Why do older Americans take statements that basically boil down to say it is harder to financially prosper now than in the past (50s-90s) as a personal attack?

Boomers and near-Boomers are very, very worried that the younger generations might do anything at all that endangers their house prices or might cause them to pay slightly more taxes for the benefit of anyone else.

This keeps them up nights and makes them extremely defensive when anyone even barely implies that times are hard, or that younger generations have it tougher in any way than they did. Boomers want to believe that jobs are plentiful, that you can just walk into a place in the morning, shake someone’s hand and have a good, high-paying job by that afternoon.

That world, though, is long vanished — and in their hearts they know that they hoarded all the benefits and boons of a a better world for themselves while frantically pulling up the ladder behind them.

And that makes them deeply despise those scrabbling below them for the scraps they deign to toss down.