Millennials Earn 20 Percent Less Than Boomers Did At Same Stage of Life (usatoday.com)

According to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, even though they are better educated. Their median household income is $40,581, and their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher. USA Today reports: The analysis of the Fed data (PDF) shows the extent of the decline. It compared 25 to 34 year-olds in 2013, the most recent year available, to the same age group in 1989 after adjusting for inflation. Education does help boost incomes. But the median college-educated millennial with student debt is only earning slightly more than a baby boomer without a degree did in 1989. The home ownership 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. The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 percent less than it was for boomers. Whites still earn dramatically more than Blacks and Latinos, reflecting the legacy of discrimination for jobs, education and housing. Yet compared to white baby boomers, some white millennials appear stuck in a pattern of downward mobility. This group has seen their median income tumble more than 21 percent to $47,688. Median income for black millennials has fallen just 1.4 percent to $27,892. Latino millennials earn nearly 29 percent more than their boomer predecessors to $30,436. The analysis fits into a broader pattern of diminished opportunity. Research last year by economists led by Stanford University's Raj Chetty found that people born in 1950 had a 79 percent chance of making more money than their parents. That figure steadily slipped over the past several decades, such that those born in 1980 had just a 50 percent chance of out-earning their parents. This decline has occurred even though younger Americans are increasingly college-educated. The proportion of 25 to 29 year-olds with a college degree has risen to 35.6 percent in 2015 from 23.2 percent in 1990, a report this month by the Brookings Institution noted.

Comments

Re:Is more education, better education . . . ?

[sabri]

Boomers didn't require "safe spaces" in the workplace, they just did the job that they were hired to do.

I think you nailed it on the head right there. The amount of "I'm offended" from millennials is staggering. They can't even handle the results of a democratic election.

I didn't vote for the guy, but he made it to president so that alone deserves respect from every single American. Not a cry for a safespace from a bunch of sorrow millennials voting for the first time.

They're the result of the "everyone gets a trophy" policies.

Re:Is more education, better education . . . ?

[MightyMartian]

The simple minds around here love catchphrase answers like "young people are delicate snowflakes" and "millennials are all lazy". The fact is that the Baby Boomers are in fact the wealthiest human beings who ever lived on average, and in large part that was because of a series of post-WWII economic booms, particularly in North America. My old man literally quit school when he was 15 and was hired at a local sawmill, and worked for the same company until his retirement at 55. I had a teacher when I was in high school telling me that in my town some of the teenagers who working at the mills were driving nicer cars than he was.