7 ms·

Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich

35 points by rustoo 2y ago

mseepgood 2y ago
What's the appeal of snacks that leave remnants on the fingers?
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Remnants contain salt, fat, msg and spices... The stuff that make things taste good... It is the part that makes stuff taste good. Without it the snack is rather bland...
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Those finger aint gonna lick themselves.
terramex 2y ago
https://archive.ph/62rUw https://archive.ph/62rUw
sokoloff 2y ago
> Americans aged between 15 and 24 spend just 38 minutes a day socialising in person on average, down from almost an hour in the 2000s I’m definitely on the introverted side, but I (Gen X) feel like I socialized in-person way, way more than 7 hours per week in my teens and early 20s and feel that was entirely typical. By the 2000s, was under an hour per day typical? Most of that was pre-smartphone.
- softwaredoug 2y ago
  I think one problem is the real world has become so car centric that it creates two problems: - Kids rely on parents for transportation. Which usually means structured activities like camps etc over informal socializing. - Kids getting around in the outside world is dangerous. We were wondering if our kids and friends could walk to a nearby ice cream shop. I think this would be more normal outside the US, it here it requires crossing a few intersections drivers cut through to get around. As such I’d hypothesize kids will retreat to social media and virtual tools to connect because the real world isn’t that friendly.
  - amadeuspagel 2y ago
    Has the world really become car centric in the last twenty years? Do kids socialize more in less car centric places?
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    That stat is for 15-24 though; I’d expect young adults of that age to be able to go places unaccompanied, even in car-centric areas.
    - iopq 2y ago
      Anecdotally, I didn't have a car until I got my first job. Not everyone has parents that can just buy them a car.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        Anecdotally, I had access to my family's car on a pretty regular basis unless my mom had specific needs for it. I was a hardcore introvert and took advantage of that way less than I could have, but it was explicitly available.
    - softwaredoug 2y ago
      I agree the stat is from 15-24. But I hypothesize that it’s as much about how kids learn to socialize before 15 that has a big impact later in life.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    My sense is less that the world has changed to become more dangerous and more car-centric than it is that parents have changed to be more risk averse and started encouraging structured time for other non-practical reasons. Miles traveled per person [0] peaked in 2005 and has been down ever since, but my and my peers' childhoods in suburban America in the 2000s was way more free range and unstructured than what I'm seeing among children in the same neighborhoods today. Before we could drive we rode our bikes everywhere. Once we could drive some of us got cars, others made a habit of regularly borrowing the family car or had a shared "kids" car. We found ways to meet up, we made friends with kids who lived in our immediate neighborhood. We had the regular set of structured activities that were popular (some sports, band, orchestra), but hours per week per child spent on after-school activities that were organized by adults was very small among my friends (fewer than 2-3) relative to today. And all of that was at the peak of driving in the US. The USA hasn't gotten more car-centric since then, but children have lost freedoms. Cars can't explain that. [0] Second graph: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/12/staying-up-to-speed-on-u-s-driving-trends/ https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/12/staying-up-to-speed-...
- Izkata 2y ago
  Probably they don't count in-person video games like Super Smash Bros. as socializing. That number sounds low as a millennial too - and the car-centrism wasn't a problem because it was normal to bike up each others' houses.
dpflan 2y ago
What is the "wealth" they have? I'm not clear on this: is it the fact that wages are rising and the workforce age is favoring Gen Z population? What is the richness?
- joenot443 2y ago
  “In America hourly pay growth among 16- to 24-year-olds recently hit 13% year on year, compared with 6% for workers aged 25 to 54. This was the highest “young person premium” since reliable data began” Usually this is rebutted with a reference to apparently skyrocketing housing costs, thankfully the author addresses this shortly after. “Some Gen Zers protest, claiming that higher incomes are a mirage since they do not account for the exploding cost of college and housing. After all, global house prices are close to all-time highs, and graduates have more debt than before. In reality, though, Gen Zers are coping because they earn so much. In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019.” This aligns with my anecdotal experience talking with college students and new grads today.
  - kstenerud 2y ago
    > Usually this is rebutted with a reference to apparently skyrocketing housing costs, thankfully the author addresses this shortly after. Does he, though? He only mentions how much gen-z is SPENDING on housing and education, not what they're actually getting for their money. Most gen-z I know have given up on home ownership, and those who did buy are buying some pretty shitty parcels at exorbitant prices. They're also choosing less expensive education options. But the main assets that most people build from (housing and education) are either not there or less effective...
    - xvilka 2y ago
      Right, buying an apartment in a big metropolis where all jobs are is often beyond capabilities of a single worker (mortgage aside). No matter the country even.
ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
I was surprised that the article talks about employment. I expected it to be about the assets they hold. The Nasdaq increased more than 5 fold over the last 10 years and more than 10 fold over the last 20 years. If parents of Gen Z gave their children $100k and taught them portfolio management, most of them could probably consider retiring without ever working for somebody else.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >I was surprised that the article talks about employment. I expected it to be about the assets they hold. Good employment opportunities give you the power to build wealth and access high QoL perks like remote work and more free time to live life, that previous generations didn't have. Try not having good employment and see, you're not thinking about assets or complaining about a 2h commute to the office but about paying for food and rent.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
    The parents of Gen Z are the baby boomers, right? According to Google, the average baby boomer has $1.2M in assets. If they had given 10% of that to their newborn and invested it in software companies, the child would already be as wealthy as the parent now. And could focus on asset allocation. Instead of spending decades with other stuff to then finally come to learn about asset allocation.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      Yes and? Why are you repeating yourself? The average baby boome is much older as well. Time in the market beats everything. Gen Z is still young, also has time to build wealth. Especially if they later inherit their parents wealth when they pass away.
      - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
        Time in the market does not beat everything. 10 years in the Nasdaq beats 20 years in the S&P 500.
recursivedoubts 2y ago
https://archive.is/62rUw https://archive.is/62rUw garbage article as one would expect from the economist, gen z is slightly ahead of millenials and gen x if you use the government inflation and unemployment statistics the fact their graphs show boomers as poorer than X, millenials and Z at the same age tells you all you need to know
- mypastself 2y ago
  > the fact their graphs show boomers as poorer than X, millenials and Z tells you all you need to know Which graph shows that? All I see is employment, income, and wage increase graphs at the same stage of life for each generation. It says zoomers at 25 are wealthier than boomers were at 25, it’s not comparing their wealth in 2024.
  - recursivedoubts 2y ago
    poorer by stage
    - mypastself 2y ago
      So when you write it’s “all you need to know”, seems like you’re saying that the incorrectness of their methodology is self-evident, which isn’t that obvious to me. Is your objection primarily based on disagreement with the inflation metrics they’re using?
      - recursivedoubts 2y ago
        yep
- Barrin92 2y ago
  >the fact their graphs show boomers as poorer than X, millenials and Z tells you all you need to know it's comparing income at the same respective ages and that is completely plausible. I'm a millenial, child of boomers. Both were lower middle class workers, I'm the first in the family to go to uni. This is a very common situation. I'm better off than my parents were at my age.Like, ask any parents of millenials what they had growing up in the 60s compared to what we had in the 90s and the education access I had compared to what they had.
toberoni 2y ago
How much buying power does this income provide for goods & services that the younger generation wants/needs to buy? For example: Over the last decades housing prices, college tuition & stock prices have significantly outpaced the average inflation rate. Older generations could buy up these assets at a discount (at least compared to Millennials & Gen Z).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Small anecdote. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was very rare to travel abroad - a Eurotrip or Japan trip was a once in a lifetime experience. Nowadays, my entire friend group in the mid 20s-early 30s have traveled to Europe and Japan multiple times, as well as further afield, and an Amex Gold or Platinum card or a Chase Sapphire is very common among 20 year olds now. Travel, quality of housing, etc have all risen among our cohort compared to Gen X or older millennials at a similar age (millenial hipsters were living in Brooklyn in the 2010s because they were broke. Gen X grungeheads were living in CapHill/Mission in the 1990s because they were broke). Gen Z is at most 25. Give them 5-10 years and they themselves will end up buying property, especially because a lot of Gen X parents and Boomer grandparents do help out. The article also takes your point into account: “Some Gen Zers protest, claiming that higher incomes are a mirage since they do not account for the exploding cost of college and housing. After all, global house prices are close to all-time highs, and graduates have more debt than before. In reality, though, Gen Zers are coping because they earn so much. In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019.”
  - Free-is-Freedom 2y ago
    This is an important anecdote because it illustrates the stark divide between "making it" and "not making it" in the current era. The people who make it get unprecidented luxury but the people who don't make it live in slums. People who "make it" often feel like their path was trivial. While people who haven't "made it" often feel like finding the path to success is impossible because it lies in their past or was never accessible to them. It's easy to maintain your habits and it's extremely hard to change your life's course.
pixelpoet 2y ago
Man, millennials really got screwed by the avocado toast.
- xyst 2y ago
  Avocado toast ain’t got nothing on the $20 smoothie at Erewhon https://erewhon.com/category/2006/smoothies https://erewhon.com/category/2006/smoothies
nokeya 2y ago
If we are so rich why we can't afford anything?
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Small anecdote. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was very rare to travel abroad - a Eurotrip or Japan trip was a once in a lifetime experience. Nowadays, my entire friend group in the mid 20s-early 30s have traveled to Europe and Japan multiple times, as well as further afield. Travel, quality of housing, etc have all risen among our cohort compared to Gen X or older millennials at a similar age.
- BlackFly 2y ago
  I had the same question. I suspect it is the same issue that triggered re-evaluation of classical methodologies for controlling inflation: they are measuring inflation in a way that doesn't conform to your perception, normalizing salaries based on that inflation measure, and then comparing cohorts through time. The biggest issue with this is that the zero point in interest was practically reached. The biggest influence of "inflation", the biggest cost that people have, is housing. To be "smart", inflation didn't consider the cost of houses--because that isn't what people would pay each month--but instead some weighted average of mortgage costs and rents. As house prices increased at rates higher than inflation, interests rates were dropped which keeps mortgage rising at a lower rate and this "keeps inflation under control" but obviously that cannot continue forever. There were lots of people that objected to that measure of inflation. Now they bump the interest rate "to keep inflation under control", and suddenly young people cannot afford a mortgage anymore: the principal has been increasing above inflation over the years, and suddenly the interest rates also jump. You're double screwed. Add to that education costs, which aren't factored into inflation calculations but are becoming an increasing cost of life for the young, and here you are. So to me, the economist is comparing apples and oranges here. The way we measure inflation isn't useful for this comparison between these cohorts.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Capital costs are a huge component in prices of many things counted in the CPI, like rent and mortgages. Wouldn't adding an interest component to the CPI double count interest?
xyst 2y ago
Seems this article hand waves the increased cost of living, education, and inflated wages. Adjust for inflation and this generation will no longer appear rich. Also, this article cites there are “6000 Zoomer chief executives”. I wonder what it’s like to have a 20 yr old as a CEO. All my bosses/superiors/ceos have been decrepit old fools that need to be put out to pasture. Maybe it’s the same thing except a having a heightened or elevated sense of arrogance. High risk tendencies, and maybe their anxiety runs the company. I would hope they are more calculating though.
- mchanson 2y ago
  Dude all the numbers are normalized to after tax and inflation.
- joenot443 2y ago
  The oldest Gen Z are 27 in 2024, still very young but not exactly an unheard of age to be leading a company. Evan, Zuck, Bill, etc were considered pretty effective leaders at that point, but you’re right, their management style was certainly different from other CEOs. It does beg the question though, where all the Gen Z founders? I earnestly cannot think of a single one. Anyone have a name that comes to mind?
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > where all the Gen Z founders There are plenty of Gen Z/young Millenial (24-32) founders, VCs, and execs. We just deviate towards B2B SaaS now. I don't want to name names but most of YC's best startups are B2B firms founded by people in the 24-32 age cohort.
  - Free-is-Freedom 2y ago
    You can probably find a large number that were gobbled up in FANG aquisitions
- deepsun 2y ago
  They adjust for inflation: > In 2007 the average net income of French people aged 16 to 24 was 87% of the overall average. Now it is equal to 92%. In a few places, including Croatia and Slovenia, Gen Zers are now bringing in as much as the average. So it's relative, not just nominal amounts.
Havoc 2y ago
That’s utter bullshit to the point where I suspect ulterior motive. For “rich” you’d need to look at wealth not employment %. The younger generations are miles behind previous generations on metrics such as age constant net wealth. eg look at the chart in this and contrast that with the economists take: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11160535/amp/Millennials-poorest-generation-People-born-1981-1996-average-wealth.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl... (Crappy amp link sorry - on mobile) it’s from page 31 here https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27123/w27123.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27123/w271...
- perpetualpatzer 2y ago
  The chart you linked stops before it gets to the cohort discussed in the article. The youngest cohort shown is the 25-34 cohort in 2016 would have been born in 1982-1991 ("gen y"/"millenials"). The economist article is discussing the cohort born starting in 1997. It seems to think the chart gets rosier for the young.
  - Havoc 2y ago
    Fair point on data comparability. The trend (younger generations substantially worse off) is pretty clear though. > It seems to think the chart gets rosier for the young. That seems comical optimistic to me. Between gig economy, covid and rising cost of living, unaffordable housing, college loans I struggle to see the young ones building rapid wealth all of a sudden. If anything id expect even worse than where that chart stops.
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
Denial of reality is one of the foundations of neoliberalism. Often it seems vaguely plausible. But sometimes - as here - it's just silly.
Dunedan 2y ago
IMO this it just a very bad hit piece. It's just picking whatever fits its narrative. > The average 25-year-old Gen Zer has an annual household income of over $40,000, more than 50% above the average baby-boomer at the same age. Might be worth mentioning that this isn't inflation corrected. Oh and of course averages don't tell the whole story. > Gen Z’s economic power was on display at a recent concert by Ms Rodrigo in New York. The mostly female teenagers and 20-somethings in attendance had paid hundreds of dollars for a ticket. Queues for merchandise stalls, selling $50 t-shirts, stretched around the arena. That says literally nothing about the economic power of a whole generation. > In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019. Aren't way more Americans up to 25 still living with their parents, compared to previous generations, because of the high housing costs? I imagine living with your parents is much cheaper than any other housing option. > Their home-ownership rates are higher than millennials at the same age. Well, millennials had a worse start for sure, however what about home-ownership of other generations at that age? > Gen Zers are also producing fewer innovations. According to Russell Funk of the University of Minnesota, young people are less likely to file patents than they were in the recent past. Fresh off the press this got apparently debunked: https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Research-has-lost-none-of-its-innovative-drive.html https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Resea... I could go on.
- joenot443 2y ago
  I’m fairly sure that the first figure you referenced is still inflation adjusted. The average salary in 1975 was $7600; the math is pretty self explanatory.
  - Dunedan 2y ago
    I'm not so sure about that. Mind that they talk about household income, not individual salaries. The median personal income in 1975 has been $26,450 [1], although that's across all generations (not sure if your number is). Edit: Unfortunately the statistics about the median household income [2] don't date back that far. [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
tristor 2y ago
For an article in a magazine called “The Economist” you would think they’d know that wealth is net worth based on capital assets and cash reserves, not your income. The fact that hourly wages are rising doesn’t matter because costs are also up in equal or higher proportion due to inflation. The premise of this article is basically untrue on its face and more so when you account for the housing affordability crisis. That said, this article is probably still true for some kids. I put together a custodial IRA for my teenager funded with a dollar-for-dollar match to her gross earnings while she’s underage and she’s a prolific saver too. She’ll graduate high school with a higher net worth than the American median, but that’s mostly because of the typical American debt load more so than the raw amount. Since we are directly paying for her college we hope that this will guarantee her a decent retirement some day, which so many of her generation will likely never have. Also for commenters saying Gen Z is the kids of Gen X, that’s probably true but many of us are older millennials (xennials) too. I am not quite 40 yet and my kiddo turns 18 this year. The oldest millennials are 43 right now.
EricRiese 2y ago
> In Britain and America Gen Zers are avoiding the humanities, and are going instead for more obviously useful things like economics and engineering. LOL
Michelangelo11 2y ago
This is really intellectually bankrupt, whether on purpose or not. The main issue is that they're basing a large part of their claims on ZIRP-era data, but the economy (obviously) changed completely once the 14-year gush of money was turned off in summer 2022. For example, "Quiet quitting", which the article cites to support its argument, was only possible in the peak ZIRP period 2020-2022 and today is unimaginable. Really, I would expect The Economist of all outlets to grasp this. Also, the article is very light on specifics, e.g. it says "Their home-ownership rates are higher than millennials at the same age. They also save more post-tax income than youngsters did in the 1980s and 1990s." OK, but how much? If it's a few percentage points or less, that's largely noise, but if it's a double-digit amount, it's a genuine difference. As it is, we don't know, so the "unprecedentedly rich" claim in the headline is unsubstantiated. Besides this, a bunch of areas related to inflation and prices are handled sloppily. For example, the article says Zoomers are paying about the same percentage of income as previous generations for housing and education, but it doesn't look at the quality of either -- I wouldn't be surprised if Zoomers are getting less for their money (less square feet of housing, degrees with worse job prospects, etc.). Also, as someone who lives in a southern European country, I can tell you that plummeting unemployment numbers in places like this (they cite Spain's and Greece's in a graph) are due to people emigrating en masse in search of high-paying, year-round jobs. All in all, my biggest takeaway from this article is to confirm my impression that The Economist today is intellectually sloppy and baldly makes arguments with weak or no evidence in support. I'd gotten that impression after having subscribed for a few weeks not long ago, and this article, which I might have written off as a fluke otherwise, cemented it.
drewcoo 2y ago
We don't measures wealth in availability of fresh fruit, even though empires fought wars over fruit a little over a century ago. This article makes the same mistake.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"Back then pundits obsessed over ultra-young tech founders, such as Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Patrick Collison (Stripe) and Evan Spiegel (Snapchat). Today, by contrast, less than 0.5% on the Forbes list are Zoomers." Pundits should be ignored. Perhaps we will now see auto-generated pundit BS. Because "AI" is trained an old version of the web where people believed this pundit garbage.

35 points by rustoo 2y ago

mseepgood 2y ago

What's the appeal of snacks that leave remnants on the fingers?

Ekaros 2y ago
Remnants contain salt, fat, msg and spices... The stuff that make things taste good... It is the part that makes stuff taste good. Without it the snack is rather bland...
Rinzler89 2y ago
Those finger aint gonna lick themselves.

terramex 2y ago

https://archive.ph/62rUw https://archive.ph/62rUw

sokoloff 2y ago

> Americans aged between 15 and 24 spend just 38 minutes a day socialising in person on average, down from almost an hour in the 2000s I’m definitely on the introverted side, but I (Gen X) feel like I socialized in-person way, way more than 7 hours per week in my teens and early 20s and feel that was entirely typical. By the 2000s, was under an hour per day typical? Most of that was pre-smartphone.

softwaredoug 2y ago
I think one problem is the real world has become so car centric that it creates two problems: - Kids rely on parents for transportation. Which usually means structured activities like camps etc over informal socializing. - Kids getting around in the outside world is dangerous. We were wondering if our kids and friends could walk to a nearby ice cream shop. I think this would be more normal outside the US, it here it requires crossing a few intersections drivers cut through to get around. As such I’d hypothesize kids will retreat to social media and virtual tools to connect because the real world isn’t that friendly.
- amadeuspagel 2y ago
  Has the world really become car centric in the last twenty years? Do kids socialize more in less car centric places?
- sokoloff 2y ago
  That stat is for 15-24 though; I’d expect young adults of that age to be able to go places unaccompanied, even in car-centric areas.
  - iopq 2y ago
    Anecdotally, I didn't have a car until I got my first job. Not everyone has parents that can just buy them a car.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      Anecdotally, I had access to my family's car on a pretty regular basis unless my mom had specific needs for it. I was a hardcore introvert and took advantage of that way less than I could have, but it was explicitly available.
  - softwaredoug 2y ago
    I agree the stat is from 15-24. But I hypothesize that it’s as much about how kids learn to socialize before 15 that has a big impact later in life.
- lolinder 2y ago
  My sense is less that the world has changed to become more dangerous and more car-centric than it is that parents have changed to be more risk averse and started encouraging structured time for other non-practical reasons. Miles traveled per person [0] peaked in 2005 and has been down ever since, but my and my peers' childhoods in suburban America in the 2000s was way more free range and unstructured than what I'm seeing among children in the same neighborhoods today. Before we could drive we rode our bikes everywhere. Once we could drive some of us got cars, others made a habit of regularly borrowing the family car or had a shared "kids" car. We found ways to meet up, we made friends with kids who lived in our immediate neighborhood. We had the regular set of structured activities that were popular (some sports, band, orchestra), but hours per week per child spent on after-school activities that were organized by adults was very small among my friends (fewer than 2-3) relative to today. And all of that was at the peak of driving in the US. The USA hasn't gotten more car-centric since then, but children have lost freedoms. Cars can't explain that. [0] Second graph: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/12/staying-up-to-speed-on-u-s-driving-trends/ https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/12/staying-up-to-speed-...
Izkata 2y ago
Probably they don't count in-person video games like Super Smash Bros. as socializing. That number sounds low as a millennial too - and the car-centrism wasn't a problem because it was normal to bike up each others' houses.

dpflan 2y ago

What is the "wealth" they have? I'm not clear on this: is it the fact that wages are rising and the workforce age is favoring Gen Z population? What is the richness?

joenot443 2y ago
“In America hourly pay growth among 16- to 24-year-olds recently hit 13% year on year, compared with 6% for workers aged 25 to 54. This was the highest “young person premium” since reliable data began” Usually this is rebutted with a reference to apparently skyrocketing housing costs, thankfully the author addresses this shortly after. “Some Gen Zers protest, claiming that higher incomes are a mirage since they do not account for the exploding cost of college and housing. After all, global house prices are close to all-time highs, and graduates have more debt than before. In reality, though, Gen Zers are coping because they earn so much. In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019.” This aligns with my anecdotal experience talking with college students and new grads today.
- kstenerud 2y ago
  > Usually this is rebutted with a reference to apparently skyrocketing housing costs, thankfully the author addresses this shortly after. Does he, though? He only mentions how much gen-z is SPENDING on housing and education, not what they're actually getting for their money. Most gen-z I know have given up on home ownership, and those who did buy are buying some pretty shitty parcels at exorbitant prices. They're also choosing less expensive education options. But the main assets that most people build from (housing and education) are either not there or less effective...
  - xvilka 2y ago
    Right, buying an apartment in a big metropolis where all jobs are is often beyond capabilities of a single worker (mortgage aside). No matter the country even.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago

I was surprised that the article talks about employment. I expected it to be about the assets they hold. The Nasdaq increased more than 5 fold over the last 10 years and more than 10 fold over the last 20 years. If parents of Gen Z gave their children $100k and taught them portfolio management, most of them could probably consider retiring without ever working for somebody else.

Rinzler89 2y ago
>I was surprised that the article talks about employment. I expected it to be about the assets they hold. Good employment opportunities give you the power to build wealth and access high QoL perks like remote work and more free time to live life, that previous generations didn't have. Try not having good employment and see, you're not thinking about assets or complaining about a 2h commute to the office but about paying for food and rent.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
  The parents of Gen Z are the baby boomers, right? According to Google, the average baby boomer has $1.2M in assets. If they had given 10% of that to their newborn and invested it in software companies, the child would already be as wealthy as the parent now. And could focus on asset allocation. Instead of spending decades with other stuff to then finally come to learn about asset allocation.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Yes and? Why are you repeating yourself? The average baby boome is much older as well. Time in the market beats everything. Gen Z is still young, also has time to build wealth. Especially if they later inherit their parents wealth when they pass away.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
      Time in the market does not beat everything. 10 years in the Nasdaq beats 20 years in the S&P 500.

recursivedoubts 2y ago

https://archive.is/62rUw https://archive.is/62rUw garbage article as one would expect from the economist, gen z is slightly ahead of millenials and gen x if you use the government inflation and unemployment statistics the fact their graphs show boomers as poorer than X, millenials and Z at the same age tells you all you need to know

mypastself 2y ago
> the fact their graphs show boomers as poorer than X, millenials and Z tells you all you need to know Which graph shows that? All I see is employment, income, and wage increase graphs at the same stage of life for each generation. It says zoomers at 25 are wealthier than boomers were at 25, it’s not comparing their wealth in 2024.
- recursivedoubts 2y ago
  poorer by stage
  - mypastself 2y ago
    So when you write it’s “all you need to know”, seems like you’re saying that the incorrectness of their methodology is self-evident, which isn’t that obvious to me. Is your objection primarily based on disagreement with the inflation metrics they’re using?
    - recursivedoubts 2y ago
      yep
Barrin92 2y ago
>the fact their graphs show boomers as poorer than X, millenials and Z tells you all you need to know it's comparing income at the same respective ages and that is completely plausible. I'm a millenial, child of boomers. Both were lower middle class workers, I'm the first in the family to go to uni. This is a very common situation. I'm better off than my parents were at my age.Like, ask any parents of millenials what they had growing up in the 60s compared to what we had in the 90s and the education access I had compared to what they had.

toberoni 2y ago

How much buying power does this income provide for goods & services that the younger generation wants/needs to buy? For example: Over the last decades housing prices, college tuition & stock prices have significantly outpaced the average inflation rate. Older generations could buy up these assets at a discount (at least compared to Millennials & Gen Z).

deleted 2y ago
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alephnerd 2y ago
Small anecdote. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was very rare to travel abroad - a Eurotrip or Japan trip was a once in a lifetime experience. Nowadays, my entire friend group in the mid 20s-early 30s have traveled to Europe and Japan multiple times, as well as further afield, and an Amex Gold or Platinum card or a Chase Sapphire is very common among 20 year olds now. Travel, quality of housing, etc have all risen among our cohort compared to Gen X or older millennials at a similar age (millenial hipsters were living in Brooklyn in the 2010s because they were broke. Gen X grungeheads were living in CapHill/Mission in the 1990s because they were broke). Gen Z is at most 25. Give them 5-10 years and they themselves will end up buying property, especially because a lot of Gen X parents and Boomer grandparents do help out. The article also takes your point into account: “Some Gen Zers protest, claiming that higher incomes are a mirage since they do not account for the exploding cost of college and housing. After all, global house prices are close to all-time highs, and graduates have more debt than before. In reality, though, Gen Zers are coping because they earn so much. In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019.”
- Free-is-Freedom 2y ago
  This is an important anecdote because it illustrates the stark divide between "making it" and "not making it" in the current era. The people who make it get unprecidented luxury but the people who don't make it live in slums. People who "make it" often feel like their path was trivial. While people who haven't "made it" often feel like finding the path to success is impossible because it lies in their past or was never accessible to them. It's easy to maintain your habits and it's extremely hard to change your life's course.

pixelpoet 2y ago

Man, millennials really got screwed by the avocado toast.

xyst 2y ago
Avocado toast ain’t got nothing on the $20 smoothie at Erewhon https://erewhon.com/category/2006/smoothies https://erewhon.com/category/2006/smoothies

nokeya 2y ago

If we are so rich why we can't afford anything?

alephnerd 2y ago
Small anecdote. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was very rare to travel abroad - a Eurotrip or Japan trip was a once in a lifetime experience. Nowadays, my entire friend group in the mid 20s-early 30s have traveled to Europe and Japan multiple times, as well as further afield. Travel, quality of housing, etc have all risen among our cohort compared to Gen X or older millennials at a similar age.
BlackFly 2y ago
I had the same question. I suspect it is the same issue that triggered re-evaluation of classical methodologies for controlling inflation: they are measuring inflation in a way that doesn't conform to your perception, normalizing salaries based on that inflation measure, and then comparing cohorts through time. The biggest issue with this is that the zero point in interest was practically reached. The biggest influence of "inflation", the biggest cost that people have, is housing. To be "smart", inflation didn't consider the cost of houses--because that isn't what people would pay each month--but instead some weighted average of mortgage costs and rents. As house prices increased at rates higher than inflation, interests rates were dropped which keeps mortgage rising at a lower rate and this "keeps inflation under control" but obviously that cannot continue forever. There were lots of people that objected to that measure of inflation. Now they bump the interest rate "to keep inflation under control", and suddenly young people cannot afford a mortgage anymore: the principal has been increasing above inflation over the years, and suddenly the interest rates also jump. You're double screwed. Add to that education costs, which aren't factored into inflation calculations but are becoming an increasing cost of life for the young, and here you are. So to me, the economist is comparing apples and oranges here. The way we measure inflation isn't useful for this comparison between these cohorts.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Capital costs are a huge component in prices of many things counted in the CPI, like rent and mortgages. Wouldn't adding an interest component to the CPI double count interest?

xyst 2y ago

Seems this article hand waves the increased cost of living, education, and inflated wages. Adjust for inflation and this generation will no longer appear rich. Also, this article cites there are “6000 Zoomer chief executives”. I wonder what it’s like to have a 20 yr old as a CEO. All my bosses/superiors/ceos have been decrepit old fools that need to be put out to pasture. Maybe it’s the same thing except a having a heightened or elevated sense of arrogance. High risk tendencies, and maybe their anxiety runs the company. I would hope they are more calculating though.

mchanson 2y ago
Dude all the numbers are normalized to after tax and inflation.
joenot443 2y ago
The oldest Gen Z are 27 in 2024, still very young but not exactly an unheard of age to be leading a company. Evan, Zuck, Bill, etc were considered pretty effective leaders at that point, but you’re right, their management style was certainly different from other CEOs. It does beg the question though, where all the Gen Z founders? I earnestly cannot think of a single one. Anyone have a name that comes to mind?
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > where all the Gen Z founders There are plenty of Gen Z/young Millenial (24-32) founders, VCs, and execs. We just deviate towards B2B SaaS now. I don't want to name names but most of YC's best startups are B2B firms founded by people in the 24-32 age cohort.
- Free-is-Freedom 2y ago
  You can probably find a large number that were gobbled up in FANG aquisitions
deepsun 2y ago
They adjust for inflation: > In 2007 the average net income of French people aged 16 to 24 was 87% of the overall average. Now it is equal to 92%. In a few places, including Croatia and Slovenia, Gen Zers are now bringing in as much as the average. So it's relative, not just nominal amounts.

Havoc 2y ago

That’s utter bullshit to the point where I suspect ulterior motive. For “rich” you’d need to look at wealth not employment %. The younger generations are miles behind previous generations on metrics such as age constant net wealth. eg look at the chart in this and contrast that with the economists take: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11160535/amp/Millennials-poorest-generation-People-born-1981-1996-average-wealth.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl... (Crappy amp link sorry - on mobile) it’s from page 31 here https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27123/w27123.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27123/w271...

perpetualpatzer 2y ago
The chart you linked stops before it gets to the cohort discussed in the article. The youngest cohort shown is the 25-34 cohort in 2016 would have been born in 1982-1991 ("gen y"/"millenials"). The economist article is discussing the cohort born starting in 1997. It seems to think the chart gets rosier for the young.
- Havoc 2y ago
  Fair point on data comparability. The trend (younger generations substantially worse off) is pretty clear though. > It seems to think the chart gets rosier for the young. That seems comical optimistic to me. Between gig economy, covid and rising cost of living, unaffordable housing, college loans I struggle to see the young ones building rapid wealth all of a sudden. If anything id expect even worse than where that chart stops.

TheOtherHobbes 2y ago

Denial of reality is one of the foundations of neoliberalism. Often it seems vaguely plausible. But sometimes - as here - it's just silly.

Dunedan 2y ago

IMO this it just a very bad hit piece. It's just picking whatever fits its narrative. > The average 25-year-old Gen Zer has an annual household income of over $40,000, more than 50% above the average baby-boomer at the same age. Might be worth mentioning that this isn't inflation corrected. Oh and of course averages don't tell the whole story. > Gen Z’s economic power was on display at a recent concert by Ms Rodrigo in New York. The mostly female teenagers and 20-somethings in attendance had paid hundreds of dollars for a ticket. Queues for merchandise stalls, selling $50 t-shirts, stretched around the arena. That says literally nothing about the economic power of a whole generation. > In 2022 Americans under 25 spent 43% of their post-tax income on housing and education, including interest on debt from college—slightly below the average for under-25s from 1989 to 2019. Aren't way more Americans up to 25 still living with their parents, compared to previous generations, because of the high housing costs? I imagine living with your parents is much cheaper than any other housing option. > Their home-ownership rates are higher than millennials at the same age. Well, millennials had a worse start for sure, however what about home-ownership of other generations at that age? > Gen Zers are also producing fewer innovations. According to Russell Funk of the University of Minnesota, young people are less likely to file patents than they were in the recent past. Fresh off the press this got apparently debunked: https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Research-has-lost-none-of-its-innovative-drive.html https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Resea... I could go on.

joenot443 2y ago
I’m fairly sure that the first figure you referenced is still inflation adjusted. The average salary in 1975 was $7600; the math is pretty self explanatory.
- Dunedan 2y ago
  I'm not so sure about that. Mind that they talk about household income, not individual salaries. The median personal income in 1975 has been $26,450 [1], although that's across all generations (not sure if your number is). Edit: Unfortunately the statistics about the median household income [2] don't date back that far. [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

tristor 2y ago

For an article in a magazine called “The Economist” you would think they’d know that wealth is net worth based on capital assets and cash reserves, not your income. The fact that hourly wages are rising doesn’t matter because costs are also up in equal or higher proportion due to inflation. The premise of this article is basically untrue on its face and more so when you account for the housing affordability crisis. That said, this article is probably still true for some kids. I put together a custodial IRA for my teenager funded with a dollar-for-dollar match to her gross earnings while she’s underage and she’s a prolific saver too. She’ll graduate high school with a higher net worth than the American median, but that’s mostly because of the typical American debt load more so than the raw amount. Since we are directly paying for her college we hope that this will guarantee her a decent retirement some day, which so many of her generation will likely never have. Also for commenters saying Gen Z is the kids of Gen X, that’s probably true but many of us are older millennials (xennials) too. I am not quite 40 yet and my kiddo turns 18 this year. The oldest millennials are 43 right now.

EricRiese 2y ago

> In Britain and America Gen Zers are avoiding the humanities, and are going instead for more obviously useful things like economics and engineering. LOL

Michelangelo11 2y ago

This is really intellectually bankrupt, whether on purpose or not. The main issue is that they're basing a large part of their claims on ZIRP-era data, but the economy (obviously) changed completely once the 14-year gush of money was turned off in summer 2022. For example, "Quiet quitting", which the article cites to support its argument, was only possible in the peak ZIRP period 2020-2022 and today is unimaginable. Really, I would expect The Economist of all outlets to grasp this. Also, the article is very light on specifics, e.g. it says "Their home-ownership rates are higher than millennials at the same age. They also save more post-tax income than youngsters did in the 1980s and 1990s." OK, but how much? If it's a few percentage points or less, that's largely noise, but if it's a double-digit amount, it's a genuine difference. As it is, we don't know, so the "unprecedentedly rich" claim in the headline is unsubstantiated. Besides this, a bunch of areas related to inflation and prices are handled sloppily. For example, the article says Zoomers are paying about the same percentage of income as previous generations for housing and education, but it doesn't look at the quality of either -- I wouldn't be surprised if Zoomers are getting less for their money (less square feet of housing, degrees with worse job prospects, etc.). Also, as someone who lives in a southern European country, I can tell you that plummeting unemployment numbers in places like this (they cite Spain's and Greece's in a graph) are due to people emigrating en masse in search of high-paying, year-round jobs. All in all, my biggest takeaway from this article is to confirm my impression that The Economist today is intellectually sloppy and baldly makes arguments with weak or no evidence in support. I'd gotten that impression after having subscribed for a few weeks not long ago, and this article, which I might have written off as a fluke otherwise, cemented it.

drewcoo 2y ago

We don't measures wealth in availability of fresh fruit, even though empires fought wars over fruit a little over a century ago. This article makes the same mistake.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"Back then pundits obsessed over ultra-young tech founders, such as Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Patrick Collison (Stripe) and Evan Spiegel (Snapchat). Today, by contrast, less than 0.5% on the Forbes list are Zoomers." Pundits should be ignored. Perhaps we will now see auto-generated pundit BS. Because "AI" is trained an old version of the web where people believed this pundit garbage.