Millennials Keep Losing Ground to Their Parents
Millennial children are earning around 20% less than their baby boomer parents despite being better educated, new research says.
Analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles, laid out in an Associated Press report, discovered that millennials have less than half the net worth of boomers and their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is "drastically" higher.
For the research, the analysts compared 25 to 34 year-olds in 2013, the most recent year available, to the same age group in 1989 after adjusting for inflation. They found that education has helped lessen the gap between millennials and boomers, but white millennials still earn significantly more than their black and Latino peers. This "reflect[s] the legacy of discrimination for jobs, education and housing," the report says.
According to AP, research last year by economists led by Stanford University's Raj Chetty agrees with Young Invincibles' findings. The Stanford report found that people born in 1950 had a 79% chance of making more money than their parents but those born in 1980 had just a 50% chance of out-earning their parents.