Millennials vs. boomers: Who really fares worse in income, net worth and costs?

Much ink has been spilled implicit who has it worse, millennials oregon babe boomers. Both generational groups person lived done large satellite events and recessions, truthful each tin reason it faced a tougher road.

A caller study by the Wall Street Journal (1) looks astatine whether millennials truly got the "short extremity of the economical stick" compared with babe boomers. It compares what each radical earned and spent during its premier years to gauge who carries the heavier fiscal burden.

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Here's however their incomes and expenses stack up.

The WSJ defines babe boomers arsenic those calved betwixt 1946 and 1964 and millennials arsenic those calved betwixt 1981 and 1996. That puts babe boomers successful their premier earning years, ages 25 to 44, from 1971 to 2008. The youngest millennials are turning 30 this year, truthful their comparable model runs from 2006 to the present.

One communal ailment from millennials is that income hasn't kept gait with the costs of essentials similar lodging and food. In galore cases, that's true, but it's not crossed the board.

According to Consumer Affairs, purchasing powerfulness has mostly accrued since 1973 (2), the starting constituent for its data. That suggests median income has, implicit time, outpaced since the aboriginal years of boomer adulthood.

Millennials are besides doing amended present than successful the past. As of 2022, information from the Federal Reserve (3) shows millennials are 37% supra wealthiness expectations, compared with 38% beneath expectations successful 2026.

In little than a decade, millennials moved from good beneath to good supra the inflation-adjusted median wealthiness of different generations.

Still, immoderate cardinal expenses person risen faster than some ostentation and purchasing power. College, for example, has surged since the 1980s, according to WSJ information (4). As a result, the median pupil indebtedness equilibrium for millennials is tens of thousands of dollars higher than what boomers carried astatine akin ages.

Day attraction and rent person risen faster than median income, though not astir arsenic overmuch arsenic tuition. Food and conveyance costs, by comparison, person accrued much dilatory than wide income.

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Housing remains a large sticking constituent for millennials. Median location prices person risen (5) importantly since 1973, adjacent aft adjusting for inflation.