For once, boomers and millennials seem to be on the same team—at least those in the middle class. For all the differences between the two generations, there’s a surprisingly strong overlap in the venn diagram of generations. (This may make sense when you consider that by and large, boomers raised millennials, but that’s another story.)
The striking similarities are there in a new report from H&R Block, which analyzed data representing 10.5 million Americans who filed their taxes with the company since 2000 as well as a survey of 1,000-plus taxpayers. Nearly half of these tax filers, 4.6 million, reported an Adjusted Gross Income between $45,000 and $145,000, which H&R Block deems middle income. While this included everyone across all generations, the highest average ages were 32 and 62 years old—the millennial and the boomer, respectively.
Of course, these figures make sense since millennials and boomers are the largest generations, whereas Gen X and Gen Z are much smaller. It only stands to reason that the largest number of middle-class Americans would correspond. But even still, they have more in common than you might think.