As the child of a gen-xer:

Your generation was also one of the few to literally fucking try nothing.

Say what you will about boomers, they had the civil rights movement, they had the ant-war movement. You don't get a Kent state without pissing off the right people. Don't get me wrong, they all became fucking turncoats at 25 when they fucked off to daddies company, but for a split second they did something that mattered.

Between the civil rights movement and the post-9/11 anti-war movement there was barely any fucking political action here in the states. The only thing I could think of was the LA Riots, and a huge chunk of you assholes spent it praising "roof Koreans."

The only bit of youthful rebellion your generation had was manufactured and sold to you by your parents generation via music videos pre-packaged by one of three major record labels, and delivered by a cable channel owned and operated by viacom. Fucking VIACOM.

Maybe this doesnt apply to you personally, but collectively? Y'all where a bunch of fucking posers who said "good enough", because yall collectively thought what came next would be your kids problems and not yours.

If you want proof that most gen-x folks are boot lickers ask them about work ethic and listen to them repeat the same shit pulled up by your bootstraps shit as their boomer parents.

Plus most of us are assisting our elderly surviving parents

I keep seeing this with people I know, including my spouse and myself. We have spent our entire marriage so far taking care of old family members. Why us? Because my wife is literally the only competent person anyone in her family knows. And she's very caring and compassionate.

Or she was. None of the elderly people we have supported have been nice or easy to care for. My wife got tired of feeling used. We have decided that we are no longer an unpaid skilled nursing service and therefore we are the most heartless people to have ever existed. It has not been popular but there aren't yet laws demanding we take care of them.

My family, on the other hand, is more organized and generally heathier. But i have still explained to my parents that they had better have a plan, because we aren't it.

And I wonder, how many other genx and millenials have made this same decision? How many will sleep on the Boomer-only bench?

I disagree wholeheartedly. This is a dumb exclusionary policy being fairly pointed out, not ageism.

I'll explain it with a comparision of the language used.

The language used for benches like this in my country, Australia: "Priority seating. Please stand for seniors and handicapped people".

Priority, based on needs. Anyone can use it otherwise.

The language used in this sign: "Benches are for seniors are handicapped citizens only"

Exclusionary, based on privilege and needs. If you are old and infirm and a citizen ONLY YOU may ever use this bench, and if you're not a citizen (tourist, asylum seeker, migrant worker) you can fuck off regardless of your needs.

This is not a subtle distinction. This is language used to assert a hierarchy and exclude underclasses, and it's embedded into every aspect of your society without most people even noticing because they've never seen different.

Pitting racism doesn't work so well with left-leaning audiences, so the billionaires try with ageism which is not so frowned upon. No demographic is without a wedge to exploit.

You're not wrong... But the crossover age range of the vast majority of billionaires and seniors is a damned circle, it's both a class and age thing simultaneously. Boomers are usually defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, so that age range would be 62-80 as of 2026.

Nearly half of the 3,323 billionaires worldwide in 2023 were between 50 and 70 years old. Moreover, more than 40 percent were above 70 years, whereas around 10 percent were below 50 years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/621046/age-distribution-of-billionaires-globally/

And that ignores the much larger number of them that are under a billion but still well on their way up towards it. In practicality, there's little difference between 100 million and a billion despite it being 90% less.

Pregnancy is a disability

It's America... I'm sure it's not only real but enforceable with jail time.

$1500 plus installation and ongoing cleaning and maintenance, plus each one probably adds to insurance.

Better use of tax revenue than hiring another cop, though. In fact they could afford more benches if they fired a cop, that would be a good trade.

Whenever a city says they don't have the money, suggest they fire a cop.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see the notice. Maybe it should be more obvious."

4th year of highschool

If my job role is senior that counts, right?

I think it's 55

Edit: my info was based off of discounts so I was half right

Age 55 is generally not considered an official senior citizen by the government, though it marks the start of early senior status for housing, marketing, and select discounts.

I doubt this is about bench maintenance and more about giving and excuse to chase homeless people and kids away from the area. In other places they just use bench designs that are uncomfortable or make it impossible to lay down.

Spend their parents money or get fucked

Is it a problem that the 55+ housing lowers prices of other housing in the area, or that seniors are selling their old homes and actually keeping the money from the sale?

It is generally cheaper where I live because towns have to build affordable housing and it is considered more acceptable to have poor elderly people than poor people with children.