Peak drinking in 1977 coincides with peak Baby Boom turning 20 lol, now a record low 54% drink in 2025

 

1958 was a close second place drinking low year at 55% as their parents realized "My God, what have we done?" ha ha ha.

Seriously now, 71% drank in 1976, 1977, and 1978, the Baby Boom Bender. 

Prior to 1984, many states like Wisconsin had lowered the drinking age to 18 from 21 because the voting age had been changed to 18 in 1971 by the 26th Amendment.

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 turned this back the other way again by withholding federal highway funds from states that did not raise their drinking age back to 21, which Wisconsin finally did in 1986. Wisconsin had a tiered system between 1984 and 1986 where the drinking age was 19 for beer and wine and 21 for liquor.  

Gallup reports here:

... The highs of 68% to 71% were all recorded between 1974 and 1981. ...         

This anthem made its debut in 1985:

  

Peak Baby Boomers worked when they were teenagers, at 2.07% of population, still the peak, today at just 0.78% of population

Get a haircut and get a real job
Clean your act up and don't be a slob
Get it together like your big brother Bob
Why don't you, get a haircut and get a real job?

-- George Thorogood, 1993

 

It's not a perfect one to one comparison, let alone an actual measurement, but about 20% of teenagers worked in 1979, and not quite 12% today:

CNBC ramps up pro-Biden stories, trots out professors of philosophy, religion, and sociology, who directly depend on the student loan pipeline, to rationalize forgiveness for me but not for thee

The chutzpah of these people sometimes all the time. Get a haircut and get a real job.

In the investment world, we call this "talking up your book", about which CNBC knows a lot.

 Why student loan forgiveness sparks anger: A philosopher, attorney general, sociologist and religious thought expert weigh in