Millenials are the most screwed over generation in America today.
As a millenial myself, I can tell you that it has not been pleasant so far.
That’s why it’s incredibly frustrating for me whenever I hear someone in the media maligning Millenials as being entitled or something to that effect, when economically the most entitled generation ever have been the Baby Boomers, and they are the ones doing the most complaining.
According to a recent report by the U.S Census Bureau, millenials on average earn about $20,000 less than their parents did at the same age, and millenials are most likely among the generations to live in poverty and have to live with a family member.
This is the result of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers presiding over a government which has successively over the course of 40 years, extracted the middle class of its all wealth with a series of policies designed to make the rich richer, and weaken labor unions in this country to the point that they are toothless.
With all of the wealth and power that America had when the Baby Boomers were coming of age and taking over this nation from The Greatest Generation, they could have set up America to be a nation of great inter-generational wealth that could have guaranteed amazing things like universal healthcare, free public college and a better safety net for retirement. Instead they squandered it on stupid wars and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans which shifted the tax burden of this country to the middle class.
The Unsexy Truth About Millennials: They’re Poor
If you’re wondering why millennials don’t have much sex, and don’t buy cars, forget social theorizing: the harsh truth lies in their near-empty wallets.
Millennials are not some vast unsolvable mystery. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau (PDF), they earn $2,000 less than their parents did at a comparable age, they are more likely to live in poverty, and they are more likely to live at home.
But Baby Boomers and Gen Xers still seem to find it hard to believe that basic economic math can explain much of the younger generation’s behavior.
After several news outlets, including The Daily Beast, reported that rates of millennial sexual inactivity in early adulthood are surprisingly high, armchair social theorists came out in force to blame it on everything but the fact that nearly one-third of young adults are still living at home.
One right-wing college news website found a way to attribute the finding to millennials’ desire for “safe spaces.”
Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speculated on Twitterthat it was an example of the “porn paradox,” whatever that means. Others attributed it, predictably, to the effects of technology or increased anxiety. A Rutgers biological anthropologist even suggested that millennials might be too “motivated” and “ambitious” to even bother with sex.
h/t User_Name13