Billionaire oligarchs and corporate elitists have used their political power to funnel all the wealth to the top, leaving average citizens twisting in the wind. Edward Abbey once said, ‘You have to stir the political pot regularly, otherwise a layer of scum rises to the top’. In the US, the scum at the top has never been thicker. The good news is, young people, galvanized by yet another ugly incident of mass gun violence, have finally decided they aren’t going to take it anymore. They are not in the mood to allow heartless, greedy politicians to stand in their way. The mostly old white men currently in charge have proven themselves to be too corrupt to serve the common good. They need to be voted out. This article that just appeared in Alternet reflects on yet another way young people are being set up for financial failure.
Millennials Face a Major Financial Hurdle That Has Nothing to Do With Student Debt
Across eight high-income countries like the U.S., Germany, and the U.K, early 30-something millennials have household incomes four percent lower than members of Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980) had at the same age. In the U.S., that number is slightly worse: American millennials are making five percent less than Gen Xers were at the beginning of their careers in the U.S.
Developed countries once boasted of growing wealth and wages, but those days appear to be over. When they were in their early 30s, for example, Generation Xers were making 30 percent more than the baby boomer generation that preceded them. But as the Foundation writes in the report [5], “the 20th century growth story that has seen each generation enjoy higher incomes than the one before them has ground to a halt in nearly all advanced economies in the 21st century.”
The Resolution Foundation is clear on the cause for this stark drop in income. “It’s no secret that the financial crisis hit the vast majority of advanced economies hard, holding back millennial income progress in countries around the world,” Daniel Tomlinson, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, writes in the report.
Sure, young working Americans today spend more money on luxuries and comforts [6] than other generations have. But the Resolution Foundation report shows that in addition to the burden of outstanding college loans, which ran an average of $37,1172 in 2016 [7], millennials still struggle with the lasting impacts of the global recession. Maybe this knowledge will make older American think twice before blaming their financial woes on avocado toast [8] in the future.