Using data from 1963 through 2022, we evaluate whether younger generations are seeing slower income growth relative to the generations that came before. We confirm that there has been a slowdown in intergenerational progress, except for Millennials who saw their incomes grow slightly faster than Generation X but still more slowly than Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. Intergenerational progress has remained positive for all generations. Positive growth has been maintained for Generation X and Millennials in spite of their stalled growth in hours worked.
We investigate the role of two potential explanations for perceptions of worsening outcomes for Millennials despite their observed income growth relative to previous generations. First, we find that the higher household incomes of Millennials relative to Generation X, through their 20s, is a result of dependence on their parents rather than a rise in their own market incomes. By age 31, however, less than 10 percent of Millennials are still dependent on their parents and by then their own market incomes exceed that of previous generations. Second, we find that the rising cost of college offsets only a small portion of the income gains achieved by Millennials, especially when accounting for the growing generosity of financial aid.
Our results focus on aggregate comparisons across generations, as opposed to direct comparisons between individuals and their own parents. Each type of comparison provides important information about absolute improvements in economic wellbeing across generations. Future research should continue to consider alternative measures of wellbeing for evaluating intergenerational progress, including consumption, wealth and social wellbeing (e.g., Fisher and Johnson 2022). Results on changes in wellbeing over time, including the intergenerational
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progress made in rising incomes, should inform discussions about how best to promote wellbeing in the future.
Gratitude - I learned something despite the misleading trailhead.
The wording is highly biased and the article is poorly sourced. Here’s another link for the article referred to: https://archive.ph/wJJZv .
The Fed working papers ctrl-f “generation” -> : https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/has-intergenerational-progress-stalled-income-growth-over-five-generations-of-americans.htm - the pdf paper includes the figures with non-biased language and here’s the conclusion:
Gratitude - I learned something despite the misleading trailhead.