Young and old all point fingers, but in different directions

Tyler Clark could write a book about all the ways baby boomers have left their size-16EEE economic footprint on the backs of subsequent generations.

In fact, that’s exactly what the 28-year-old Web analyst hopes to do — aided by contributions from fellow Generation X’ers solicited through his blog and Twitter account.

As Clark’s long-range project attests, the consequences of a bad economy — the burst housing bubble, decimated stock portfolios and a tight job market — can accentuate generational fault lines. Baby boomers get blamed for the greed and excess that set the country on this road. Older Americans question the commitment and expectations of younger generations. Meanwhile, those just entering the workforce trumpet their ability to adapt to the economic disorder wrought by their predecessors.

“Financially, we’ve seen some of the most shocking things in our generation because of the boomers,” says Clark, citing the Enron scandal among other events. “That’s why there’s that hostility there.”

Sure, there’s some hostility — and it runs in all directions.

Gen-Y gets slammed as the “Trophy Generation” that grew out of youth sports in which they were rewarded just for showing up.

Gen-X bears the imprint of the dot-com boom and bust plus heavy personal debt. Even the Greatest Generation, heralded for its role in World War II and the economic boom that followed, has been critiqued as an exaggeration.

Respect for differences — Gen-X and Gen-Y’s affinity for technology, for instance — also seeps across the vague and shifting generational demarcations.

Jobless rate worse for the young

But there’s nothing like a deep recession to trigger reflection about not only a generation’s economic attitudes but also the forces that shaped them.

Numbers fuel some of the angst. It’s been difficult for Gen-Y to gain any workplace traction with the burgeoning unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds that stood just over 15 percent a year ago. Now it’s over 22 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For Gen-X’ers, the current unemployment rate is closer to the national average, right around 10 percent. Boomers and beyond fall into the 8 percent range.

Is there life beyond the job? In a recent poll by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, more than one-third of workers in their 20s — Gen-Y — said they expect to work past age 70 or never retire.

“And these people,” notes center president Catherine Collinson, “have 40 years to save.”

Meanwhile, 30 percent of surveyed workers over 50 — covering boomers into the Greatest Generation — already have taken out a loan from their retirement plan.

“There’s the way the generations are impacted, and the way they perceive what’s happening, which is quite different,” says Tammy Erickson, who has explored generational characteristics in three books on America’s changing workplace. “They had different expectations formed when they were younger, looking at events through different lenses.”

Boomer craved security in job

Robin Smith still shudders when she thinks about 1968. She’s a middle-of-the- pack boomer in Lakewood, an employee with the Federal Highway Administration.

But in ’68, she was 12 years old, comfortably nestled in the cocoon of family life in Grand Rapids, Mich. Disturbing images of the Vietnam War flashed across the TV screen. Then came the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

“Something went horribly, horribly wrong,” Smith recalls. “It started to make me realize that I wasn’t so safe and sound.”

Although her school and family life proceeded smoothly, she wonders whether that looming sense that things could veer terribly off the rails influenced her decision to channel her career into government work.

“Deep down inside, I wanted security and stability,” Smith says.

She saw “the American dream in hyper- drive” for 30 years, and now she sees younger adults falling economic victim to its allure — in the housing market, for instance.

“The whole idea that you could buy a house, borrow 100 percent, that makes me shudder,” Smith says. “I don’t want to blame one generation, but the whole idea of easy money, that the economy will always grow, tomorrow will always be better, that’s not how it is. “

Aiming to be jack of many trades

Leapfrog now to Gen-Y — sometimes called “Echo Boomers” or millennials — and the economic attitudes that guide them through the current crisis.

At 26, Jessie Ulibarri is state director of a civic engagement organization called Mi Familia Vota. He came of age during the dot-com boom — that age of easy money.

“Only now are people my age realizing there was a bust,” he says. “That mentality is starting to change — maybe I’m not going to be the next millionaire. It was easy to identify with a higher income group, because there were so many who made it. That’s not the case anymore.”

Unlike a well-anchored boomer, Ulibarri envisions a career that encompasses perhaps 20 different jobs. He’s always been a mobile worker, connected by laptop, BlackBerry and iPhone.

But he does echo the boomers in some respects. His parents passed along values of equal opportunity, learned as they experienced the Chicano and feminist movements, as well as what he calls “financial literacy.”

But one of the most useful tools he picked up was confidence in his ability to adapt to changing economic conditions.

“In the circles I run, we got rid of the false dichotomy that if you are X you can’t be Y,” Ulibarri said. “We have the ability to do more than one thing. Part of it is the economic times — maybe you need two jobs to get by.”

Retirees felt committed, loyal

That wisdom circles back to the life of Leo Collier Sr., a 70-year-old retiree in Green Valley Ranch in northeast Denver who moved from a career in the Air Force to one in financial services.

Adaptability served a young man born at the close of the Greatest Generation — or, as some cultural observers define it, the advent of the Silent Generation — as well as it now serves Gen-Y. But Collier, like many of his time, tended to stay put in the workplace once he’d found a niche.

He began working at age 10, when his parents divorced. As an African-American growing up in racially segregated Mississippi, he grew so angry at the education disparity that he abandoned his college plans and joined the Air Force.

“I didn’t want to stay around there,” he says, “because I saw no future.”

Eventually, he earned a business degree on the GI Bill and, after retiring from the Air Force, joined the financial services firm where he would work for the next 26 years — even following the company to Iowa when it was sold. He adapted, but he also felt loyalty to a company that treated him well.

“I know the value of hard work, the value of being dependable and committed to giving good effort,” he says. “A lot of people I experienced in the workforce, they didn’t get too concerned about being dedicated and committed to the company.”

Peggy Shivers, a 70-year-old retiree in Colorado Springs, also embodies many of the economic precepts of her generation. She has always practiced thrift, never throws away food and carefully manages her fixed income.

“I was proud to work through college and save enough for my tuition,” Shivers says. “I don’t get that same feeling from young people today. They take out student loans or expect their parents to pay for it.

“It’s just a different approach in life.”

Hard times hit all ages

For Clark, a father of two who represents the tail end of Gen-X, the idea for the book detailing boomer transgressions came just after he and a buddy had been laid off. They started the blog to share ideas about the causes of their predicament — namely, boomers.

“Then he went off to law school and I got busy,” says Clark, “and it got stalled. That’s Gen-X too: the greatest procrastinating generation.”

Clark continues to work while he pursues a degree in finance — a degree he put off during his first college go-round to make money in the real estate market. And yes, he has student loans. But he’s not about to apologize for investing in himself.

And while he takes issue with the political and economic missteps of the baby boomers, Clark also points out that the impacts of a bad economy don’t always recognize artificial cultural boundaries.

“I think we all carry the burden as a nation,” Clark says. “It’s easy to point fingers, but my grandparents are losing their home to foreclosure as we speak. My mom has been in the job market for some time. My hostility, blaming the boomers, is just my way of blaming the political environment.”

Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739 or ksimpson@denverpost.com