One of my New Year’s traditions is posting a list of the ages of the current living generations in the United States.

Arguably, on December 31st, everyone has had their birthday for the year. If generations are defined by birth year boundaries, then each generation fits neatly into an age bracket on that day (just ignore time zones, please). I use the birth years defined by Strauss-Howe generational theory, which gives us this age breakdown:

• GI or Greatest Generation (b.1901-1924): 100+ years old
• Silent Generation (b.1925-1942): 82-99 years old
• Boomer Generation (b.1943-1960): 64-81 years old
• Generation X (b.1961-1981): 43-63 years old
• Millennial Generation (b.1982-2004): 20-42 years old
• Homeland Generation (b.2005-20??): 0-19 years old

All living members of the GI (or Greatest) Generation are now centenarians, a fact underscored by the death on December 29 of former US President Jimmy Carter at age 100. His generation will still be with us for years to come, as we always have a few people alive who are supercentenarians (110+). As I write this, the oldest living American is 114 years old. So if just one 100 year old alive today makes it to that age, there will still be living members of the Greatest Generation in 2038.

Each generation’s age bracket currently lines up well with a phase of life. Meaning, Millennials fill the age bracket corresponding to young adulthood (21-41 by Strauss-Howe reckoning), Gen Xers that corresponding to midlife (42-62), and so forth. This means we should be close to the end of the current social era, the Fourth Turning or Crisis Era. In the next era, the First Turning of the new saeculum, the generations will be aging into their new life phases (Millennials will become midlifers, Gen Xers will become elders, etc.).

This Crisis Era has been dragging on, probably because of the influence of the Silent generation, which is holding back change. They are just on the edge of leaving elderhood (63-83) but still in power; President Biden is a member of the Silent Generation, for example. You could think of it as the long shadow cast by the last generations that were alive in World War II, whose legacy defines the postwar order which is now coming to an end.

As the Silents age out of public life in the near future, we will lurch our way to the end of this era and into the next saeculum (the true New World Order), however chaotically and however painfully. The inexorable logic of time and generational change demands it.

Congratulations, living generations, you made it through 2024!

Good luck in 2025!