Generation Jones information

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Members of Generation Jones

Prince, born 1958

Kamala Harris, born 1964

Generation Jones is the social cohort^[1][2] worldwide^[3] of the latter half of the baby boomer generation to the first year of Generation X.^[4][5][6][7] The term Generation Jones was first coined by the American cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who identified the cohort as those born from 1954 to 1965 in the U.S.,^[8] who were children during Watergate, the oil crisis, and stagflation rather than during the 1950s, but slightly before Gen X.^[9][10]

Unlike "Leading-Edge Boomers", most of Generation Jones did not grow up with World War II veterans as fathers, and, as they reached adulthood, there was no compulsory military service and no defining political cause, as opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War was for the older boomers. Their parents' generation was sandwiched between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers.^[11] Also, by 1955, a majority of U.S. households had at least one television set,^[12] and so unlike Leading-Edge Boomers born from 1946 to 1953, many members of Generation Jones (trailing-edge boomers) have never lived in a world without television—similar to how many members of Generation Z (1997–2012)^[13][14] have never lived in a world without personal computers or the internet,^[15] or mobile phones.^[16] Generation Jones were children during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and were young adults when HIV/AIDS became a worldwide threat in the 1980s. The majority of Generation Jonesers reached maturity from 1972 to 1979, while younger members came of age from 1980 to 1983, just as the older Baby Boomers had come of age from 1964 to 1971.

The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving.^[17][18][19] Pontell suggests that Jonesers inherited an optimistic outlook as children in the 1960s, but were then confronted with a different reality as they entered the workforce during Reaganomics and the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, which ushered in a long period of mass unemployment. Mortgage interest rates increased to above 12 percent in the mid-eighties,^[20] making it virtually impossible to buy a house on a single income. De-industrialization arrived in full force in the mid-late 1970s and 1980s; wages would be stagnant for decades, and 401Ks replaced pensions, leaving them with a certain abiding "jonesing" quality for the more prosperous days of the past.

Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older brothers and sisters in the earlier portion of the Baby Boomer population had; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of doting and affluence granted to older Boomers but denied to them.^[21]

The term has enjoyed some currency in political and cultural commentary, including during the 2008 United States presidential election, where Barack Obama (born 1961) and Sarah Palin (born 1964) were on the presidential tickets. As of 2023^[update], the current and preceding vice presidents, Kamala Harris (born 1964) and Mike Pence (born 1959) respectively, are members of Generation Jones.^[22]