The survey released by Ipsos on Wednesday found that around 4 in 10 (38 percent) of polled Americans believe the Baby Boomer generation had both a positive and negative impact on U.S. society.
A third of respondents also said they believed the generation aged 55 and over had either a “somewhat positive” or “very positive” influence on modern America. By comparison, only 13 percent of polled Americans said Baby Boomers had a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” impact on today’s society.
A further 14 percent said they either didn’t know what the impact of the generation had been on American society, or believed it had made “no impact” on the United States of today.
Although younger people took a slightly dimmer view of the “boomer” generation than middle-aged and older Americans, a plurality of 18-to-34 year olds (37 percent) still said Baby Boomers had a mixture of positive and negative impacts on American society.
A little more than a quarter (27 percent) of the age group said “Boomer” influence had been negative to some degree, while 23 percent said their elders had a net positive impact on the country.
Older respondents took a more positive view of the Baby Boomer generation’s effect on modern society.
Boomers themselves were very upbeat about their impact on America, with a plurality of 45 percent saying their influence had been net positive. By comparison, a slightly smaller cohort (40 percent) saw their generation’s effect on the world as mixed.
Only five percent of over 55s said they had been a part of a negative impact on modern American society.
Around a third of Americans between 35-54 years old thought Baby Boomers had a positive effect on society, while 11 percent described the generation’s influence as negative.
Newsweek has contacted Ipsos for comment on the poll and will update this article with any response.
Ipsos surveyed around 1,006 American adults between February 25 and February 26 for its survey, which has an overall 3.5 percentage point margin of error.
The poll’s margin of error within the 18 to 34 age bracket stands at seven percentage points. Ipsos’ polls of respondents aged 35 to 54, and those aged 55 and over, have 5.7 and 5.8 percentage point margins of error respectively.
Ipsos’ poll results were published months after the “OK, boomer” meme went viral, prompting older and younger Americans to take jabs at one another both online and offline.
In November last year, one radio host argued that “boomer” was the “n-word of ageism,” before being met with responses of “OK, boomer.”
A senior executive of the American Association of Retired Persons also used an interview with Axios to mock the finances of younger Americans.
“OK, millennials. But we’re the people that actually have the money,” Myrna Blyth reportedly said.
The AARP accepted that the quote was reported accurately but said the “point really got divorced from its context” online.
