Millennials have faced the worst economic odds, and many will never recover
Source: Washington Post
Whenever the role of investing and luck comes up, people sometimes overlook a simple fact: The year in which they were born.
This accounts for an enormous number of variables, including: How expensive their education is, the cost of credit, housing, their economic circumstances. (Want some good advice? Don’t graduate into a recession, and really don’t graduate into a financial crisis). Perhaps most of all, your future market returns.
All of which leads to the chart you see above, showing how little economic output that generation has enjoyed since graduation. Its literally the worst in America in more than two centuries, going back to 1792:
“The losses aren’t merely symbolic. This recession steamrolled younger workers just as millennials were entering their prime working years — the oldest millennials are nearing 40 while the youngest are in their mid-20s. Millennial employment plunged by 16 percent in March and April this year, our calculations show. That’s faster than either Gen X (12 percent) or the baby boomers (13 percent).
Proportionally, the even younger generation, known as zoomers, suffered worse than all of them. A third of their jobs vaporized in two months in 2020. But Gen Z is only just entering the labor force — the oldest zoomers are in their early 20s — so their losses weren’t as large in absolute terms.”
The whole thing is chock full of charts, and analyses. Go read the full thing. Once you do, you will realize how much opportunity this generation has missed out on due to a lot of terrible factors, bad government policies, and just dumb luck.
Source:
The unluckiest generation in U.S. history
Andrew Van Dam
Washington Post, May 27, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/27/millennial-recession-covid/
