The theory of cohort competition developed by Easterlin suggests that individuals born during the baby boom are more likely to be poor than those born before or after them. This article investigates this claim by addressing two questions: Is there any effect of cohort on poverty, and, if so, does this effect follow the pattern predicted by Easterlies theory? A decomposition of poverty by age, period, cohort, and household type shows that among whites, every successive generation of family heads born throughout the baby boom has faced an increasingly greater chance of being poor. Among blacks, the cohort effect is not statistically significant. Contrary to Easterlin's prediction, however, it is white-family heads born after the baby boom who face the highest odds of poverty. The cohort effect is not due to recent changes in family structure, which are controlled.