Are millennials still paying the price for mistakes that were made by past generations?

Joseph Sternberg, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says ‘yes’ and he lays the blame on one generation in particular —the Baby Boomers. Sternberg argues that the Baby Boomer generation is responsible for pillaging the American economy by ignoring the future in favor of temporary comforts and pleasures.

“It was a lot of Baby Boomer-era politicians who were using lessons they thought they had learned earlier in their careers to try and navigate the economy,” Sternberg told Yahoo Finance. “They made a lot of mistakes and those mistakes really affected their children the worst after the Great Recession hit.”

Sternberg’s new book, “The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials' Economic Future,” attempts to explain how the younger generation is a victim of bad politics which were exacerbated by the Great Recession.

“You can look at a bunch of things before, during, and after the Great Recession. Part of it was the long term Boomer fixation on boosting home ownership beyond any sort of level that made sense that created the conditions that caused the financial crisis,” he said.

Despite a healthy labor market, record low unemployment, and strong economic growth, Sternberg said the economy just hasn’t been working for millennials who “still feel a lot of lingering strain from early on in the crisis-era.”

“We won’t be able to fix anything if we don’t fully understand what has happened over the past 10 years,” he added.

Nick Rose is a producer for Yahoo Finance On the Move.

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