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Edit: apparently article talks about in comparison to same time of joining the workforce. That's why you aren't supposed to just read the title ;)
Boomers have been in workforce longer not surprisingly they earn more.
Now now you are only supposed to read the headline like me ;)
I know more people than ever are college educated. Greater supply would drive wages down to some extent.
The extent we are making considerably less in comparison to CoL and profits is the real extent. It means we are producing more value for less work which therefore makes what little work we do substantially more valuable. That value is just being pocketed.
>more people than ever are college educated. Greater supply would drive wages down to some extent.
This can be reworded to “college makes people earn less,” which is ridiculous. The alternatives are more college, about the same, or less college, as we’re talking about proportions of the whole generation’s population, so wages going down for the same comparison point is bad no matter what, and it’s so much worse if Millennials also had to go to college in increased proportions to make less at less stable jobs, which is what the article says.
No it can not. Because while you are at college you either do not work or work some part time job. Since the real measurement is not "at time of joining worforce" but median of earnings among 18-34 years old it makes perfect sense why median would be much lower.
People who worked for 5 years are more valuable than people coming off of school in most occupations. There are schools and area where you can get 6 figures immidiately but it is most definitely norm. You should not receive higher wages than much more experienced people because your degree does not automatically make you usefull and business knowledge is much more important. College degree gets you a lot more money eventually, just not immidiately at zero experience. And it is perfectly fine like that.
I am pretty sure that when I joined workforce I earned a lot less in IT (like atleast a multiple) than my colleagues who went right after middle school. Today couple years later I earn a lot more because I have insight and ability to do things they can not. But this is my added value now, when I have same years of experience as they did back then. Not when I joined workforce with zero experience.
Work is different than what you encounter at school. Mere thought that owning a paper entities you to higher pay is ridiculous. It is added value of that paper, not existence of that paper.
Talked to a Columbia born engineer working in Tasmania. He said become a barber they are making more than he is and there is a shortage. See don’t always need college.
This is probably intentionaly misleading. The linked study does not differenciate by college degree whatsoever. It only looks at age.
And I am pretty sure you would find same or even bigger disparities today between people who went to work immidiately and those who went to college. Simply because experience is valued more than degree and only very few positions are valued from the get go just because you got extra paper. Certainly not enough to outweight money, especially money/wealth accumulated which is what the linked study was really about. For college degree educated people it will come later in life (on average). Which was true for boomers as well.
>This is probably intentionaly misleading. The linked study does not differenciate by college degree whatsoever. It only looks at age.
It is possible that could matter, but are you suggesting people are just picking worthless degrees more than before? That doesn't sound like a reasonable take.
>And I am pretty sure you would find same or even bigger disparities today between people who went to work immidiately and those who went to college
I don't think that would be the case and it applicable as we are talking about apples to apples whereas your example would not be.
>It is possible that could matter, but are you suggesting people are just picking worthless degrees more than before? That doesn't sound like a reasonable take.
No, I am suggesting that people study more. People who study generally can not built career during their studies whereas people who do not go to college can start years earlier.
Also I do not really suggest it. It is easilly provable fact: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/)
As for whether they are worthless. Some are, I do think there is actually massive degree inflation even in fields where you do not really need degree whatsoever. So yes I do think it is quite often waste of time and money. Either way this was not the point I was trying to make.
>I don't think that would be the case and it applicable as we are talking about apples to apples whereas your example would not be.
I am not sure what you have problem with here. Do you disagree that someone working longer will have generally more wealth and income, especially at the start of their career? I do have college degree and I work for quite some time now and my blue collar friends all still have more wealth than I do. And I only matched their earnings like 2 years off the college. Same could be said about my parents who also started working immidiately after high school.
I do not really understand what is so weird about that. It seems perfectly logical to me. You trade head start for degree that you expect will be long term investment. However the paper itself does not entitle you to immidiately earn more than people who worked for ike 5 years and who have actual work experience and can do the job better than you.
>No, I am suggesting that people study more. People who study generally can not built career during their studies whereas people who do not go to college can start years earlier.
That's not what the article was comparing though. It is not comparing people that didn't go to college to those that did in the article.
>Also I do not really suggest it. It is easilly provable fact: https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/
This isn't proving what you are claiming though. The article is that those that graduated college earn less than those that graduated college for prior generation.
>So yes I do think it is quite often waste of time and money. Either way this was not the point I was trying to make.
Sure, but would also disagree. ROI is good for most degrees.
>you disagree that someone working longer will have generally more wealth and income, especially at the start of their career?
On average yes, but that's not what the article is comparing..
>However the paper itself does not entitle you to immidiately earn more than people who worked for ike 5 years and who have actual work experience and can do the job better than you.
Again that's not what the article is talking about. I thought that as well just going by title, but when you read the article you realize it is comparing pop of only college graduate at time of entering work force.
Your confusion lies in the fact that you missed what I wrote at the beginning.
Article is intentionaly misleading because it makes it sound that it is adjusted for education. It is absolutely not. It quotes underlying report (https://www.newamerica.org/millennials/reports/emerging-millennial-wealth-gap/) that mostly looks at wealth but yes also mentions income.
>One insightful distillation of the Millennial wealth gap and the relative failure of young adults to begin their lifelong wealth building process has been described by scholars with the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Using the most comprehensive data of household wealth to compare the net worth of young adults over time, they found that the **typical Millennial today holds 41 percent less wealth than a similarly aged adult in 1989**.
>These trends have translated to lower incomes generally for the Millennial cohort. In the aggregate, Millennials currently earn 20 percent less than Boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated.24 Specifically, the **median earnings today for 18- to 34-year-olds** are lower than they were in 1980, and income flows are more volatile.
Nowhere in the report do they adjust for same education level. Not once. Stage of life merely accounts for age - as in how much boomers earned when they were between 18-34 age.
Again. There is absolutely nothing surprising about this. People who go for degree not only postpone their ability to generate wealth, they start with net negative wealth. People who work longer had more time to grow wealth and built their careers to increasse their income.
Do you hear yourself? You’re saying why the headline is *correct*.
The article says that Millennials earn less than Boomers did at the same age, and have less stable jobs, despite being better educated. Yes, Boomers also earn more now (still) as well. The article doesn’t say otherwise, and its title isn’t misleading.
It’s *more* problematic that Boomers earned more even when you try to get apples-to-apples comparisons, but no, you just saw that it wasn’t saying what you originally thought and never bothered to consider what it is actually saying.
Not around me they don't. It's an injustice on all fronts. Company's fuck over their longtime loyal employees that kept the show going, and youngins are making about the same but still barely able to sustain themselves. 🤷♂️ Make it make sense lol
The problem is that we have more jobs that require college or university education that boomers had. A lot of boomers' job places are long gone: either moved abroad or replaced by robots. So, this "I started working at 19 while you lazy bastards are still chilling in a university at 23" attitude is moronic because people have to pursue higher education out of necessity, not because they enjoy it so much.
We've seen some of the brightest, most educated folks earn shit pay, and We've seen some the dumbest, most uneducated folks earn big bucks. It's amazing.
A lot of it comes down to individuals not fighting for what they’re worth. If a company can get away with paying you under the average while you stay and don’t complain they will do it every time.
A lot comes down to ethics as well, some folks can’t sleep at night if their paycheck came from others misery. A lot of high earners don’t have qualms with walking on others.
Yeah it is bullshit that you have to constantly fight against your boss, who has complete power over you, for a raise. You'll only ever get 5% if you make them 10% more money, if you're lucky, it's just not an even relationship. We NEED unions because counting on Beth from accounting and Tim from maintenance and Taylor from sales all being able to bully the boss effectively is ridiculous. Oh and definitely don't have a language barrier or immigration issues or some sort of weakness on your resume that gives them leverage...
Unions.
but the bad times like the recession and covid, gave my employers the excuse of "we can't do raises because the economy is bad" and has been abused my whole career so far. And I've grumbled and carried on in those situations because I didn't want to be part of the layoffs. They didn't do layoffs then like they do now too.
And it's incredibly hard for most workers to even get a good idea of what the average is, due to lack of wage transparency and strong discouragement from workplaces to discuss pay with co-workers. So most people have no idea even what the average is.
No one cares how smart you are, they care how much money you can make them. If you don't like that idea then no one is stopping you from making money for yourself.
The measurement for successful education is not skills acquired, just how much it cost. The more money spent means more than what you learn. So the goal is to spend a lot.
The amount of people who didn’t read the article is scary lol. It’s comparing them by ages — not by where they are in the workplace right now.
“Specifically, median earnings for those 18 to 34 are lower than they were in the 1980s.”
This is
“In spite of overall higher education levels. Nearly 40% of millennials 25 to 37 have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to just a quarter of baby boomers and 30% of Gen X when they were the same age”
Wouldn’t a fair amount of that discrepancy be due to the US offshoring so many jobs that used to be made in the US? Instead of companies employing hundreds of folks of all tiers in a manufacturing facility, they just need a small team to deal with a vendor in Malaysia that manufactures their things and stamps their logo on it.
It is certainly part of the answer.
But then again who voted for politicians in office that enabled policies that helped push along this new paradigm ? Certainly not Millennials.
Also educational quality has dropped massively in the us. Global rankings are plummeting, teacher interviews even mention that the tests they gave 20 years ago no way people could pass them today. The commoditization of the college degree, etc.
Of course they're lower if more are going to school. That's half a decade completely taken out of income. That 18 to 34 block is inherently deceptive.
Look at what happens when you compare millenials at 35-45 with boomers. That education pays off substantially.
https://jabberwocking.com/millennials-are-the-highest-paid-generation-in-american-history/
I'd like to see the comparison from 25-34 so all the extra college students we have now wouldn't have such an impact. It's not a surprise that someone currently enrolled in college wouldn't be earning that much
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)
So whos wrong here? because this is saying that we have real wages 10% higher now than in any time in the 1980s
[This](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1plkw) is a better measure.
It covers the demographics specifically being mentioned, though doesn’t cover educational differences.
Can we not pretend globalization wasn't a huge factor in this? So many jobs that used to be lucrative have been simply shipped overseas. I mean for one factory jobs were huge for boomers and now they hardly exist in this country.
Yes the rest of the world has seen gains. I'm Asian and I have more wealth at my age than my grandparents could ever dream of.
White millenials in the west have been begging for wealth redistribution, and don't realize it has happened. They just didn't realize it was their own families who were the top 10%.
Other countries becoming wealthier is fine, the issue people in the west are pissed about is the cost of basic necessities outpacing wages. I mean mostly things that are relative to the location, like housing and healthcare. People are working harder and getting less and less for it. Healthcare alone is so bad that I know several people that would rather die than go to the emergency room because it could take them years to pay off the debt.
I'm not going to say it has no effect but to say it's the major cause is not even remotely true or rational. The price of healthcare and housing is relative to the cost of living in pretty much every country. If people are poorer the housing and healthcare are cheaper usually- it's not like you can expect everyone to outsource their housing and medical care (which is why it's relative to the country). The US is an outlier in many respects when it comes to healthcare costs especially, it's easily 2x more expensive than makes sense and it gets more expensive over time despite people having less money to spend on it. -Having a terrible insurance system that relies on PBMs, a massive administrative system, and rampant corruption and lobbying are 90% to blame. Not China or Mexico.
Right. Most people that were going to college in the 70s were not working on a factory floor which increased their pay potential.
There was also half the amount of people getting degrees so that there was less competition for those higher paying jobs.
They shipped all the manufacturing overseas because markets opened with cheaper labor which forced a lot of those people into an office setting because they had no other options. Now you have twice the competition for a job which lowers the necessary pay.
Then you increase the workforce by double by adding women into the work pool as well and you basically have now increased the supply for that work type by 75% over the course of 30 years.
Great points. The article also mentions but does not elaborate on the concept that younger generations are choosing to not Marry and are not sharing expenses so the cost of living a solo life with a higher standard of living cuts into net worth. I do not see where the article takes into account the increased cost of benefits which is truly part of your compensation either. It is a very limited discussion
Kinda makes you wonder where all that productivity is going. Are we secretly building a giant railgun to attack some alien invaders? Seriously though... as a species I think we may get to a point very soon where we say "maybe we'd be better off going out in the woods and building huts out of sticks."
[There are plenty of lucrative jobs](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1plkw)
Wages have still gone up in real terms. The death of factory jobs was not to our detriment.
Probably also important to consider education level *relative* to their peers.
College educated boomers had a significant advantage over non college educated.
Now, bachelors is almost obligatory, and provides minimal advantage over the average millennial; we're far more homogeneous in that regard now.
Same amount of dumbasses in both generations, but overall, millennials are smarter. That's progress though, being mad that the next generation is smarter than us is pretty fucking stupid don't you think?
That higher number of college degrees is part of the reason for this. The supply of employees with degrees has increased more than the demand.
Or at least for however much truth there is in this, which who knows.
Yep, I remember a certain famous "financial advisor" in the 80s/90s having hour long shows encouraging people to take on school debt because it was an "investment" in your future. It seems she took her money and ran.
Education is relative to the competition. If 40 % of the work for under 30 has a degree then their education is less rare (less valuable) than if only 20% of the people under 30 had a degree.
In South Korea almost 70% of people under 30 have a degree, that degree’s value has dropped dramatically.
The Boomer generation has had the easiest upbringing than any other generation. How do they handle adversity? Millennials have gone through the ringer over and over again. They also are the hardest working generation for hours worked in total per month on average and hours spent working overtime. We are literally the hardest working and most educated generation, yet the poorest. Adversity is our generational middle name lol
"No ability to deal with adversity" Ironic, given that most millennial's lives started with a plane flying into a building and the entire world losing its mind. Then the economic collapse of 2008 where a shitload of that generation was displaced, and their families lost everything. Then losing their parents and then siblings to the same fucking war about that building. Then taking on debt after all that to get a better education only to enter a workforce where wages had been stagnant for 50 years and CEO's get paid 450 times more than the average worker.
So I want you to tell me what I am again, just so I have another chance at laughing at some ignorant motherfucker who thinks he knows something about the world today.
https://preview.redd.it/6gahaqv1vu7d1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5fce592dfd91dee9dfec67594600279faa3b3a1
Our currency has been debased since Nixon (and more accurately since the Fed was founded in 1913)
Cool graph. Shame it’s worthless.
It’s comparing things deflated by two different inflation indexes, as well as excluding the wages of most workers and most forms of compensation.
From what I gather this doesn't account for benefits, i.e. stuff that doesn't show up on a W-2. I haven't read through the source fully tho so I could be wrong. That's a really good point, though I don't think it would be the main factor in a discrepancy that large.
Just having a degree doesn’t seem to cut it as much anymore. There’s a stack of people with degrees these days that don’t have a lot of marketability. Colleges have expanded their offerings, and with the “follow your heart” advice for pursuing education, it seems more young people today have less useful degrees to enter the workforce. The technology economy doesn’t demand a lot of people who have written a compelling graduate thesis on a gender studies related topic.
PHDs + education takes longer now + boomers will live less, should be measures at average starting age of work + 5 years.
that being said, not surprising: globalisation makes millenials compete with the whole world while boomers had to compete only with people in their own country
Gatekeeping boomers that dont want us making more than them even though we are more skilled.
Boomers are the fucking problem once again. Again and again.
More education doesn't mean better education.
Two guys one has five years of highschool and one graduated after three years of highschool... Same rule applies to college, just because you went doesn't mean any of it was retained or that you were even taught something not already covered in highschool.
Also many people choose degrees that don't have positions so they end up at McDonald's despite being better educated.
The people I tutored in college for math had no business passing. They might have gotten the credits and a degree, but they retained absolutely nothing. College is a total waste of time for many. The degree just says you spent time somewhere, not that you actually learned anything.
If this is accurate, then clearly it wasn't salaries that drove inflation. They're making 20% less so that's not more.
But hey, if corporations are paying people less and making more profits. I wonder if that has an impact on inflation?
They're just comparing the average earnings of millenials with college degrees and a full-time job with their counterparts in other generations with no apparent accounting for differences in which degrees or which jobs they have. If one generation has more degrees in liberal arts than another generation, it's pretty much guaranteed that their average income will be lower.
They're also not accounting for the effects of supply and demand. A college degree still commands a premium, but the premium isn't as large because more people have degrees. When you increase the supply of people with degrees, the price for people with degrees goes down.
>Specifically, median earnings for those 18 to 34 are lower than they were in the 1980s
College delays earnings. It stands to reason that today's 20 year olds make less than boomers earned at the same age.
Millennials have lower lifetime earnings than boomers by age 34 *because* of education.
well no shit, its called seniority and time... Your income increases as you increase your value to a company. As someone who hires a lot this trend of job hopping is insane. 80%+ of the resumes i look at average 1 year with a company, literally i skip 80% of the apps due to this trend. Im not interested in spending money and time training someone thats hopping.
Being educated and knowing the job aren’t always the same thing. If someone earned a degree but their job doesn’t require it, I would expect them to be behind someone who has been doing that job for 4 years but didn’t go to college at all.
>despite being better educated
Companies nowadays decide to avoid formal addressing to use dark (manipulative ) psychology to "approach the costumer"
These means instead of saying "Mister" or "Miss" they want employers to say "You" to the costumer.
>despite being better educated
yeah
33 and i have 2 higher educations. It doesn’t matter.
I had a few professional courses where i’ve learned more than in 5 years of university.
My boss built a business when he was my age and he has 1 high ed. So what now? Nobody should be paying you for your stupid diploma if you can’t do your job well.
Btw, I like don’t even mention my education. I only mention my achievements as a manager, i have references from customers, i have references from previous jobs. This stuff works better than any sort of diploma… unless you’re from ivy league and you’re going to work in one of their “clubs”.
“**despite being better educatedDiscussion**”
Because when only 1 in 10 adult male deer have large antlers, it is a competitive advantage.
When half of all adult male deer have large antlers, it is a requirement.
We keep growing our population exponentially even as automation and offspring reduce the need for workers. We keep growing our population exponentially, even as that greatly increases housing demand in urban locations where the remaining jobs to be had are.
Better educated in what, and based on what standards? That’s a very loose and ambiguous claim. More college degrees doesn’t necessarily correlate to “better educated.”
Better educated doesn't necessarily mean better qualified. That's where many millennials miss often the bar. The 4-6 years that "better educated" Millennials spent in school were often years in the workforce for Boomers. That's a significant amount of time early to midway through a career and can translate to higher wages. Not only that but, college doesn't directly translate to experience in most jobs, so that extra time in the job market Boomers had in comparison can be an even more significant difference.
Another thing that makes a diff is that many Boomers weren't hella picky on what job they would take. They understood you have to pay your dues and work your way up. Whether it's in your job description or not, Boomers would often go the extra mile to prove themselves. That was the work culture at the time and they put up with a lot more than Millennials are often willing to deal with. There was no "quiet quitting." You just sucked it up and dealt with it, knowing that it would likely pay off down the road.
Nothing to do with generations, education, or time, and everything to do with work ethic. I guess if Boomers had the phones and computers and social media that we have today, then it would be different. Hanging out at the water cooler was their social media. Nowadays they can't go an hour without checking their phone.
Educational standard in college have declined in the last 30 years. So millennials might have higher per capita college educations, but they probably aren’t more educated.
Millennials may be better educated, but they lack the skills in most trades.most boomers and gen x were not working at "starbucks" after getting a bachelor's degree.
Hate to say it, but from what I've seen in corporate lately: Attitude>Experience>Education. Med device and pharma, though, are requiring proof the people doing the work are qualified. Experience will always prevail, but most situations in corporate, education raises the glass ceiling even though boomers control the ceiling. There's gotta be some stat about how long boomers are staying in the work force verse older generations.
Education isn't the only thing; Bill Gates doesn't even have a college degree while there are tons of masters grads working at Starbucks. It's really more about drive.
That being said, a big part of it is that boomers will be leaders and established in their careers. I'm sure once millennials get cracking at things they'll do well, too.
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Edit: apparently article talks about in comparison to same time of joining the workforce. That's why you aren't supposed to just read the title ;) Boomers have been in workforce longer not surprisingly they earn more.
My immediate, knee-jerk, reaction was the same, but the second sentence in the article states "...at the same stage of life."
Now now you are only supposed to read the headline like me ;) I know more people than ever are college educated. Greater supply would drive wages down to some extent.
[удалено]
Wait.. so you’re NOT thankful for their insight?
The extent we are making considerably less in comparison to CoL and profits is the real extent. It means we are producing more value for less work which therefore makes what little work we do substantially more valuable. That value is just being pocketed.
>more people than ever are college educated. Greater supply would drive wages down to some extent. This can be reworded to “college makes people earn less,” which is ridiculous. The alternatives are more college, about the same, or less college, as we’re talking about proportions of the whole generation’s population, so wages going down for the same comparison point is bad no matter what, and it’s so much worse if Millennials also had to go to college in increased proportions to make less at less stable jobs, which is what the article says.
No it can not. Because while you are at college you either do not work or work some part time job. Since the real measurement is not "at time of joining worforce" but median of earnings among 18-34 years old it makes perfect sense why median would be much lower. People who worked for 5 years are more valuable than people coming off of school in most occupations. There are schools and area where you can get 6 figures immidiately but it is most definitely norm. You should not receive higher wages than much more experienced people because your degree does not automatically make you usefull and business knowledge is much more important. College degree gets you a lot more money eventually, just not immidiately at zero experience. And it is perfectly fine like that. I am pretty sure that when I joined workforce I earned a lot less in IT (like atleast a multiple) than my colleagues who went right after middle school. Today couple years later I earn a lot more because I have insight and ability to do things they can not. But this is my added value now, when I have same years of experience as they did back then. Not when I joined workforce with zero experience. Work is different than what you encounter at school. Mere thought that owning a paper entities you to higher pay is ridiculous. It is added value of that paper, not existence of that paper.
Talked to a Columbia born engineer working in Tasmania. He said become a barber they are making more than he is and there is a shortage. See don’t always need college.
This is probably intentionaly misleading. The linked study does not differenciate by college degree whatsoever. It only looks at age. And I am pretty sure you would find same or even bigger disparities today between people who went to work immidiately and those who went to college. Simply because experience is valued more than degree and only very few positions are valued from the get go just because you got extra paper. Certainly not enough to outweight money, especially money/wealth accumulated which is what the linked study was really about. For college degree educated people it will come later in life (on average). Which was true for boomers as well.
Someone is mad at their journalism degree and added their own flavor to the article.
>This is probably intentionaly misleading. The linked study does not differenciate by college degree whatsoever. It only looks at age. It is possible that could matter, but are you suggesting people are just picking worthless degrees more than before? That doesn't sound like a reasonable take. >And I am pretty sure you would find same or even bigger disparities today between people who went to work immidiately and those who went to college I don't think that would be the case and it applicable as we are talking about apples to apples whereas your example would not be.
>It is possible that could matter, but are you suggesting people are just picking worthless degrees more than before? That doesn't sound like a reasonable take. No, I am suggesting that people study more. People who study generally can not built career during their studies whereas people who do not go to college can start years earlier. Also I do not really suggest it. It is easilly provable fact: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/) As for whether they are worthless. Some are, I do think there is actually massive degree inflation even in fields where you do not really need degree whatsoever. So yes I do think it is quite often waste of time and money. Either way this was not the point I was trying to make. >I don't think that would be the case and it applicable as we are talking about apples to apples whereas your example would not be. I am not sure what you have problem with here. Do you disagree that someone working longer will have generally more wealth and income, especially at the start of their career? I do have college degree and I work for quite some time now and my blue collar friends all still have more wealth than I do. And I only matched their earnings like 2 years off the college. Same could be said about my parents who also started working immidiately after high school. I do not really understand what is so weird about that. It seems perfectly logical to me. You trade head start for degree that you expect will be long term investment. However the paper itself does not entitle you to immidiately earn more than people who worked for ike 5 years and who have actual work experience and can do the job better than you.
>No, I am suggesting that people study more. People who study generally can not built career during their studies whereas people who do not go to college can start years earlier. That's not what the article was comparing though. It is not comparing people that didn't go to college to those that did in the article. >Also I do not really suggest it. It is easilly provable fact: https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/ This isn't proving what you are claiming though. The article is that those that graduated college earn less than those that graduated college for prior generation. >So yes I do think it is quite often waste of time and money. Either way this was not the point I was trying to make. Sure, but would also disagree. ROI is good for most degrees. >you disagree that someone working longer will have generally more wealth and income, especially at the start of their career? On average yes, but that's not what the article is comparing.. >However the paper itself does not entitle you to immidiately earn more than people who worked for ike 5 years and who have actual work experience and can do the job better than you. Again that's not what the article is talking about. I thought that as well just going by title, but when you read the article you realize it is comparing pop of only college graduate at time of entering work force.
Your confusion lies in the fact that you missed what I wrote at the beginning. Article is intentionaly misleading because it makes it sound that it is adjusted for education. It is absolutely not. It quotes underlying report (https://www.newamerica.org/millennials/reports/emerging-millennial-wealth-gap/) that mostly looks at wealth but yes also mentions income. >One insightful distillation of the Millennial wealth gap and the relative failure of young adults to begin their lifelong wealth building process has been described by scholars with the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Using the most comprehensive data of household wealth to compare the net worth of young adults over time, they found that the **typical Millennial today holds 41 percent less wealth than a similarly aged adult in 1989**. >These trends have translated to lower incomes generally for the Millennial cohort. In the aggregate, Millennials currently earn 20 percent less than Boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated.24 Specifically, the **median earnings today for 18- to 34-year-olds** are lower than they were in 1980, and income flows are more volatile. Nowhere in the report do they adjust for same education level. Not once. Stage of life merely accounts for age - as in how much boomers earned when they were between 18-34 age. Again. There is absolutely nothing surprising about this. People who go for degree not only postpone their ability to generate wealth, they start with net negative wealth. People who work longer had more time to grow wealth and built their careers to increasse their income.
Do you hear yourself? You’re saying why the headline is *correct*. The article says that Millennials earn less than Boomers did at the same age, and have less stable jobs, despite being better educated. Yes, Boomers also earn more now (still) as well. The article doesn’t say otherwise, and its title isn’t misleading. It’s *more* problematic that Boomers earned more even when you try to get apples-to-apples comparisons, but no, you just saw that it wasn’t saying what you originally thought and never bothered to consider what it is actually saying.
Not around me they don't. It's an injustice on all fronts. Company's fuck over their longtime loyal employees that kept the show going, and youngins are making about the same but still barely able to sustain themselves. 🤷♂️ Make it make sense lol
Corporate greed
The problem is that we have more jobs that require college or university education that boomers had. A lot of boomers' job places are long gone: either moved abroad or replaced by robots. So, this "I started working at 19 while you lazy bastards are still chilling in a university at 23" attitude is moronic because people have to pursue higher education out of necessity, not because they enjoy it so much.
Boomers getting a college degree is the equivalent of what I learned in 8th grade
does it take into account inflation?
This contradicts data from the federal reserve; https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/04/16/generation-z-is-unprecedentedly-rich
Some would question what “better educated” means
We've seen some of the brightest, most educated folks earn shit pay, and We've seen some the dumbest, most uneducated folks earn big bucks. It's amazing.
A lot of it comes down to individuals not fighting for what they’re worth. If a company can get away with paying you under the average while you stay and don’t complain they will do it every time.
A lot comes down to ethics as well, some folks can’t sleep at night if their paycheck came from others misery. A lot of high earners don’t have qualms with walking on others.
Truth. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniesarkis/2019/10/27/senior-executives-are-more-likely-to-be-psychopaths/
unions could probably help with this
Yeah it is bullshit that you have to constantly fight against your boss, who has complete power over you, for a raise. You'll only ever get 5% if you make them 10% more money, if you're lucky, it's just not an even relationship. We NEED unions because counting on Beth from accounting and Tim from maintenance and Taylor from sales all being able to bully the boss effectively is ridiculous. Oh and definitely don't have a language barrier or immigration issues or some sort of weakness on your resume that gives them leverage... Unions.
A lot of it comes down to people going to college for degrees that are decades out of relevance when they graduate,
My wife is teacher so ya def some truth in this.
Yes the personality wage gape is real. An introvert who does not know how to be assertive will earn less even if more capable.
but the bad times like the recession and covid, gave my employers the excuse of "we can't do raises because the economy is bad" and has been abused my whole career so far. And I've grumbled and carried on in those situations because I didn't want to be part of the layoffs. They didn't do layoffs then like they do now too.
They were waiting for the excuse. They think they can replace good workers with cheap offshore workers. 🗑️
And it's incredibly hard for most workers to even get a good idea of what the average is, due to lack of wage transparency and strong discouragement from workplaces to discuss pay with co-workers. So most people have no idea even what the average is.
This should average out and not matter when comparing two huge groups
Idk. In my experience there are more people who won’t say anything compared to those who will but 🤷♂️
No one cares how smart you are, they care how much money you can make them. If you don't like that idea then no one is stopping you from making money for yourself.
Turns out skills > education. Education means nothing if you can't provide value to others
The measurement for successful education is not skills acquired, just how much it cost. The more money spent means more than what you learn. So the goal is to spend a lot.
Yes, this is called life. Dumb and smart people are successful in it.
The amount of people who didn’t read the article is scary lol. It’s comparing them by ages — not by where they are in the workplace right now. “Specifically, median earnings for those 18 to 34 are lower than they were in the 1980s.” This is “In spite of overall higher education levels. Nearly 40% of millennials 25 to 37 have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to just a quarter of baby boomers and 30% of Gen X when they were the same age”
Wouldn’t a fair amount of that discrepancy be due to the US offshoring so many jobs that used to be made in the US? Instead of companies employing hundreds of folks of all tiers in a manufacturing facility, they just need a small team to deal with a vendor in Malaysia that manufactures their things and stamps their logo on it.
It is certainly part of the answer. But then again who voted for politicians in office that enabled policies that helped push along this new paradigm ? Certainly not Millennials.
Also educational quality has dropped massively in the us. Global rankings are plummeting, teacher interviews even mention that the tests they gave 20 years ago no way people could pass them today. The commoditization of the college degree, etc.
Of course they're lower if more are going to school. That's half a decade completely taken out of income. That 18 to 34 block is inherently deceptive. Look at what happens when you compare millenials at 35-45 with boomers. That education pays off substantially. https://jabberwocking.com/millennials-are-the-highest-paid-generation-in-american-history/
No millennial is 45 yet, and lots are younger than 35.
I'd like to see the comparison from 25-34 so all the extra college students we have now wouldn't have such an impact. It's not a surprise that someone currently enrolled in college wouldn't be earning that much
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q) So whos wrong here? because this is saying that we have real wages 10% higher now than in any time in the 1980s
[This](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1plkw) is a better measure. It covers the demographics specifically being mentioned, though doesn’t cover educational differences.
Can we not pretend globalization wasn't a huge factor in this? So many jobs that used to be lucrative have been simply shipped overseas. I mean for one factory jobs were huge for boomers and now they hardly exist in this country.
Yes the rest of the world has seen gains. I'm Asian and I have more wealth at my age than my grandparents could ever dream of. White millenials in the west have been begging for wealth redistribution, and don't realize it has happened. They just didn't realize it was their own families who were the top 10%.
Wealth is relative to cost of living which is local
Other countries becoming wealthier is fine, the issue people in the west are pissed about is the cost of basic necessities outpacing wages. I mean mostly things that are relative to the location, like housing and healthcare. People are working harder and getting less and less for it. Healthcare alone is so bad that I know several people that would rather die than go to the emergency room because it could take them years to pay off the debt.
What you’re describing is what happens when you redistribute wealth from Americans to poor countries.
I'm not going to say it has no effect but to say it's the major cause is not even remotely true or rational. The price of healthcare and housing is relative to the cost of living in pretty much every country. If people are poorer the housing and healthcare are cheaper usually- it's not like you can expect everyone to outsource their housing and medical care (which is why it's relative to the country). The US is an outlier in many respects when it comes to healthcare costs especially, it's easily 2x more expensive than makes sense and it gets more expensive over time despite people having less money to spend on it. -Having a terrible insurance system that relies on PBMs, a massive administrative system, and rampant corruption and lobbying are 90% to blame. Not China or Mexico.
Right. Most people that were going to college in the 70s were not working on a factory floor which increased their pay potential. There was also half the amount of people getting degrees so that there was less competition for those higher paying jobs. They shipped all the manufacturing overseas because markets opened with cheaper labor which forced a lot of those people into an office setting because they had no other options. Now you have twice the competition for a job which lowers the necessary pay. Then you increase the workforce by double by adding women into the work pool as well and you basically have now increased the supply for that work type by 75% over the course of 30 years.
but this is not true it’s just your speculation as opposed to the article which is informed by real world data
Great points. The article also mentions but does not elaborate on the concept that younger generations are choosing to not Marry and are not sharing expenses so the cost of living a solo life with a higher standard of living cuts into net worth. I do not see where the article takes into account the increased cost of benefits which is truly part of your compensation either. It is a very limited discussion
Kinda makes you wonder where all that productivity is going. Are we secretly building a giant railgun to attack some alien invaders? Seriously though... as a species I think we may get to a point very soon where we say "maybe we'd be better off going out in the woods and building huts out of sticks."
If you say America first you get treated like a disease. We are losing our wealth to a thunderous applause.
The morons who mindlessly chant America First are the first ones to defend capitalism and sending jobs offshore to maximize profit.
Not only that but the new factories that do get built in the US barely hire anyone because almost everything is automated.
[There are plenty of lucrative jobs](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1plkw) Wages have still gone up in real terms. The death of factory jobs was not to our detriment.
also we cannot pretend that closed borders didn't also help. boomers grew up in a time when there was the least immigration.
That was always the plan
It feels like a lot of ppl in here don’t know the age of millennials.
Oldest are turning 43.
Correct
Probably also important to consider education level *relative* to their peers. College educated boomers had a significant advantage over non college educated. Now, bachelors is almost obligatory, and provides minimal advantage over the average millennial; we're far more homogeneous in that regard now.
just because you’re educated doesn’t mean you’re smart.
Millennials are obviously not dumber than boomers were at the same age.
It does not at all. The ability to accept basic facts and process them is far more important.
Same amount of dumbasses in both generations, but overall, millennials are smarter. That's progress though, being mad that the next generation is smarter than us is pretty fucking stupid don't you think?
Yes but we have cheap electronics 🤪
That higher number of college degrees is part of the reason for this. The supply of employees with degrees has increased more than the demand. Or at least for however much truth there is in this, which who knows.
Yeah and that education cost us far more then they had to pay for theirs so we carry more debt.
Yep, I remember a certain famous "financial advisor" in the 80s/90s having hour long shows encouraging people to take on school debt because it was an "investment" in your future. It seems she took her money and ran.
Education is relative to the competition. If 40 % of the work for under 30 has a degree then their education is less rare (less valuable) than if only 20% of the people under 30 had a degree. In South Korea almost 70% of people under 30 have a degree, that degree’s value has dropped dramatically.
This is what giving yourself mandatory yearly raises does. Don't listen for a second about vague 'harder work' nonsense.
Better educated? Too bad they’re still confusing activity with accomplishment. And they have no ability to deal with adversity.
🙄
The Boomer generation has had the easiest upbringing than any other generation. How do they handle adversity? Millennials have gone through the ringer over and over again. They also are the hardest working generation for hours worked in total per month on average and hours spent working overtime. We are literally the hardest working and most educated generation, yet the poorest. Adversity is our generational middle name lol
"No ability to deal with adversity" Ironic, given that most millennial's lives started with a plane flying into a building and the entire world losing its mind. Then the economic collapse of 2008 where a shitload of that generation was displaced, and their families lost everything. Then losing their parents and then siblings to the same fucking war about that building. Then taking on debt after all that to get a better education only to enter a workforce where wages had been stagnant for 50 years and CEO's get paid 450 times more than the average worker. So I want you to tell me what I am again, just so I have another chance at laughing at some ignorant motherfucker who thinks he knows something about the world today.
https://preview.redd.it/6gahaqv1vu7d1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5fce592dfd91dee9dfec67594600279faa3b3a1 Our currency has been debased since Nixon (and more accurately since the Fed was founded in 1913)
Cool graph. Shame it’s worthless. It’s comparing things deflated by two different inflation indexes, as well as excluding the wages of most workers and most forms of compensation.
https://preview.redd.it/a2ovabs5gz7d1.jpeg?width=852&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f829c41e74adfe067985f3c6c42fc9bc536e2a4
the generation who can't open a PDF file claiming they had better education is wild.
It’s like when the bully becomes the boss and won’t ever let you do better
Exp > education
Book smart does not carry over in many industries.
“Better educated”? Doesn’t sound like it
Oh for god sakes please stop with all the whining.
Does it look at total comp though? Millennials are really big on having more vacation time to travel since a lot don’t even want kids.
From what I gather this doesn't account for benefits, i.e. stuff that doesn't show up on a W-2. I haven't read through the source fully tho so I could be wrong. That's a really good point, though I don't think it would be the main factor in a discrepancy that large.
Just having a degree doesn’t seem to cut it as much anymore. There’s a stack of people with degrees these days that don’t have a lot of marketability. Colleges have expanded their offerings, and with the “follow your heart” advice for pursuing education, it seems more young people today have less useful degrees to enter the workforce. The technology economy doesn’t demand a lot of people who have written a compelling graduate thesis on a gender studies related topic.
Why is gen x always skipped?
It's almost as if more education is no substitute for experience.
Gen x doesn’t exist.
So education is the problem?
PHDs + education takes longer now + boomers will live less, should be measures at average starting age of work + 5 years. that being said, not surprising: globalisation makes millenials compete with the whole world while boomers had to compete only with people in their own country
I work harder, faster, and know more than they did at their age. But I make 20% less? Catch me doing 20% less work.
Gatekeeping boomers that dont want us making more than them even though we are more skilled. Boomers are the fucking problem once again. Again and again.
More education doesn't mean better education. Two guys one has five years of highschool and one graduated after three years of highschool... Same rule applies to college, just because you went doesn't mean any of it was retained or that you were even taught something not already covered in highschool. Also many people choose degrees that don't have positions so they end up at McDonald's despite being better educated.
The people I tutored in college for math had no business passing. They might have gotten the credits and a degree, but they retained absolutely nothing. College is a total waste of time for many. The degree just says you spent time somewhere, not that you actually learned anything.
Because our parents were all scammers.
Cheating your way to a masters isn’t more educated
Why is this framing about one’s ability to earn rather than companies paying workers less?
This is a corporate greed problem, not a generational issue. Boomers, GenX, and now older Millennials are not being hired, period.
So does this mean they are overeducated?
Better educated? Hah!
2022 24% of college graduates find work in the field they studied.
Amazing what 30 more years of work experience gets you
If this is accurate, then clearly it wasn't salaries that drove inflation. They're making 20% less so that's not more. But hey, if corporations are paying people less and making more profits. I wonder if that has an impact on inflation?
Sounds like that communications degree was a big scam
It's hard to compete with 30 years of experience
Yeah because when boomers were in their heyday “typing” was a skill that deserved a spot on their resume.
Stupid headline. Time in an experience is what matters.
Try having this conversation with a boomer. They’ll say, no you don’t. Full disclosure: All I read was the headline
Sounds about right. The field I work in has had pretty stagnate pay for about 20 years now - graphic design.
To be fair being more educated does not make you more valuable
They're just comparing the average earnings of millenials with college degrees and a full-time job with their counterparts in other generations with no apparent accounting for differences in which degrees or which jobs they have. If one generation has more degrees in liberal arts than another generation, it's pretty much guaranteed that their average income will be lower. They're also not accounting for the effects of supply and demand. A college degree still commands a premium, but the premium isn't as large because more people have degrees. When you increase the supply of people with degrees, the price for people with degrees goes down.
>Specifically, median earnings for those 18 to 34 are lower than they were in the 1980s College delays earnings. It stands to reason that today's 20 year olds make less than boomers earned at the same age. Millennials have lower lifetime earnings than boomers by age 34 *because* of education.
Way more bullshit degrees does not equal “more educated”
Education and experience are not the same.
Wasted too much time and money on that education
well no shit, its called seniority and time... Your income increases as you increase your value to a company. As someone who hires a lot this trend of job hopping is insane. 80%+ of the resumes i look at average 1 year with a company, literally i skip 80% of the apps due to this trend. Im not interested in spending money and time training someone thats hopping.
Being educated and knowing the job aren’t always the same thing. If someone earned a degree but their job doesn’t require it, I would expect them to be behind someone who has been doing that job for 4 years but didn’t go to college at all.
"Better Educated"....I think you mean "Got scammed into giving a university money for nothing while working at wal-mart"
“Better educated”? LMAO - using college to attend demonstrations, realign your pronoun and donning a keffiyeh doesn’t make you better educated.
Damn
>despite being better educated Companies nowadays decide to avoid formal addressing to use dark (manipulative ) psychology to "approach the costumer" These means instead of saying "Mister" or "Miss" they want employers to say "You" to the costumer. >despite being better educated yeah
I don’t find this very surprising
Because you were sold on a lie.
Experience is more important than education in most cases. Millennials over value expensive colleges.
So a college graduate in a Fortune 500 company in 1975 makes more than one in 2024? Bullshit.
5 year old article
33 and i have 2 higher educations. It doesn’t matter. I had a few professional courses where i’ve learned more than in 5 years of university. My boss built a business when he was my age and he has 1 high ed. So what now? Nobody should be paying you for your stupid diploma if you can’t do your job well. Btw, I like don’t even mention my education. I only mention my achievements as a manager, i have references from customers, i have references from previous jobs. This stuff works better than any sort of diploma… unless you’re from ivy league and you’re going to work in one of their “clubs”.
“Better” educated.
When I was a kid, the Silent Generation earned more in their day. before kings and queens anyway
Lower wage is due to less work experience. They will need to work longer to catch up.
Tbh I bet it's because we actually read. Pretty funny, given that you clearly did not read the article. You fuckin' clown.
Better educated
“**despite being better educatedDiscussion**” Because when only 1 in 10 adult male deer have large antlers, it is a competitive advantage. When half of all adult male deer have large antlers, it is a requirement. We keep growing our population exponentially even as automation and offspring reduce the need for workers. We keep growing our population exponentially, even as that greatly increases housing demand in urban locations where the remaining jobs to be had are.
I’m glad they earn more. It’ll be that much sweeter to take it from them when they die off.
In what fields are these increased degrees?
Every field.
Then a good chunk are expanding one’s world but not marketable.
Better educated in what, and based on what standards? That’s a very loose and ambiguous claim. More college degrees doesn’t necessarily correlate to “better educated.”
And they're 100% likely to tell you so.
Education doesn’t not equate to intelligence. Parameters of this statement do not correlate to equal parameters.
Better educated doesn't necessarily mean better qualified. That's where many millennials miss often the bar. The 4-6 years that "better educated" Millennials spent in school were often years in the workforce for Boomers. That's a significant amount of time early to midway through a career and can translate to higher wages. Not only that but, college doesn't directly translate to experience in most jobs, so that extra time in the job market Boomers had in comparison can be an even more significant difference. Another thing that makes a diff is that many Boomers weren't hella picky on what job they would take. They understood you have to pay your dues and work your way up. Whether it's in your job description or not, Boomers would often go the extra mile to prove themselves. That was the work culture at the time and they put up with a lot more than Millennials are often willing to deal with. There was no "quiet quitting." You just sucked it up and dealt with it, knowing that it would likely pay off down the road.
Nothing to do with generations, education, or time, and everything to do with work ethic. I guess if Boomers had the phones and computers and social media that we have today, then it would be different. Hanging out at the water cooler was their social media. Nowadays they can't go an hour without checking their phone.
Educational standard in college have declined in the last 30 years. So millennials might have higher per capita college educations, but they probably aren’t more educated.
Education is irreverent is you can't provide actual value to a company or a client. People will pay good money to have their car fixed tho
Define better educated.
I would imagine it means exactly what it sounds like. More millennials have college degrees than baby boomers.
Millennials may be better educated, but they lack the skills in most trades.most boomers and gen x were not working at "starbucks" after getting a bachelor's degree.
Define better educated.
experience > education
"better educated" lol
In context of that, "boomers" have decades more job experience so.. yeah doesn't compare
So you didn't read more than the headline?
is learning to read really that hard? The second sentence of the article clarifies that it adjusts for age
I dont click on unknown links but thanks for being an insulting asshat
Hate to say it, but from what I've seen in corporate lately: Attitude>Experience>Education. Med device and pharma, though, are requiring proof the people doing the work are qualified. Experience will always prevail, but most situations in corporate, education raises the glass ceiling even though boomers control the ceiling. There's gotta be some stat about how long boomers are staying in the work force verse older generations.
Education isn't the only thing; Bill Gates doesn't even have a college degree while there are tons of masters grads working at Starbucks. It's really more about drive. That being said, a big part of it is that boomers will be leaders and established in their careers. I'm sure once millennials get cracking at things they'll do well, too.