Yikes, when did we become the majority workforce demographic?
But seriously, 72 million working people don’t even account for 5% of wealth… What a broken fucking system.
Google says there are about 160M employed people in the US, so 72M is roughly 45% of the workforce. Vs 5% of the wealth. crazy.
I meant majority in terms of demographic. Like we now outnumber gen X and boomers individually. But yeah, it’s nuts. You also have to consider that it’s 4.6% total, so even the millennials that are very rich (multi millionaire++) are tallied in that figure. So average middle class and low income millennials probably account for like 2-3% of that wealth.
On the scale of wealth inequality we’re dealing with, a multimillionaire might as well be penniless.
There’s a few hundred people in this country that control more money than most countries. A couple of them have private fucking space agencies, and those are the ones that advertise their wealth.
Billionaires are a cancer on our economy.
I added ++ because I didn’t mean the millionaires with like $5-15 million net worth, but dozens or hundreds of millions. I agree with you, though. Billionaires shouldn’t exist, period.
The word you’re looking for is plurality fwiw. When you’re the biggest group but under 50% +1 you have a plurality.
You really need to factor in time spent working, these articles are usually worded to stoke generational war instead of class war. The main reason boomers and gen xers have more wealth is because they’ve spend more time working. It shouldn’t be shocking that someone who has worked for 30 years longer has a disproportionate amount of wealth. They’ve also had compound interest and compound dividends for 30 years longer too. The system is fucked but it’s not really old peoples fault. The only difference being inheritance - which if you think about it, the average life expectancy is 80 or so, people back then had kids around 25years old, so the average age for receiving inheritance would be around 55 years old. Making boomers a bit better off
I’m not naive enough to blame generations, although boomers and gen X definitely have their fair share of blame for other reasons. No, working class boomers and gen Xers both barely have any wealth, either. The top 1% in the US holds nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90%. That’s the truly disturbing and infuriating statistic.
It’s fashionable to boil everything down to class warfare but this struggle is generational in a way that seems important. It’s probably not even fair to look at this like a systemic problem. We have an older generation that is fighting with everything they have to prevent power and wealth flowing to their children’s cohort. That’s not just “capitalism”. That is a unique pathology. I struggle to see analogs in history of this sort of thing.
And people wonder why I have such an issue with so many 80 year olds being in power. This is why.
It’s like the country can’t even imagine a younger person being credible for the jobs anymore. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, America has an 80yr old man for you to vote for!
It’s amazing how many laws and initiatives where put in place to help Boomers and older generations succeed in life and how they slowly stripped everything away after they benefited from it.
Sort of an extension of the constantly growing period of adolescence. Boomers don’t think Gen X and Millennials will do it right, so they hold onto power.
This is my operating theory as well. That coupled with decades of media convincing them that “the kids” are lazy, unreliable, and taken with strange ideas leads them to believe that they cannot responsibly turn the nation over to us.
That’s bullshit, the majority of boomers aren’t happy to see their kids and grandkids struggling, they get manipulated into voting for these things by voting based on other things they’re preoccupied with, just like people of all generations are.
Broken? It’s operating as intended.
Gen X was at 6% in 1997.
The millennial equivalent to 1997 is about 5vor 6 years ago and there are more of them than us gen xers. They’re definitely worse off with a proportionally higher cost of living.
Are you really surprised that all the 20ish to early 40 year olds are the majority of the workforce?
Eh? It’s more of a sudden reminder that we’re getting older. Most of the time I’m thinking of millennials as the “youngsters,” which the boomers and older gen X coworkers kept saying when entering my career 14+ years ago. Time just kind of jumps around and suddenly you’re almost 40 and now you’re part of the “old” people demographic that the new generation of workers starting their careers refer to.
Also isn’t this skewed because Zuck accounts for 2% himself? I had read that in an earlier post mentioning the same.
2% of the 4.6% of the millineal wealth. A bit different than 2% of the total.
Oh yeah, sorry. I meant that. So in actuality its just the 2.6% amongst the rest.
No, he has 2% of millennial’s wealth, so 0.02 x 0.046 = 0.00092 or 0.092% of the grand total and millennials without him have 4.6% - 0.092% = 4.508% of the total wealth. If his wealth was how you interpret it he would be a trillionaire.
Oh dang, my bad.
Because they are young. Would you expect an 18 year old to have 10 percent of the assets that say a 30 year old? Would you expect a 30 year old to have anywhere near the saved up assets as someone that is 70 and retiring after working 50 years?
It would be like saying it is unfair they have higher wages on average than the boomer generation. Being that later is half retired.
Millennials are around 21% of the population. Looking at the chart, anyone younger (unexpected to work or control wealth yet) would be about 30% percent.
That puts millennials at the bottom of the workforce (youngest) so I wouldn’t expect them to control a huge chunk of wealth yet. Also boomers (at the top of wealth holders, and still 20% of population) aren’t all dead yet and have had the longest time to accumulate wealth. So I’d expect them to hold the largest share.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/296974/us-population-share-by-generation/
Many millennials are in their 40s at this point and Gen Z is past college years. Heck, Gen Alpha will be flipping burgers in less than a decade.
So when exactly is it time for the millennials (also Gen X–shout-out to the generation that always gets left out of conversations) to start accumulating net worth?
Maybe unchecked capitalism was a bad idea…
No, we obviously just need to give billionaires more money. How can we expect them to create wealth without more money?!
It’ll trickle any moment now…
Ronald Reagan when he looks up and sees the piss on his grave trickle down to hell:
It’s people like him that make me wish hell was real.
More like “Trickle On Economics”
Fun fact: the previous name for it was “horse and sparrow economics.” As in, the sparrow gets to pick through what the horse shits out.
I heard someone --don’t remember who-- call it “feral” capitalism, which I like. Capitalism has to be controlled and domesticated or it goes wildly off the rails very quickly.
I like that. I’m gonna remember that one
thats just regular capitalism working exactly as intended by the capitalists at the top
I remember hearing or reading somewhere that Zuckerberg constitutes 2% of all millennial wealth.
Normally I’d say eat the rich, but I’m already full of microplastics.
I remember hearing the same thing, except it was 2% of all wealth so half of all the money millennials control belongs to Zuck.
Google says (I know) total wealth in the US is 135T.
2% of the total (almost half of millennial’s 4.6% share) would be 2.7T.
2% of millennial’s 4.6% would be 124.2B. (Google says he has 111.6B)
Unless you think the robot has 2.7T, it’s 2% of millennial’s wealth, not 2% of the total.
Still fucking insane of course.
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Or 0.092% of the grand total.
The “greatest generation” never retired. They worked themselves into the grave, and left everything to their entitled boomer kids while running all social welfare programs into the ground.
Now the boomers are flush with cash and collecting social security that we will never see and the last of the pensions that we will never see.
Some me some stats on that. Some random pushing a culture war on the internet doesn’t cut it for me.
Social Security Insolvent in less than 10 years:
Ofcourse Social Security will never ‘truly’ be insolvent, legally speaking inflows will just divided to outflows. Payouts are already pretty low since CPI has been mucked with over the years.
Pensions are rare simply because union participation is down, and it saves a lot of money for businesses. As this article states that process started in 1980… when you know, millenials started being born:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/07/success/pensions-retirement-savings-explained/index.html
And finally, stats from the Federal Reserve itself: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:135;series:Net worth;demographic:age;population:all;units:levels;range:2008.2,2023.2
As you can see, being under 40 kinda sucks, and the oldest millenials are about 43. Keep in mind that “millenial” is a bit subjective, the oldest “millenial” could be 38 as well.
The comment above isn’t “bait”, it’s objective reality for many Americans.
Social security has been 10-15 years away from being insolvent for 80 years. It will always be 10-15 years away from being insolvent because of the way it’s calculated.
When the CBO or whoever scores it they can predict certain things like the number of recipients, the size of their payments, and inflation. They aren’t allowed to take into account things that Congress may (but definitely will) do in the future, like raising the cap on social security taxes roughly with inflation. It went up from $160200 in 2023 to $168600 in 2024. This is a rare bipartisan, uncontroversial thing. Congress almost always follows the SSA recommendation exactly.
It would be more accurate to say “if the social security cap stays at $168600 for 10 years, social security will be insolvent.”
The people pushing this bullshit know it’s bullshit. They do it to make people think they’ll never get social security so they can get enough voters on board with killing it, like they’ve been trying to do for 88 years.
Don’t fall for it.
I wish I could upvote you a thousand times. In my opinion the cap shouldn’t exist at all.
No one in their right mind would argue that millennials are struggling. The way the average wage across the world has been driven down is abhorrent. Now show me how this is the fault of boomers.
This is what I wrote in another post:
Everything regarding boomers and wealth accumulation is nothing more than culture wars and a race to the bottom. The real enemy are those that have manipulated politics to allow them to abuse labour laws and taxes. We should not be looking at why some have did well in life, we should be looking at why some are not. It should not be a race to the bottom, it should be about getting more for for those who deserve it.
No one pushing these culture wars like to highlight just how tax systems have changed in the last 80 years.
In 1944, the top rate peaked at 94 percent on taxable income over $200,000 ($2.5 million in today’s dollars3). That’s a high tax rate.
The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 slashed the highest rate from 70 to 50 percent, and indexed the brackets for inflation.
During the 1990s, the top rate jumped to 39.6 percent.
All the while governments across the world have added loopholes to facilitate tax evasion on a massive scale.
Median earnings have gone up 2% in real terms since 1980. But the disparity between those who have and have not has changed in favour of the richest. The poorest are now much worse off than they have been since the 80s, and the richer are vastly richer.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/185369/median-hourly-earnings-of-wage-and-salary-workers/
Your problem is not with a Pseudo-generation, it is with the way the system runs. Everything is stacked against those without money.
You might be right about the politicians and those in power pushing for those changes but which generation is the one that predominantly voted them in? That’s why a lot of people blame the boomers. Plus, go look at the average age of a lot of our leading politicians.
Just like kids now, kids then did not vote. You are a prime example of why they should be teaching critical thinking in schools. When someone is pushing an agenda, you always have to ask why.
Young people are voting in historic numbers right now?
In the US, Gen Z still only has 10% who are active voters. Recent elections have seen a 4% surge. Not really a great deal on such a small baseline. There is more to do with convincing the young that it is in their interests to vote at each election. This post being one of the main reasons why.
Fun fact related to that bottom number, the one where the amount of wealth we own has remained more or less constant for decades: the amount of wealth we create has tripled since 1960, per capita, constant dollars.
The model is only working for the few. The last 15 years has seen a tipping point where people are struggling as bad as the poor in the Victorian era. the worst of it is that they do not even feel guilty about it. Some want to double down even more.
If you switch that last Fed graph to show the percentage of total wealth instead (which accounts for inflation), the under 40 category is actually at it’s highest level since 2013. It looks like it hit all-time low around 2010 at 4.8% and has steadily increased since, at the expense of the 40-54 demo.
I wonder if agreeing to pay a bunch of tax money into the system and then hoping and praying the government would pay us back in a fair and well managed way was actually a good idea.
not when the system (whatever it may be) is not actually controlled by us
Why would you trust anything some random says? Maybe look it up yourself?
I have plenty in the past and know that what is said total BS.
Gen X: Y’all are getting money?
I wasn’t until my mid forties. Finally making money.
Basically same. Except I don’t make ahmazing money, I just was lucky enough to buy a condo in 2010 so I have a low mortgage and great interest rate then finally started making acceptable wages around 40. I’d starve if I had to move out of this place but for my cost of living I make good money.
“The federal reserve classifies everyone born after 1981 as millennials.” It’s official, gen Z ain’t real.
That makes sense, because most days I don’t feel real.
So Millennials have $13 each, or $13 total? Pretty sad either way /j
Yes
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Honestly, if social security is taken from us… If we don’t burn down every single government building until they quadruple what they were supposed to give us, Ill be disappointed. What will we have to lose at that point? You gonna give an old man with no home and no income a roof over my head for my bad behavior? Win fuckin win, buddy.
You know they intend exactly that. We’re too liberal, not religious enough, too LGBT friendly, too skeptical of capitalism, climate science believing, etc. To them we are the enemy.
Oh I know. And if they want to relive the French Revolution in a country that’s armed to the teeth, they’ll do it.
people have to unite for that
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Lol’d at “Millennials have a predilection for real estate assets, where they spend 37% of their fortune”
It’s not that real estate prices are over inflated, we millennials just prefer spending more on housing.
Not buying enough houses or buying too many? What is it?
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Good news, that’s the real trickle down economics, inheritances!
But on a more serious note, it’s not that good a comparison, what we need to check is what % of the wealth the previous generations controlled at this point in their history (when the generation was in its mid twenties to early forties) because they too were the biggest workforce without owning most of the wealth, that’s just how things go, you accumulate wealth over time, they have decades ahead of us. They surely owned more than we do now, but it’s certainly not as big a difference.
In the end what I’m seeing is just another piece to divide those at the bottom so they don’t pay attention to the people that truly own a disproportionate amount, like Zuckerberg that owns 2% of the millennial’s wealth. This guy is 0.000000003% of US’s population and owns close to 0.1% of its population’s wealth.
That inheritance money that people keep mentioning is going straight to exploitative elder care, I promise. We will hardly see a dime. Source: My dad is older than the boomers and was a white collar worker. I’ve seen the receipts.
Not only that, the boomers are just starting to go into those systems, so it’s pretty obvious that there are opportunists within the industry salivating for this impending cash cow. Once the boomers enter the system in larger numbers, costs across the board are going to skyrocket as well (rapid expansion costs money, baby) with cascading and anti human effects that ripple across other parts of life just like all of the other venture capital unregulated bullshit (something something stonks in elder care to the moon). Venture capital will factory farm your parents for every penny they have left.
The main point of my comment was everything that came after, not the joke at the beginning.
Agree that comparisons like the one you’ve described are helpful, and soften the blow of this thread’s headline, but they shouldn’t be used as an excuse, as they do show a rather disappointing generational wealth gap:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/03/precariousness-modern-young-adulthood-one-chart/
Yeah as I said it still doesn’t look good, but having generations fighting each other is still just a way to not have us fight the people who truly are responsible. I’m sure the majority of boomers wouldn’t be happy to see that their kids and grandkids are getting poorer and poorer, they’re just getting manipulated into indirectly voting for that (just like people from all generations are).
All that to say, fuck you Reagan.
Old people have a lot more retirement savings than young people. It’s often said that a safe withdrawal rate is 4%, so an IRA with $1 million in it can only support a $40k/year retirement.
Compounded returns also add up over time. Using a retirement calculator, if you have $0 at 20, make 60k/year, contribute 10% of your salary ($500/month) to your IRA, get 6% returns a year, inflation is 3% and you get a 2% raise a year, then at 40 you’ll have saved $282k and at 66 you’ll have saved almost $2 million.
Due to the way retirement works in this country, you expect older people to have much more wealth than young people if they ever want to retire.
So yeah, without historical context this comparison is pretty useless.
Precisely this. Everything regarding boomers and wealth accumulation is nothing more than culture wars and a race to the bottom. The real enemy are those that have manipulated politics to allow them to abuse labour laws and taxes. We should not be looking at why some have did well in life, we should be looking at why some are not. It should not be a race to the bottom, it should be about getting more for for those who deserve it.
No one pushing these culture wars like to highlight just how tax systems have changed in the last 80 years.
In 1944, the top rate peaked at 94 percent on taxable income over $200,000 ($2.5 million in today’s dollars3). That’s a high tax rate.
The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 slashed the highest rate from 70 to 50 percent, and indexed the brackets for inflation.
During the 1990s, the top rate jumped to 39.6 percent.
All the while governments across the world have added loopholes to facilitate tax evasion on a massive scale.
Median earnings have gone up 2% in real terms since 1980. But the disparity between those who have and have not has changed in favour of the richest. The poorest are now much worse off than they have been since the 80s, and the richer are vastly richer.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/185369/median-hourly-earnings-of-wage-and-salary-workers/
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Ya that sounds about right. I fucking have to claw and fight for everything and I still end up living a fraction of what my parents had at the same age.
I was born during an absolute boom int he economy. Late '80s and '90s were awesome. '90s were fantastic, just fucking pumping.
I’m working my balls off and putting money into an IRA that I watch essentially disappear every day. I have 529s for my kids that are in the negative returns. I have plans to put an addition on my home that I’ll never do, because a 180 square foot addition shouldn’t cost 75% of what I paid for the house in 2014. And the crazy thing is I’m a lucky one. It is just sad, and I’m not sure there is an end in sight without some sort of massive reset.
Oh La La look at Mister Fancy pants over here owning a house. I bet you eat and shower everyday in you ivory tower too like your the fucking king of France or something huh.
I bet they wash their ass with a bidet instead of toilet paper! Bourgeoisie!
Hey, if you’re fortunate enough to have access to a toilet, you too can have a bidet. The toilet seat adapter kind can be had for around $30. Not nothing, but also not bank breaking.
A lot of apartment leases disallow bidets. I know mine does.
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(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
Why in the world are bidets disallowed? What’s the logic there?
I suspect it’s because of concerns about leaks and water damage.
That hasn’t stopped numerous leaks from upstairs damaging my apartment, though.
So they want more clogged pipes? I’d assume they’d love to have maintenance costs go down not up lol
Bidets would actually save money in the long run. That’s how they became bourgeoise
Didn’t the stock market have a massive crash in 87 (the worst in history) and then the recession in early 90s was brutal for a loooot of people. I suppose it depends on what market you were in.
Did an addition on my place a few years ago, about 550sqft. Chaching. Luckily I got a break on my mortgage by having another family member heavily invest so I can afford to do so. I don’t know how anyone can do it on their own these days. Shits expensive.
And I hear half of that is just Zuckerberg
No, he has 2% of that 4.6% and people are just bad at understanding how percentages work.
Not that one individual having a full 2% of the wealth of an entire generation is a great thing.
This just in: we’re fucked! Back to you Chet.
In fact, while the 1% of the luckiest Americans have a combined net worth of $ 34.2 trillion, the poorest 50%, about 165 million people, own only $ 2.08 trillion, or the 1.9% of the total wealth accumulated by Americans.
To do the math, this means that the average American in the poorest 50% has $12,600. Meanwhile, the average 1%-er has over $10 million.
Fun, so when they told us, “you can be anything” that was just condescension because these bitches were dead set on destroying the environment and pillaging all the wealth.
Bet, they will also be the generation to leave their inheritance to Barron Trump or some dumb shut.
Can’t wait for our parents and grandparents to fucking die.
I believe most millennials are out of grandparents at this point
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Not really, people of the previous generations had their kids younger and life expectancy is pretty high for our grandparents. One is my grandmothers became a grandmother at 45 or so and that cousin is a first year millennial, she’s still alive and kicking, so is my other grandmother of about the same age. Some millennials have grandparents just entering their 70s!
