Keep in mind: when you're arguing on generational timescales your sample size goes way down. Tony Judt argues in Postwar that the 'boomers were literally the first "teenagers" in the history of mankind - semi-adults that lived as children but had adult money, adult drives and childish pursuits. Think about that: 'boomers represent something like 1 in 3 of all the "teenagers" (as a demographic, not as an age group) that ever lived. Also keep in mind that we've only got eight generations since the Civil War and eleven since the Revolutionary War.

And economically speaking, the Industrial Revolution was a period of upheaval that tore down old social structures and created entirely new ways of life, largely for the better (in the long run at least). This trend continued through the long boom, the period of american exceptionalism that effectively capped American world dominance...

...but came to an end right about the time the Baby Boomers took over.

Generation X was famously the first generation of Americans to be worse off than their parents, and Millennials are famously worse off than Generation X. Generation Z, whatever they call themselves, are already worse off than the Millennials. Now - did the 'boomers cause this? Debatable.

But they didn't do any fucking thing about it, and they continue to hold themselves harmless and their offspring as shiftless.

Thus, hard to point at a trend. But easy to point at a cause.