NEW YORK ¨C In 1991 the demographers Neil Howe and William Strauss published their awkwardly-titled tome ¡°13th Gen,¡± about Generation X ¡ª the Americans born between 1961 and 1981. If Xers had paid attention they would have committed suicide.
¡°Child poverty, employment, wages, home ownership, arrest records ¡ª in every category, this generation, the 13th since the American Revolution, is doing worse than the generation that came before,¡± New York Times book critic Andrew Leonard wrote at the time. ¡°Indeed, for the first time since the Civil War, the authors of ¡®13th Gen¡¯ keep reminding us, young people are unlikely to surpass the affluence of their parents.¡±
Tellingly, the Times titled Leonard¡¯s review ¡°The Boomers¡¯ Babies¡± as though their relationship to The Only Generation That Mattered at the time was their status as offspring. Which, equally tellingly, was incorrect. Most Xers¡¯ parents belong to the Silent Generation that came of age in the 1940s and 1950s, not the Boom.
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