“As the recession of the early 1980s gave way to economic boom times, success American style began to occupy the pedestal baby boomers had once reserved for social justice. Raised during the great period of American prosperity and influenced by the turning inward of the “Me Decade” of the 1970s, many baby boomers responded enthusiastically in the 1980s to Republican calls for reinvigorating the U.S. economy.
Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1984 labeled these baby boomers “yuppies” (young urban professionals), and the name stuck. Frankly and unapologetically materialistic, they focused on careers and the good life promised by the American Dream. Defined by one research group as people between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-nine, with incomes of at least $40,000 from a professional or management job, yuppies were estimated in 1984 to be 4 million strong—and three times more likely than other Americans to have an American Express card. ”
