Previous research on work satisfaction has consistently shown that older people are more satisfied with their jobs than younger people. The present paper addresses three possible explanations for this tendency: (1) the “now generation” of workers subscribes to a set of post-material values that contradict the demands of the industrial system and cause greater work discontent; (2) the standards of the old are systematically eroded by their years in the system, such that they learn to be satisfied with less; and (3) older workers simply have better jobs. A decisive choice among these hypotheses cannot be made without longitudinal data; nonetheless, the bulk of the evidence presented here (for economically active, salaried white males, drawn from the University of Michigan's 1972–73 Quality of Employment survey) clearly favors the last hypothesis.