Generation Jones is thegeneration or social cohort between thebaby boomers andGeneration X. The term was coined in 1999 by Americancultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who has argued that the term refers to a distinct generation born from 1954 to 1965.[1]
Media coverage of Generation Jones has typically described it as a distinct generation, using Pontell's dates of 1954 to 1965.[2][3] Others see this as a subset of the Baby Boom Generation, namely its second half.[4][5] A third view is that Generation Jones is acusp or micro-generation between the Boomers and Xers, using only the 1960s as birth years.[6][7][8][9]
Dictionary.com definees Generation Jones as "members of the generation of people born in theWestern world between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s"[10]
A 2024 survey byYouGov of 13,083 U.S. adults found that 53% of Boomers relate to their own generation the most, while 13% relate to Gen X. On the other hand, 43% of Gen Xers relate to their own generation the most, while 12% relate to Boomers.[11]
In 2009, Jonathan Pontell wrote in an article forPolitico: "We Jonesers have long been lumped with Boomers simply because we arrived during the same long post-Second World War spike in births. But generations arise from shared formative experiences, not headcounts, and the two groups evolved with dramatic differences. Our background is just as distant from Generation Xers'."[12]
While older Boomers (or "Leading-Edge Boomers") participated in thesocial changes of the 1960s and early 1970s, Generation Jones (or "Trailing-Edge Boomers") were still children.[13][14][15] Unlike older Boomers, most Jonesers, particularly younger ones, did not haveWorld War II veterans as parents (although some wereKorean War veterans). Many Jonesers' parents were theSilent Generation, sandwiched between theGreatest Generation and theBaby Boomers.[16]
As Jonesers reached adulthood, the United Statesmilitary draft andinvolvement in theVietnam War had ended; thus, they had no defining political cause, asopposition to the war was for the older boomers.[17] TheWoodstock music festival (1969) was a defining moment for older Boomers, whereas Jonesers tend to remember theWatergate scandal (1972–74) and the cultural cynicism it begat.[5] While in high school, members of Generation Jones had a distinct feeling of having just missed the realhippie era.[18] Key characteristics assigned to members arepessimism, distrust of government, and generalcynicism.[19][20]
Generational trends expert Daniel Levine, director of the Avant Guide Institute, suggests Generation Jones bridges the gap between boomers and Gen X, taking some of the idealism of its elder counterparts and the pragmatism of the generation after it.[21]
Authors Hannah Ubl, Lisa Walden, and Debra Arbit said that, because Baby Boomers is a huge generation spanning almost two decades, it can be helpful to break it into separate subgroups: Early Boomers and Generation Jones. They say the "latter group's formative years occurred after the counterculture movement of the 1960s. They weren't witnesses to the electric and inspiring atmosphere thatJFK,Martin Luther King Jr., andGloria Steinem created for Early Boomers. Instead, their world was marked by competition, limited resources as fuel prices rose, and...disco."[22]
In 2014, Richard Pérez-Peña wrote inThe New York Times: "we aren’t what people usually have in mind when they talk about boomers. They mean theearly boomers, the postwar cohort, most of them now in their 60s—not us later boomers, labeled 'Generation Jones' by the writer Jonathan Pontell. The boom generation really has two distinct halves, which in my mind I call Boomer Classic and Boomer Reboot. The differences between them have to do, not surprisingly, with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll—and economics and war.[23] In 2020,Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote in The New York Times: "we might be grouped with the baby boomers, but our formative experiences were profoundly different. If the zeitgeist of the boomers was optimism and revolution, the vibe of Gen Jones was cynicism and disappointment. Our formative years came in the wake of the 1973 oil shock, Watergate, the malaise of theCarter years and theReagan recession of 1982."[24]
Alfred Lubrano wrote inThe Philadelphia Inquirer: "A generation hidden within a generation, Generation Jones is a term social commentators affix to younger, tail-end boomers—people who came of age in the disco-,punk-, and Watergate-obsessed 1970s, not the hippie-spawning; Vietnam War-protesting; sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll 1960s. Jonsers resent being lumped in with flower-power boomers. They believe they share few traits and cultural touchstones with a noisy cohort that overshadowed them."[5]
Larry Edelman, writing forThe Boston Globe, and identifying as a Gen Joneser himself, said about his generation: "too young for Woodstock, too old to identify with Gen X. Pop culture reference points:the Clash, “Happy Days,” and “Star Wars: A New Hope. ″" He also stated: "I may be a “young Boomer,” but I feel dated in a newsroom increasingly staffed by millennials and Gen Z. That said, with that age comes perspective. Growing up in Generation Jones meant facing some of the same challenges my younger colleagues now see: economic downturns, political disillusionment, and the uneasy balance between idealism and practicality."[25]
Mark Wegierski wrote inThe American Conservative, "the term 'cusper' is proposed to apply to a category of persons sometimes identified as 'the tail-end of the Baby Boom' or 'the first wave of Generation X.' These would be persons born roughly between 1958-1967 'on the cusp' of massive societal change, falling somewhere between Baby Boomers and Generation X in many of their social and cultural traits." He added, "the cuspers were children,not teenagers in the 1960s, and for many of them, the counterculture 'revolt against the elders' was highly disconcerting, and not a badge of shared identity. The cuspers were typical teenagers in the 1970s, and they listened to second generation rock-n-roll—punk andprogressive rock. They grew up withClint Eastwood westerns likeThe Outlaw Josey Wales and dystopian sci-fi likeSoylent Green andRollerball."[26]
The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a largeanonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness, and, possibly the original slant, the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving.[27][28][29] 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, in the case of theUnited States, during the economic struggles of the 1970s and 1980s. Mortgage interest rates increased to above 12% in the mid-1980s, making it virtually impossible to buy a house on a single income.[30]
Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older siblings in the earlier part of the Baby Boom; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. For example, Baby Boomers often filled senior and more lucrative employment positions vacated by retiringGreatest Generation and olderSilent Generation members, leaving Jonesers with fewer opportunities for promotion because their Boomer siblings would enter retirement windows only slightly ahead of them. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of affluence granted to older Boomers but not to them.[31]
Politically, as twentysomethings, many of these cuspers voted forRonald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. In Canada, Jonesers voted forProgressive Conservative candidateBrian Mulroney in 1984 and 1988, though his Prime Ministership from 1984 to 1993 proved an intense disappointment to many of them. The older, white cuspers were amongDonald Trump’s biggest fans in 2016.[32]
Politically, Generation Jones has emerged as a crucial voting segment in US and UK elections.[33][34] In theU.S. 2006 congressional and2004 presidential elections and the2005 U.K. elections, Generation Jones's electoral role was widely described as pivotal by the media and political pollsters.[35][36][37][38] In the2008 U.S. Presidential election, Generation Jones was again seen as a key electoral segment because of the high degree to which its members were swing voters during the election cycle. Influential journalists likeClarence Page[33] andPeter Fenn[34] singled out Generation Jones voters as crucial in the campaign's final weeks.[39] Numerous studies have been done by political pollsters and publications analyzing Jonesers' voting behavior.[19][40]
In Pontell's opinion, US Jonesers shifted left in 2020, which he attributed to PresidentDonald Trump's response to theCOVID-19 crisis, as well as Trump's mocking of President-electJoe Biden's senior moments: "There are lots of seniors out there that also have senior moments. They don't really like the president mocking those one bit."[41]
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Generation Jones has been covered and discussed in newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio shows.[42][36][43][44] Pontell has appeared on TV networks such asCNN,MSNBC, andBBC, discussing the cultural, political, and economic implications of this generation's emergence.[45][46][47]Douglas Coupland (b. 1961), author ofGeneration X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, has said the novel (whose characters were born in the late 1950s and early '60s) is about "the fringe of Generation Jones which became the mainstream ofGeneration X."[15] In the business world, Generation Jones has become a part of many companies' and industries' strategic planning, particularly in the context of targeting Jonesers through marketing.[48][49][50][51][52][53]Carat UK, a European media buying agency, has done extensive research into Generation Jones consumers.[54][55]
The2008 United States presidential election brought more media attention to Generation Jones.DemocratBarack Obama (b. 1961) and Republican vice-presidential nomineeSarah Palin (b. 1964) were on the tickets. Many journalists, publications, and commentators at this time called Obama a member of Generation Jones.[56] Obama has said he does not relate to Boomers. He told an interviewer forThe Atlantic in 2007, "When I think of Baby Boomers, I think of my mother's generation. And you know, I was too young for the formative period of the '60s civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by."[57] Former first ladyMichelle Obama (b. 1964) and AmbassadorCaroline Kennedy (b. 1957) are also of that generation.[58] As of 2025[update], two former vice presidents,Mike Pence (b. 1959) andKamala Harris (b. 1964), are members of Generation Jones.[59]
