Why millennials feel hopeless about the economy | Hacker News Reader

Why millennials feel hopeless about the economy

businessinsider.com

18 pointsSilverElfin15 comments

I commonly see that discussions of “unemployment rate” don’t account for the ways a person can be excluded from the labor market [1]. To achieve middle-class with a family detached home mortgage, annual vacation, etc., dual-earner is nearly mandatory. Those that “give up” and live in their parent’s basement playing video games are not counted as unemployed.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#nilf

It's upsetting that it's commonly pushed that something as complex as "the economy" could ever be summerized or understood through a single, uncontextualized number. E.g. GDP, jobs reports, SP500 or unemployment rate.

Even just breaking down unemployment rate by race starts illuminated a better understanding of our current conditions. Labor participation sees at least some discussion in the main stream but trying to distill everything into a 5 second headline is hurdling us to doom.

It's not that homeownership deferred until 40 "doesn't feel good". It's that we've missed out on a decade of housing security—a material condition that impacts both physical and social well-being.

It also drastically changes opportunities. Hard to get into welding or machining or smithing from an apartment. Hard to start a business when you can't take any financial risks because housing is half your take-home and you'd be risking homelessness within months.

Let's not even get into how healthcare premium are over half of what minimum rent costs in my town.

A decade or two ago I talk with a 90 year old who bought, sold and especially exchanged everything not bolted down since he was 12. He had a crappy shed he filled with all kinds of garbage/treasures. I wouldn't call it a business. He did have businesses later on but that wasn't his primary activity. He would trade some old wood stoves for goats that he traded for a boat. That's not a business model is it? He obtained one classic car that took many years to get back on the road. Not really a business? I barely knew the guy but know enough hilarious stories to fill a book. Without that shed however he wouldn't have happened.

Heck, I'm not near that old but I know my life would be radically different if not for the garage and shop I had access to my whole early life.

> "It's taking longer to launch, there is some more debt, but in the long run, millennials are actually doing better than Generation X and baby boomers," says Kevin Corinth, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Center for Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute and one of the paper's authors. "It's just taking them a longer time."

Not exactly the most persuasive arguement.

The most common complaint I've seen online is how far behind their parents people are. You can find meme images comparing their parents owning a home and having two kids, to them stuck in their parent's basement.

And we know, from simple math, the longer you wait to save for retirement the worse, much worse, the outcome. Compound interest is harsh if you don’t start early enough.

The original title of this article as I saw it was “Millennials are richer than their boomer parents. Here's why they love to complain anyway.” This line now appears as the subtitle.

I was curious what HN readers think of the idea or evidence that millennials are actually richer than boomers, since everything I hear in casual conversations is about how boomers hoarded everything and millennials are worse off, due to boomers and the subprime crisis.

I saw a comment recently that described the shift to a "consumer economy." Relative to boomers, millennials have increased access to goods and services like high-definition televisions, computers, international travel, and luxury foods (e.g., avocado toast). But in terms of wealth and assets, millennials have reduced or less feasible access to things like home ownership or college degrees (not to mention childcare or healthcare), compared to boomers. Though the causes of this shift are up for debate, it does seem that boomers had an easier path to ownership or growth, while millennials and beyond face more rent-seeking obstacles.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-u-s-inflation-by...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/inflation-chart-tracks-pric...

https://www.axios.com/2025/09/22/the-american-dream-will-cos...

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Related: (others?)

Why Millennials and Gen Z Are Going Gray Early, According to Experts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45738730 - October 2025 (0 comments)

American Millennials Are Dying at an Alarming Rate - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44963675 - August 2025 (9 comments)

Millennials were priced out of capitalism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43808835 - April 2025 (9 comments)

Millennials –The Unluckiest Generation–Became the Most Economically Divided - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42020355 - November 2024 (1 comment)

Millennials to feel biggest burden of fixing Social Security, report finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40505200 - May 2024 (0 comments)

Deeply Unhappy Gen Z and Millennials Cause U.S. Drop in Global Happiness Ranking - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39767329 - March 2024 (46 comments)

Millennials Have the Children, but Boomers Have the Houses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39295239 - February 2024 (12 comments)

HN Search: Millennials - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Millennials

I think it's of course not so simple, and the abstract of the paper they refer to [0] seems to contradict the Business Insider article. Sure, inflation adjusted median income is up slightly. In addition to this educational costs have exploded, and to earn a median salary it has become necessary to buy in. People under 30 have greater inflation adjusted income, but this is because they rely more on their (boomer) parents. The overall wealth in society has increased dramatically, but the vast majority of gains are going to the outliers.

That is to say, the real conflict isn't between boomers and millennials, it's between billionaires and everyone else. But generational friction is not new, a more common experience, and easy to exploit in media.

0: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2024007pap...

Thanks for the paper.

It starts boldly by redefining the “american dream” into “line must go up” which ironically sounds like boomer logic being projected onto millennials.

I don’t know about the Fed but my dream as an American isn’t to accumulate more wealth than my parents.

Fwiw, the American dream in my neck of the woods is financial independence from landlords and bosses.

Technically probably true since that class of people see rich and wealth as very different. Having better food/electronics/entertainment is being rich. Having assets that pay out or maintain value forever is wealth.

To me that idea is just using technological progress as an excuse. That because we have new inventions that didn't exist before we are all automatically better off.

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