percentage of them, at 36.8%. Maybe it’s the proximity to the ocean, or maybe it’s the proximity to the LL Bean factory outlet in New Hampshire—which happens to be a close second.

Baby Boomers facts Shutterstock

47. Getting Up There

Baby boomers may want to be careful with their votes, as, by the year 2030, the population of people aged over 65 years old will double to about 71.5 million. With the last of the generation turning 65 on December 31st, 2029, it is possible that over 80 million people will be on Medicare and Social Security by 2050.

Baby Boomers facts Shutterstock

46. Wealth of a Generation

While it is widely assumed that the baby boomers are a wealthy generation, that's actually a misconception, as their median net worth has been in harsh decline since the housing mortgage crisis in 2007.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

45. Disposable Money

It is true, however, that boomers have more disposable income than other generations, as they have been able to save over the years. However, that savings is now being used to support their children, as nearly 60% of these parents provide some sort of financial assistance to their adult children, whether it is helping with the cost of housing or paying off student loans.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

44. Class Distributions

When baby boomers were born, 61% of America's population resided in the middle class, while the percentage has been in continual decline since 1971, with merely half of the population able to be called the middle class as of 2015. During the same time, the brackets for the lowest class have risen, while the bracket for the highest has shrunk.

Baby Boomers factsFlickr, Paul Townsend

43. Productivity Rollercoaster

When baby boomers entered the workforce, productivity began to rise. From 1973 to 2013 productivity rose 75% across the American workforce, yet wages only increased 9% over the same time span.

financial and economic success sign, productivity risechaylek, Shutterstock

42. Lots of Boomers

The baby boomers were the largest generation in U.S. history...until the millennials came along. At a staggering 77 million people, baby boomers also raise many of the millennials, who also have approximately 77 million in their generation. With only Generation X in between them, it feels safe to assume which one of these two generations got it on the most.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

41. Working Late

Unlike previous generations, baby boomers have the desire to work later into their lives, with only 11% of them planning to completely retire once they hit retirement age. However, they are also projected to live longer than any other generation, although they also spend more time indoors than anyone else ever has.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

40. Hepatitis Scare

Many baby boomers have been inflicted with Hepatitis C, as the disease has become a sort of epidemic for the generation. They’re five times more likely to become infected with the disease, and three out of every four people with Hepatitis C are boomers.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

39. Marriage Equality

Same-gender marriage is still a hot-button issue for baby boomers, as only 39% of them support it, as compared to 70% of millennials. Since states started to pass legislation allowing same-gender  marriage, they have seen their teen self-destruction rates drop. At the same time, states who have not adopted the progressive policy have seen no decline in the number of teens taking their own lives.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

38. Married With Children

Boomers like to stick to traditional values when it comes to having a house and family. With 49% of them having got married between the ages of 18 and 33, 90% of baby boomers are married.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

37. Non-Secular Values

While the world becomes more and more secular, baby boomers still hold on to their religion, as only 17% of them don’t identify with a particular religion, markedly different from the number of millennials, which sits at 36%.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

36. Workforce Representation

Baby boomers who are now sitting in their 50s are still working full time, with 80% of them in the workforce.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

35. Commitment to Boss

Perhaps due to living through an era that had different working conditions, 41% of baby boomers believe that once a person has a job, they should give their employer at least five years before looking for a new job elsewhere.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

34. Higher Pay

Boomers are more likely than other generations to hold some of the world’s higher paying jobs, from Aerospace Engineer to Chief Medical Officer (CMO). After spending most of their lives in the workforce, it must feel good to be rewarded for all of their efforts.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

33. Insecurity Issues

Interestingly enough, 65% of baby boomers believe that they suffer from age-discrimination. Yet, 64% of them feel that they are a key piece of the company that they work for and are relevant to the overall goals of the company.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

32. A Boomer Workplace

67% of baby boomers believe that they’ve now had enough training to lead their companies, while 61% of them think that their generation is the most equipped to run an organization. Also, 53% of them claim that men are better sculpted to leaders than woman are.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

31. Luxury of Business

Business owners in the United States are 35% more likely to be baby boomers than any other generation, as over 80% have had the privilege of opening their own business as a lifestyle choice, as opposed to necessity.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

30. Consumer Importance

Nielsen tracks over 6,500 brands, and boomers are the most important consumers of these brands, as 72% of these brands rely on over 50% of the boomer population for sales. After a lifetime of advertising to boomers, no wonder many so companies are struggling to figure out how to reach millennials.

Baby Boomers factsPixabay

29. Keep It Small

More baby boomers are more content with the current state of the government in the US as compared to other generations. Only 35% of their voters say that the government should step in to help solve the issues the country is facing, as they tend to a believe in conservative ideals like small government and a large private sector.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

28. Where Interests Lie

While only 35% of baby boomer voters think the government should do more, 45% of them claim that politics and government are one of their major interests in life.

Baby Boomers factsFlickr, Valerie Hinojosa

27. Gen TV

The majority of the boomer generation relies on television for the news, as 60% say they stay informed from local TV, and 47% are committed to news programming from Fox News and/or NBC News.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

26. Money By Blood

Inheritances makes up a large portion of the baby boomer’s wealth, and over the next 20 years, a mind-boggling $15 trillion will be inherited by the generation. That is, if there isn’t a large redistribution of wealth, at least.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

25. Thrift Institutions

80% of all of the money in savings and loan associations is from baby boomers. This helps to explain why the generation was hit so hard when the housing bubble burst in 2007, as savings and loan organizations can be fragile institutions due to their focus on mortgage and consumer loans.

Baby Boomers factsPiqsels

24. Health Needs

In order to handle the aging of the baby boomers and their subsequent health needs, 5.6 million jobs in healthcare will have to be created, because their generation will require more services than any other generation.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

23. Longer Living

Once the year 2030 comes, baby boomers will likely account for at least double the number of admissions to hospitals than they do now, as they are expected to live longer lives than the previous generation and 67% suffer from at least one chronic disease.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

22. Diversity Rules

Baby boomers were the first generation of Americans to be as diverse as they are, with nearly 20% of them being from groups of minorities. Today, over 10 million baby boomers were born outside of the U.S.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

21. In Control

Controlling 70% of the wealth in the United States, people ages over 50 years have a combined income of over $2.4 trillion and also account for over 40% of consumer demand in the country.

Breaking Bad factsPixabay

20. Big With Facebook

With only 78% of boomers online, somehow 82% of them have at least one social media account. They also spend close to $7 billion over the internet every year as they make up over 30% of America's internet users. The average boomer has 124 Facebook friends and 51% of the generation spends at least 15 hours per week online. Surprisingly, only 41% of millennials spend that much time online every week.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

19. 65+

Since 2011, baby boomers are turning 65 at a rate of 10,000 per day. This is expected to continue for the next 11 years.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

18. Presidential Boomers

The past four presents of the United States have been baby boomers, with George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump all being born in 1946. For the record, Barack Obama was born in 1963, just on the cusp of Generation X.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

17. Lefties In Charge

Somehow, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who are the first two baby boomer presidents, are also the only two left-handed presidents to serve back to back.

Wikipedia FactsGetty Images

16. How’d They Boom

One of the reasons for the boom in babies that we now refer to as baby boomers were that many couples had put off having children throughout the Great Depression. Combining that with all of the young couples that began having children post-conflict is how you create one of the most prolific generations.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

15. Fight For Your Right

Baby boomers were the population force driving the social justice movements in the second half of the 20th century. Many people in the boomer generation were able to mobilize for what they believed in, and they protested and actively fought for civil rights and gay rights.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

14. Web Stories

The best selling children’s book in history was the baby boomers favorite—Charlotte’s Web. E.B. White’s classic story about the friendship between a piglet and a spider was first published in 1953, and is still widely read...because it should be, shouldn’t it?

Baby Boomers factsPxfuel

13. Prophets of the Future

Many of the most important and influential books of the baby boomers years are prescient classics which are making a comeback today for their foresight, including George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second coition, and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.

Famous Writers FactsGetty Images

12. Disposable Income

89% of baby boomers have a cellphone, while even 13% of them have cut the cord entirely from landline telephones. They are also 5 times more likely than any other generation to have an iPad.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

11. Pig In The Python

It wasn’t until the boomers came along that generations were even really defined in the manner that they are today, and much of this rhetorical development was done in order to increase their consumption, as they were almost immediately analyzed and pitched to by marketers as liberalization occurred throughout the western world.

Baby Boomers factsPixabay

10. Split Cohort

Baby boomers can be split into two groups, those born between 1946 and 1955 and those born between 1956 and 1964. The earlier group of boomers were the crusaders of social justice who led movements of liberation and social welfare, while the second group is generally regarded for their cynicism and distrust in government.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

9. Gap In Quality

The first generation in history to be worse off than the preceding one will be Generation X, who came directly after the baby boomers. This is something which has been taken for granted through time, but considering they won’t be around to see it happen, it is an easy pill for many boomers to swallow.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

8. Boomers of the Year

As the boomers were coming of age, mobilizing, and affecting the world to better represent what they believed it should be, TIME magazine recognized the changing of the guard and in an unprecedented move selected the entire generation to be their 1966 “Man of the Year".

Millie Bobby Brown factsShutterstock

7. Self-Involved

The baby boomers are sometimes alternatively referred to as the “Me” generation, originally coined by writer Tom Wolfe in the 1970s. This term is a reference to the qualities of narcissism that the generation began exhibiting as they began to turn away from the ideas of social responsibility and turn towards ideals of self-fulfillment.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

6. Election Swingers

Boomers are the most politically active generation at this moment in the United States, and their overwhelming involvement in the 2016 election is seen as the greatest demographic influence on the election of Donald Trump.

Life Imitating Art FactsGetty Images

5. Don’t Settle

Not the biggest fans of settling in life, most baby boomers don’t believe that they’re living in the house that they deserve, and 70% of them plan on moving into a better home at some point soon. They are a generation, as evidenced by their internet usage, who continually educates themselves on what they want, and they like to go out and get it. That’s probably good news for the housing market, as well as Home Depot.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

4. Consume, Consume, Consume

Not only do the boomers have more wealth than other generations, they also spend much more of it than anyone else, at a rate or 2:1, which amounts for $400 billion more in sales per year.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

3. Apple Love

Known for their brand allegiances, baby boomers stick to what they know works. This is evident in their love of Apple products, as over 40% of all their products are bought by boomers.

Baby Boomers factsWikimedia Commons

2. Travel in Luxury

There is a disparity in the way different generations travel, and this is seen in the way boomers travel in luxury. 80% of spending in the luxury travel sector is spent by people over the age of 50 years old.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

1. Get Better With Age

Despite the myth that our intercourse drives drop as we age, 70% of people over sixty confessed that their intimate lives even included more satisfaction than it did when they were in their forties.

Baby Boomers factsShutterstock

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13


READ MORE

Top Three Hotels For Adventurers

If you’re looking for unique thrills, an average hotel just won’t cut it. For an unforgettable vacation, check out one of these amazing adventure hotels.
June 13, 2023 Kaddy Gibson
Gros Morne National Park

Five Incredible Destinations For Nature Lovers

If you’re looking to embrace the call of the wild and experience breathtaking views, check out these great nature destinations.
June 13, 2023 Kaddy Gibson
St. George's Church

The Creepiest Abandoned Attractions

Despite their ominous origins, these abandoned attractions have become some of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.
June 13, 2023 Kaddy Gibson
internal-vienna

Destination Of The Day: Vienna

With an abundance of beautiful architecture, fine art, and historical attractions it's easy to see why Vienna was once considered the capital of the world.
June 14, 2023 Kaddy Gibson
internal-louvre

Destination Of The Day: Paris

With rich history, beautiful streets, and world-renowned cuisine, it’s no wonder why Paris is among the top tourist destinations.
June 14, 2023 Kaddy Gibson
bali_internal

Destination Of The Day: Bali

Bali is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, but don’t let that stop you from visiting this beautiful Indonesian island.
June 14, 2023 Kaddy Gibson