With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.
Maybe there is a connection in that last statement?
The analysis released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.
See the pattern?
At Brick and Bones in Dallas' Deep Ellum, bar manager Ian Brooks, 24, said he probably earned a bit less than his parents did at the same age, but he said his college debt tilted the equation in their favor.Everybody should go to college! We can finance it for you! You're a special snowflake!
"It's almost, like, a scam," he said of college costs these days. "You can come out of school $130,000 in debt."
Some old-time high schools taught basic financial planning, balancing your checkbook, and other old-fashioned ideas like that.
Brooks chose not to finish pursuing a business degree in college, realizing he could learn and get paid instead of paying to learn. "I thought I would be further along," Brooks said. "But as they say, tragedy builds character."
Maybe I'll go to his bar and buy him a drink.
Education does help boost incomes. But the median college-educated millennial with student debt is earning only slightly more than a baby boomer without a degree did in 1989.
Anybody compare STEM graduates with SJW snowflakes?
The homeownership rate for this age group dipped to 43 percent from 46 percent in 1989, although the rate has improved for millennials with a college degree relative to boomers.
I wonder if that crushing college debt has anything to do with that?
The median net worth of millennials is $10,090 ‐ 56 percent less than it was for boomers.
Since they don't own homes due to - I wonder what?
Don't go all schadenfreude yet. The author wants you to be afraid - very afraid - for the millennials.
The declining fortunes of millennials could impact boomers who are retired or on the cusp of retirement. Payroll taxes from millennials helps to finance the Social Security and Medicare benefits that many boomers receive ‐ programs that Trump has said won't be subject to spending cuts.
| Spending cuts, no. But watch for no cost of living increases, another increase in the age at which one can start taking benefits without penalty, taxes on other earnings and on other pension payments including IRAs... and an increased take from the paychecks of the young to support their elders. Our bar manager doesn't know that FICA is higher than it was in his parents' and grandparents' day, and who will tell him? |