@The Duke
There have been a lot of replies on this thread, but I've had many conversations pertaining to this topic and seen/observed boomer behavior.
@SW15 mentioned this, but the boomer generation were literally born at the right place at the right time.
Getting individual circumstances out of the way, as long as you were a relatively normal person that showed up to some of work, got training, etc. you were guaranteed to have a middle class lifestyle, become a home owner, etc. Wages were competitive and cost of housing was not insanely out of control like it is now. Fun fact, boomers control about 2/3 of the real estate in the U.S., they sure as hell can't take that with them lol.
Literally every man in this generation easily found someone who he could eventually marry and have children with, which is NOT the same for the men of their children's generation. There are a lot of factors at play here and I'm not going to dig further into them on this post here.
Higher education was much more affordable then compared to now. I remember hearing a boomer I know complain about how her college education cost her 10k total and how right out of school she was making under $10/hour in the late 70s. It's honestly not that unusual to see many people today with close to 6 figures in student loan debt or more. The strength of the bachelor's degree has been insanely watered down over the last 30 years or so and many people look at this and think the next step is to get a master's degree lol. It's an endless cycle of ever increasing student loan debt while delaying bringing in an actual income, investing, saving, etc.
Social security- There's been a lot of talk that the boomer generation is going to run this dry. I am not privy to the exact figures behind this, but I believe that by the time millennials and gen zs start approaching their retirement age this may not be available, or at least not like we know it now. It's very likely that this generation will have to continue to work well into their 70s.
Here is the take home of all of this. The boomers were incredibly lucky, but many do not realize how easy they had it. It isn't impossible to get ahead as a young adult in America, but you have to be way more on point with your game to do well for yourself compared to this generation. Again, this generation did well by just showing up, they literally received participation trophies in life lol. A millennial or gen z would have to be consistently making very good decisions with career, finance and investing, education, etc. in order to do well. It doesn't take much for this generation to make a decision that could have severe ramifications for years or even decades, student loan debt being one of them.