Millennials, born from 1981 to 1996, are doing better than expected these days. The trick now, though, is for them to take advantage of their improved economic prospects to create a financial margin of safety against bad times and sufficient savings to fund calculated risks when opportunities emerge.
Have millennials finally caught up economically with earlier generations?
A few years ago, every indication showed the generation had a ways to go on economic factors.
For the Minnesota Star Tribune
September 21, 2024 at 12:56PM
Millennials have been called the “unluckiest generation” and the “lost generation.” They entered the labor market during a series of tough economic moments, including the bursting of the housing market bubble, the 2008-09 recession and a long period of stagnant wages. They were burdened by unprecedented levels of student loans. Homeownership seemed out of reach for many.
Millennials were widely predicted to be the first generation to be worse off than their parents.
What a difference a few years can make.
A recent report by three scholars at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College notes that “virtually all the earlier shortfall between millennials and earlier cohorts in labor market activity, marriage, and homeownership has disappeared.”
Similarly, a study by two economists — ”Has Intergenerational Progress Stalled: Income Growth Over Five Generations of Americans” — found that each generation is better off than the previous one, including millennials. For instance, the two economists calculate that millennials had a median household income in their late 30s that was 18% higher than the previous generation at the same age.
A similar story unfolds with wealth. Millennials ages 28 to 31 in 2019 were substantially behind the wealth accumulation of previous cohorts. The Center for Retirement Research study — ”Is the Retirement Picture for Millennials Looking Better?” — highlights that three years later, when this group was 31 to 41 years old, millennials had pulled far ahead of earlier cohorts, mostly thanks to the combination of homeownership and retirement savings plans.
Specifically, homeownership amounted to 63% of the gain in median net worth. The strong stock market also helped since some 60% of millennials own equities (mainly in retirement accounts), a much larger share than the 48% of Gen Xers and 37% of late boomers at the same age.
Millennials seem much better prepared financially for their current and future lives. Good news. Yet too much emphasis is placed on generational inequalities, essentially variations on telling young adults to blame their problems on parents and grandparents. Greater attention should be paid to reducing inequalities within and across generations, such as the yawning gap in average wealth between Blacks and whites at all ages.
Chris Farrell is senior economics contributor, “Marketplace”; and a commentator for Minnesota Public Radio.
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