You are broadly right, but I suspect you’re being a little lenient on how good the old folks had it. Looking at it another way, they’d have grown up in the shadow of WW2, gone through the uncertainty of the 70's (regular power cuts, mountains of rubbish in the streets, country slowly going bust), then the Thatcher years (paying double digit interest on their mortgages, loss of industry etc). Blair and Brown made tax changes that completely screwed pension funds, then for the past 8 years interest rates have been so low that anyone with savings is losing money due to inflation. Sucks to be a woman who is about to retire too, thanks to the state pension age jumping up soon.