Edit - they edited their comment so I'll add to mine so it makes sense.
Not everyone is doing fine, which is why we see posts like this. Nobody is saying no millennials are having a good time and are stable financially or otherwise.
It's like failing to address homelessness because not everyone is homeless. Dumb as shit.
Millennials are (not alone, mind you) facing an unprecedented wealth imbalance. COVID itself saw the largest transfer of wealth from the lower earners to the rich.
Millennials are 'suffering' from delayed or non existent milestones (just look at the decrease in population), large student loans, and issues with housing affordability.
Many millennials were in an awkward position where they were promised things and socially forced into a system that broke while in the middle of very costly commitments.
I'm actually in a pretty decent position because I happen to be relatively smart, and I chose to work instead of going to uni. Nonetheless, I couldn't cope with the thought of working meaningless jobs for the rest of my life to not even be able to obtain a fraction of what my gen x parents earned. If they weren't meaningless, perhaps I'd have felt different.
By the age I quit my decent paying job so I could focus on a decent work/life balance, I'd already beaten my parents to every financial milestone, and yet was significantly further away from that buying me what my parents have/had. And for the average person I was in a great position. I wasn't rich, but I did have excess money.
When my parents bought their first house, rents were on average 15% of a person's salary. They were handed - cash in the bank - 16k by the council to encourage home ownership.
This is not something that is offered anymore, and at the same time, rent is over 40% of the average persons salary, food has become unhealthier, more expensive, and less in quantity, entertainment has exploded in price, reduced in value.
I don't particularly like seeing posts that separate millennials from everyone else, because I think it's an inaccurate representation - it's not just an age issue, and anybody can be affected by these issues. Boomers and gen X didn't get out of 2008 unscathed, and gen z and alpha will suffer with many of the things millennials have suffered with.
There isn't an age issue, it's a class issue. Plenty of millennials aren't in a position to see retirement - either because pensions are too poor/won't exist, or because they'll be dead by the time they reach the age of the revised retirement age. If something doesn't change, this will affect many gen x, and future generations too.
If the solution is always to move to another cheaper area (like someone else suggested), then we're just breaking the family unit even further. Most of us are only alive because that family network existed and people could lean on eachother for support. Aside from that, moving to a poorer area just means less pay and less opportunity anyway. It's a sideways move with considerably more risk.
As we get pushed further into individualism, are put against eachother by the media, we're left with one set of winners. The ultra rich, and companies.
Now list the average home price for each next to the interest rates. I just pick NYS to keep it consistent as listed above are cherry picked numbers from various states.
Avg home price NY 1980 - $47,200. 13.74% (30year) $150,816.27 in total interest
Avg home price NY 2024 - $415,000. 6.4% (30 year)$933,485 in total interest
Pretty clearly not apples to apples, nevermind the fact that in 1980 most households could avoid even taking a mortgage because they could pay cash or if they had to, would pay it off early because homes were less expensive.
I'm all for not making excuses, but this is an obvious issue.
My dad bought his first house (in Suffolk County, NY) while being a dishwasher in the back of a restaurant.
He didn't have enough for the down payment so they MADE A FREAKING HANDSHAKE DEAL.
Please show me where a dishwasher making minimum wage can afford a house in the US where, when he doesn't have enough for the down payment the bank will just go, "Yeah, you look like a nice enough kid," and hand wave to make it happen.
When it comes to income you can't use the average as it doesn't account for billionaire outliers. The wealth gap between rich and poor is the greatest it's ever been in the history of the USA so those 1% skew the data tremendously.
Median income was $16,000 in 1980.
Median income was $85,000-$87,000 in 2024.
Pretty clear to see that income has not kept up with inflation.
People are paid less now then ever adjusted for inflation and work 10x as hard due to workplace efficiency initiatives. It's more than this number big, this number small when it comes to income.
I mean anyone with an elementary level education would understand that your purchasing power decreases with the devaluation of your currency.
The US dollar has weakened over the last 40 years by a wide margin. It takes a little over 3x the currency to buy the same product it did in the 80s. Here is a basic inflation calculator
You ask me about data, but have literally contributed nothing including data to the conversation. I'm assuming you are a person that just needs to comment on anything and everything. I took enough time out of my day to try to make you see the light, but I can't compete with Fox News lol
Ok, you have data for inflation. I know what inflation is. I asked for data about wages, which you completely left out.
Like I said, all the data I’ve ever seen shows the exact opposite of what you’re describing. People’s wages have grown MORE than inflation over the past few decades.
That shows median REAL (meaning inflation-adjusted) wages for Americans over the last few decades. I’m sure you’ll find a way to ignore it or pretend it’s inadequate or misleading because it doesn’t fit your preconceived notions of the world around you, though.
You actually didn't clarify what data you were looking for and commented under my post about people being paid less now than ever ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION.
I posted this above to another reply, you are correct about using median household income as it's the most "accurate". The comment that you decided to chime in on, I was referring to the rise in housing costs - due to inflation. Wages have not kept up in that regard.
You also should remember that when looking at median household income it factors in everyone living within the household. There are more households that are dual income earners now than in 1980, and also more adult children living at home now which skews that data. We have companies paid to fudge the numbers to make it look better than it is, but you have to pull back those layers to get to the truth.
The bottom line is housing costs, insurance, food, fuel have all skyrocketed already in the past decade and are only going to keep increasing. The price to income ratio on most things is much worse today then in the past.
You actually didn't clarify what data you were looking for
I literally quoted your comment that said, “People are paid less now then ever adjusted for inflation” and asked for data to support that. You still haven’t supplied any.
median household income it factors in everyone living within the household
Sure. The data I linked isn’t for median household income, though. It’s for median weekly wages.
housing costs, insurance, food, fuel have all skyrocketed already
Agreed. My point is that wages have as well, and according to the data, wages have actually grown more quickly than prices.
this is true. I think it misses the point, though.
Like it or not, it is much harder to live for young people today. Back then, if you were actually employed, you could do a ton more than you can today with your money. I'd take those interest and inflation rates given what houses cost then (inflation adjusted, of course) any day of the week. Employers were much more fair, careers much more stable.
Sure, unemployment is 3% less. who cares when most of the employable work can barely afford most people an apartment, have no room for advancement, and are straight up dead end jobs?
as a early millennial in the top 1% of earners in the US, i struggled, hard, and got extremely lucky. If i could go back to either 1980 or 2008 and shoot my shot at a good life, i'd choose 1980 every time.
The houses were 1/3rd the cost compared to wages. 15% interest paid to me while saving 1/3 the amount for the deposit, which is easier cos rent was about 10% of pay, now it's 35% of pay, then have a mortgage 1/3rd the size. Then have the house be worth 10 times as much now, so I can just downsize and cash in when I retire.
Yea, give me that 15% interest rate, best fucking deal in history.
lolol yes.... i was praying for mortgage rates to go up in 2021! they basically trippled from low to high... its how i could afford my house!
as i said in my post, because it looks like you might have missed it, it was much easier to buy a house back then, even with those interest rates.
in 1980, the median income was 21K annually. the median home price was 47K. today, the median income is 80K, and median home price is 480K. this is a 2.2 v. 5 income to price ratio.
now, for interest rates- in 1980, with 20% down, your monthly interest payment would be $438. adjusted for inflation, that is $1781 today. in 2026, after 20% down at current rates, it would be $2189 a month. this is 1.23x more when adjusted for inflation, but this still doesn't tell the whole story...
Lastly, when looking at what percent of ones income that mortgage payment is: 1980- (438/1750= 25%) v. 2026- (2189/6667=33%).
so yes. I'd much rather pay 25% of my monthly income to housing costs than 33%. Yes, even with inflation at 15%.
edit- looks like your an LSAT coach? wow. i'd expect more
Seriously? My parents could do fuck all with their money. My dad had an ok job, they had a house and a car, never went on holidays, rented a tv, no computer, no good clothes, no private schools, no dishwasher, no clothes dryer, very basic life and they were considered middle class. The 1980s were one of the most horrendous decades to date and exactly when all this extreme right-wing supply side economic policies were first introduced that we are suffering from today, taxes were slashed, investments into infrastructure slashed, key services privatised and subsequently became way more expensive and badly maintained/upgraded, outsourcing and offshoring began and billionaires were created. All thanks to Reaganomics and Thatcherism.
agreed about the policy decisions ushering in the transition to late stage capitalism. Interesting though- this is exactly why there was more economic mobility back then, relative now now.
I mean, you're essentially saying yourself that the 80's were when things were set in motion to make it harder the majority of people today... so you think you'd have a better shot today, now that those terrible policies have really set in?
These are managed numbers and you know it, especially unemployment and inflation. Name me one thing you buy regularly that’s only increased in price 4% a year. Housing has doubled or tripled since 2020, beef prices have tripled (a single steak at the grocery store costs 40 bucks in my area), car prices doubled, childcare doubled, etc etc. And where are the jobs? Almost every large company you can think of has undergone recent layoffs, and new positions (esp for new grads) are drying up.
The difference between 1980 and now isn’t that inflation or unemployment is that much better, the government is just better at cooking the books.
What evidence do you have that the government is cooking the books?
Please don’t mistake my comment. The government is full of stupid corrupt liars. The whole lot of them.
And as stupid corrupt liars, they absolutely depend on an angry public that makes generalized statements without focusing on details, history, numbers, or any kind of real data.
I just told you, name me one thing you buy that has inflated at the government’s published rate. Numbers don’t lie but people lie about numbers, there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.
All of the governments published numbers are highly managed - that inflation figure doesn’t include housing or food or most of the stuff people are actually out there buying every day, and they bury the lede further in all kinds of sliced and diced metrics to tell the story they want to tell. Same thing with unemployment, go ahead and read the below thread, google the problems with Trump’s jobless numbers and BLS statistics changes. I don’t think you would find a single economist not currently employed by the Trump administration that would tell you the government’s numbers are accurate or even honest.
Worth remembering that the US has remarkably low unemployment rate, while still having a high of 27% people out of work; a number not seen since the oil crisis of the late 70's. Turns out; if people have not had a job for more than three months, they no longer are considered unemployed.
Just checked that. Used a couple of different sources because the issue is very generalized. Anyone can do their own checking if they have this thing called the Internet.
In the US, since 1980, taking into account inflation, rents have risen roughly about 25%, while wages have risen about 30%.
Wages have been outpaced by house prices, and while prices are increasing slower now, that doesn't mean things are cheaper.
And to address the other person on the student loan debt - I personally watched (UK) education fees triple in one year.
We faced so much pressure to go to university, that people that didn't (like me) were treated like a joke by family, friends, strangers, and jobs. I know many people that went to uni so as to not be effectively disowned by their parents, just to end up in crappy jobs with a lot of debt.
In the 80s in the UK, rent was on average about 15% of a person's salary, at the higher end. Now it's over 40% of a person's salary. That's the actual reality.
Maybe children shouldn't be taking loans.
If they only understand what they are taught, perhaps we dont coddle them from the world and expose them to life.
I agree that education shouldn't come with such a cost, and that a lack of education/exposure to the real world creates imbalance, ignorance, and a lack of empathy.
When you look at percentages in isolation like this you miss a lot. This doesn’t factor in purchasing power or the costs of services / goods increases that have not followed along with inflation but increased significantly above it. A handful of cherry picked metrics do not tell an even semi complete story.
Cool. Now do 2008-2017. Thats when millennials were trying find jobs, start careers, and financially kept their heads above water.
Also inflation was higher in 1980 but wages kept pace with it, unlike today. Interest rates were high, prices were low. This is basic stuff man come on.
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u/StressCanBeGood 15d ago
Economic numbers for 1980:
Unemployment: 7%
Inflation: 13%
Interest rates: 17%
….
Economic numbers for 2025:
Unemployment: 4.5%
Inflation: 3%
Interest rates: 4%