Baby Boomer Riches

* Why is it that I fail to be cheered by Robert Rosenblatt’s Sept. 19 article on baby boomer riches? Why can’t I find myself in his palmy picture, even though, on a dollar for dollar basis, I probably am making more than my parents did at my age? When I look beyond income, a very different picture emerges. While my parents paid about 3% of their income for health care, I pay 15%. My parents paid, at most, 5% of their income for a mortgage, while I pay about 20%. I received a top-notch public school education, for which my parents paid absolutely nothing out-of-pocket. However, beset by a dysfunctional public school system, I must shell out about another 15% of my income so that my children can have the same superior education I had.

So my parents paid about 8% of their income for items that are costing me 50%. Yet Rosenblatt tells me that my malaise is caused by my expensive eating habits.

CHARLES E. BEREZIN

Los Angeles