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The Difference a Year Makes

The New York Times, 10/29/09

Abstract:

Baby boomers are counted as lucky for having lived through a time of unprecedented prosperity. But Harry MacAvoy, 52, believes that within his generation, there was one year to be born that was luckier than the rest, 1957.

“We completely missed the upheaval of the 60s, the Vietnam protests on campus, the draft,” said Mr. MacAvoy, who is research director for Republican legislators in the New York State Assembly and happens to have been born in, yes, 1957. “But we were old enough to remember the moon landing, the opening of Disney World and we got to college at the height of anything goes.”

Mr. MacAvoy — born Sept. 3, 1957, and raised in suburban Long Island, N.Y. — has spun a cradle-to-grave theory of supreme luckiness, using himself as the case in point. This includes being in college when the legal drinking age was 18 and having his children in college when the legal age is 21; buying a first home when the real estate market was depressed and selling that home when real estate prices soared; looking for his first job just as the 1980s recession ended; and knowing now, in the middle of this recession, that he can retire at 56 with a good pension.

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