After the Boom : Trends: A baby-boom analyst says her generation aren’t the yuppies people think they are.

If you’re between 26 and 44, you’re a baby boomer--like it or not. And if you don’t fit the “thirtysomething” stereotype, never mind. That’s only because most people who are out to entertain you, sell you something, or simply catch your eye haven’t the faintest clue as to who you really are.

Thia Golson is out to set things right. As editor of The Boomer Report, a 2-year-old, New York-based publication that tracks the antics of the 77 million people born between 1946 and 1964, Golson says, “The real boomers are younger and poorer than most people think they are.”

True, they’re the best-educated generation of Americans, since one in every three boomers has some college education. But the typical boomer household, if there is such a thing, “pulls down only about $17,000 a year.” And about 60% of the boomer population is still under the age of 35.

The trouble is, most manufacturers, advertising agencies and almost all the media still tend to confuse baby boomers with yuppies. That’s a mistake, Golson asserts. She cites a survey by the J. Walter Thompson ad agency that divided the more affluent portion of the boomer generation into three groups:

* Out of 77 million boomers in the United States, only 3.5 million qualify as yuppies, with some higher education and household incomes of $50,000 or more.

* There are 12.7 million “yuppie wanna-bes,” described as people in the service professions, such as teachers and social workers. Their average income is about $18,000 to $20,000 per year.

* And there are 2.5 million people dubbed the “elite blue collar” group, (plumbers, electricians, carpenters) usually with no college educations but with an average income of about $45,000 a year.

That leaves the bulk of the boomers in limbo out there, with nothing yuppie about them.

Golson says her publication was created to help corporations identify and analyze the many sub-markets within the huge boomer population.

She will not release circulation figures for the monthly, eight-page newsletter, ($195 per year), but says subscribers include “heavy hitters” such as banks, major religious institutions, newspapers, broadcasting networks, “all the big ad agencies and most big marketing firms.”

Golson, at 44, calls herself a “vanguard boomer,” meaning she’s in the oldest boomer group (35 to 44.) She speaks in sound bites of boomer babble, with catchy phrases that might have come from ad campaigns. “The birth dearth” is how she refers to the post-boomer generation. And her Boomer Report, which she writes and edits by computer in “flex time” from her home in a New York City suburb, sounds just like she does:

“It’s ‘Pensions to Go’ for Job-Hopping Boomers,” is the headline on a story about possible new laws allowing workers to transfer their pension benefits from job to job. “Paging Dr. Baby Boom!” is a column on marketing, advertising and human resources.

In Los Angeles to attend a meeting of the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. this week at the Century Plaza Hotel, Golson says most people between 35 and 44 will never be able to retire. “They may never even grow up,” she says, chuckling.

“A boomer looks in the mirror and sees someone 15 or 20 years younger” than he or she really is. That’s because boomers are truly more fit than previous generations, and they don’t perceive themselves as middle-aged.

“Boomers have been able to skate by, simply because of their masses,” Golson says. “They’ve created their own marketplace and have gotten jobs wherever they went. But the end is coming. The Social Security system is in for a kind of collapse that’s going to make the savings and loan bailout look like minor bookkeeping.”

The boomers won’t have saved much money by the time they hit 65, she adds, because they never perceived themselves as getting older and needing to do so. They will work well into their 70s, “keep their jobs as long as they can, and not let the younger ones get in there.”

Even now, Golson says, the second tier of boomers--people 25 to 35--are finding there’s no place to go. “Their older boomer brethren are sitting in management positions and not getting out. And within 10 or 15 years, they’ll own and run the companies and they’ll make sure that mandatory retirement is voted out, because they won’t save enough money to retire.”

But the women of the second tier will do things differently than their older sisters. They are learning that you can have it all--but not all at the same time, Golson says. These younger women have seen their older sisters suffer by deferring child-bearing until it’s too late, or by having children and then leaving them in the care of others.

Younger, better-educated female boomers, she says, are having their children at a younger age, and they are deciding to defer their careers for five to 10 years while they stay home with those children.

This means financial sacrifice, but many believe the payoff can’t be evaluated in dollars. Golson herself took about seven years off to raise her two sons, whom she refers to as “echo boomers,” and says she “has never and will never regret it for a minute.” Those who can’t afford to stay home with their kids will wish they could, Golson says, and will lobby for better child-care legislation.

In fact, the biggest effect of the baby boom generation has yet to be felt, she says: “They are just beginning to be political.” And when they start to assert their influence in that arena, our entire society will change.