There is no question that a lot of us could have saved more; but a lot of us also had to pay off student loans when we started out, and a lot of us have had much less stable careers than our parents had. I have had 10 jobs in 25 years, with three long stretches of unemployment that ate up my savings and even sent me into debt.
If someone says "a lot of us could have saved more" then I see evidence that someone is taking a degree of personal responsibility and I can applaud that. But I think the media would prefer to push its usual agenda.
Those things you’ve mentioned are obviously factors, but I also think that my generation (I’m 57) has had a greater degree of instability in many way - mostly self-inflicted. Broken marriages account for a lot of it. We made foolish choices, either in the ones we married or in getting divorced later. I know I have had untold thousands go out in not only child support, but also in providing additional help to my 2 ex-wives over the years. Many of us are maintaining multiple households and money is being eaten up rapidly. Our parents generation worked through things, remained stable and reaped the benefit of that. Too many of us have failed to do that. This whole phenomenon is almost an economic manifestation of the “cultural shift” which began 40 some years ago. Not all of my generation fell for it, but far too many of us did and we’re suffering for it. The hard part is watching our kids suffer for it, though.
Plus the government taxed your guts out, and the Carter Administration's policies caused inflation to go wild for a time, and everything government does adds cost to your life without much benefit - I could go on, but you get the point.