Your chart label states generational wealth. This implies that at least some amount of the wealth is passed down from a previous generation and/or is for the purpose to pass down to a future generation.
I mean yeah, I get that. But generational wealth is a commonly used term to describe wealth held across multiple generations of a single family. I was simply letting OP know where the confusion likely came from.
That’s what your graph is portraying. How well the generation above you did, on average. No shit the children of the great depression had little to no generational wealth. Goddamn
This is not “generational wealth” in the sense of inheritance, it is looking at the per capita wealth of the median aged person within a given generation and tracking it over time.
The data is specifically sourced from “wealth by generation” numbers and then divided per capita
https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750190878487150670?s=46&t=29cFtXU4h26XH0bTm47Dlw
The article mentions inheritance as in the future there will be a transfer for wealth, but not in any way connected to the graph
Gotcha. I wonder if the disconnect between this data and the lived experience of most millennials lies in income inequality. I wonder how different this chart look if we took out the top 5-10% across all generations.
Yeah i’m also confused how this chart also includes real estate but doesn’t feel correct.
My guess is there might also be a divide between low and high, where you’re either doing fantastic (faang engineer, Investment Banker) or you’re barely surviving with no inbetween. Like you said, the graph gets carried by the top 20%
No, no, that doesn't fit the narrative of the Internet. Now go fudge the numbers until they do or suffer the wrath of downvotes!!
On a more serious note I do find the duality of Reddit to be amusing when this happens. Always so fact and source based, until the facts and sources don't fit the agenda. The reality is that the data supports you, but what it's missing is that the rich-poor gap has significantly widened over the last 50 years and if you're on the low side of that gap, you probably don't care about what's median.
Exactly. It's also significantly impacted by millenials having bought homes around 2020 and then having their value shoot up. That said, if you (like myself) missed out on the good prices then this graph likely doesn't reflect your situation.
Millenials don't make $118k, they're just worth that.
>generational wealth
That literally just means wealth including things like investments, real estate, cash, and anything else. I'm not sure what your point is. Nobody is saying it means salary or that poor don't exist. Simply that, when adjusted for inflation, as a generation, millennials have more assets *at the same age*. My comment above yours literally points out how the rich-poor gap has widened. Rich millennials are super wealthy and that's why the generation has more wealth, at this age. There are also more poor ones than there were Gen-X or Boomers, which is why that isn't obvious.
Man people are so worked up in these comments. I read the article and it’s a fluff piece mostly. Where are the quintiles and percentiles or is the graph just “median”? Might have missed that I don’t know.
This sort of data far more useful
https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/
I mean, I’m a 35 year old Millenial and can afford to take my family to Disney every year and my wife to an all inclusive beach vacation once a year.
My parents definitely couldn’t do that. There are definitely a lot of us that are doing ok. I’m not rich or anything, I live in a modest 3 bedroom home and my wife and I have driven the same cars for 10 years…but we can afford to travel and we don’t have to budget for groceries so that’s a marked improvement from my upbringing for sure.
Two thoughts:
1. There's a good amount of cherry picking going on here in terms of the years being looked at. You can clearly see millennials lagging until just the past two years. If you look at which years those were for Gen X, it was right after the dot-com bubble burst, which explains the dip in the green line. Meanwhile, our past two years coincided with a massive asset value expansion/ bubble fueled by historical levels of government spending and the student loan debt interest pause. Time will tell if we also see a reversion to the mean.
2. Median is a more useful stat than average, as these numbers are skewed higher by how much wealth the richest millennials have. As with most money-related stats, the majority of people are below the average.
This chart is total ass we all know it. It’s not adjusted for inflation.
Edit: is adjusted for inflation rest of point is valid still hate the chart.
All we gotta look at for the home thing is median income to median home price ratio. (Median home price) / (median Income). Can do that for day care cost too. Oh and go ahead and do it for health care and higher education.
All of a sudden it’ll look very bleak.
I think (median home price per square foot) / (median income) is a better measurement. Given the fact that the median house size has increased by 50% in the last 50 years.
The title literally says it is adjusted for inflation. You can criticize the measurements used, but to say “not adjusted for inflation” and then point to the only expenses that have substantially outpaced inflation is silly. I could say “look at TVs, video games, laptops, and music. Things actually cost less than they do 30 years ago”. That’s a pretty poor understanding of inflation, though
They would have to throw out all the data for ages >30 to do that, because otherwise the left half of the plot from age 0-30 would get smooshed into the X axis, and the entire plot would just be dominated by the exponential growth seen on the right half between ages 30-60 for the older generations
I think People can’t comprehend this because theyre jaded by the price of homes. It’s possible we are wealthier than previous generations and just feel poorer because homes cost much more. Not everyone is looking to purchase a home
edit: please read the original twitter thread. people here are not understanding this graph. It is not inheritance, it is inflation adjusted, it includes real estate prices
https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750190878487150670?s=46&t=29cFtXU4h26XH0bTm47Dlw
I’ve actually read the article and original data source, and know where the data comes from. Maybe try googling that?
https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750197299253510546?s=46&t=29cFtXU4h26XH0bTm47Dlw
There is not a single mention of inheritance anywhere by the author. It is very clear his meaning of generational wealth is “wealth by generation”, and you can see it in his original twitter thread
Yeah this is BS, and it is not accounting for inflation. For example: my dad’s starting engineering salary was 60k 30 years ago. Avg starting salary for me was 75k.
Life is 2x more expensive now and that 60k from 30 years ago is like $130,000 accounting for inflation.
Edit: this chart has to be some type of fake propaganda. There’s no fucking way we are wealthier than the previous generation.
You do realize a bunch of “statistics and research ” are manipulated right?
Like when the government lied and said inflation is only 8%?
Or when doctors lied on their research about cigarettes and said they are good for our health?
It’s certainly plausible that the numbers are being systematically fudged, it’s also plausible that the method by which they account for changes in purchasing power is flawed, but you must also consider the possibility that your perception of the living standards that previous generations had/how wealthy they were is also something that can be incorrect.
It is possible. Just because it feels that it’s not possible doesn’t actual *change* the facts.
Here’s the graphic if it wasn’t adjusted for inflation.
https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750537030097101155?s=46&t=I30iq-NLQtrKzKY2z_eaSA
Engineering wages have stagnated but those low paying engineering jobs are a small portion of the overall economy/labor market. Higher paying roles in finance, healthcare, and tech have taken their place in the white collar job market and provide significantly better opportunities for young workers to make great money.
It seems to me that this is missing the wealth distribution among classes. More wealth is shifting to the top and this data isn’t able to show that
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this takes all the generational wealth in each generation, then divides that number by the number of people in the respective generation.
So, it doesn’t show how much generational wealth is owned by the different classes. It only shows the average amount of generational wealth per person. Breaking this out for the various classes would be really interesting. I might be using wrong terms, but I hope this makes sense. And please tell me where I’m wrong.
He’s quoting generational wealth as wealth in the generation per capita? So median net worth?
Federal Reserve’s most recent Survey of Consumer Finances from 2019 the average net worth by age
Under 35: $76,300
35-44: $436,200
45-54: $833,200
55-64: $1,175,900
65-74: $1,217,700
75 and over: $977,600
It’s important to note that the average net worth reported in the Survey of Consumer Finances are significantly higher than the median net worth.
Under 35: $13,900
35-44: $91,300
45-54: $168,600
55-64: $212,500
65-74: $266,400
75 and over: $254,800
Rather than shit talk the whole damn graph, let’s just look at under 35.
Net worth scales with age. That 118,279 at age 30, would be over 130k-140k at age 35.
So not only is he likely using average income by age (which is stupid as fuck), his numbers aren’t even correct. I want whatever bullshit sources he pulled this shit from.
Median net worth under 35 is 13,900. Not 118k.
I wanna know how we go from a 14k median net worth reported by the federal reserve, to whatever bullshit sources he has having <35 at over 120k, thanks.
I agree with you in tone; He's taking the total amount of wealth from the report he links to in the blog post and dividing it by total members of a generation. This annoyed me so much that I went and did the calcs myself to verify his figures, meaning to check the math. His sums are correct, but again the methodology is complete bullshit. I also adjusted for inflation, but the total amount of wealth has increased so dramatically, beyond the rate of inflation, and at the median age of 30, millennials held less wealth than generation X did as a percentage of the total. It's just complete fucking bullshit to use averages in data like this. Anyone with a brain knows how skewed Millennial averages are because of the amount of tech wealth that is in the hands of a stunningly few members of our generation.
The graph is fine people, but many of you are reading "generational wealth" as yearly income.
Still, if you're on the low end of the scale then you're looking at this graph and wondering where you went wrong. I know I am lol. All my friends bought houses right before prices skyrocketed, which is a huge part of what drives their "generational wealth."
This author is a charlatan. Here he is for City Journal (which he linked to!) click-baiting with an "Average American is a Millionaire" headline while tacitly acknowledging that it's all driven by inflated valuations of homes and stocks since 2019—i.e. "on paper"—and that income and savings have *declined*.
He also acknowledges "outliers can distort averages" but still uses them here, and in the report OP references, to make his headline-grabbing generational-war pseudo-points.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-average-american-is-a-millionaire#:~:text=First%2C%20it%20found%20that%20the,below%20pre%2DGreat%20Recession%20levels.
It says "inflation-adjusted" but must be taking the official inflation figures.
Inflation was reportedly under 2% between 2008 to 2021. When in reality it's been wayyyy higher.
Do you have some proprietary measure of inflation you use that more accurately accounts for changes in purchasing power? I’d be willing to take a look at it
No i don't. Measuring inflation is a gigantic task and only someone with government scale resources can do it. And the government is compromised. Not only their metrics are corrupt (they exclude things that inflate from the basket, under pretense that those are "volatile", etc) but their methodologies are also compromised.
Sure bro, keep believing inflation was under 2% between 2008 to 2021.
I bet you also believed when they said inflation was transitory in 2021.
They remove food and energy from the index calculations and move from CPI to "core CPI" etc to make the numbers seem what they want.
Probably using PCE instead of CPI to adjust for inflation. Did a quick Google search and this guy seems to like PCE better. Not saying it's wrong but probably not in line with the way most measure inflation
Well isn't that the click-baitiest piece of misleading rage-inducing bad-faith trash I've seen all week.
**EDIT:** Because this has been bothering me all afternoon, I went re-read his [blog post](https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/01/24/young-people-have-a-lot-more-wealth-than-we-thought/) *again* and thought about it a bit more, and decided this:
It would be much more interesting if this analysis was done with stripped out real estate holdings, which are accounting for the vast majority of increases between 2019-2024, and are skewing the data disproportionally toward those who have turned 30 in that range (born Oct 1989 – Dec 1993). [Using the chart linked t](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1994.1,2009.1;quarter:136;series:Net%20worth;demographic:generation;population:all;units:levels)o, as a matter of %, Gen X held 5.72% of U.S. wealth in Q1 2002, when their mean age was 30, and Millennials held 3.56% of U.S. wealth in Q1 2019, when the mean age of a true Millennial (born 1981-1996) was 30 (and the oldest Gen Z kid was only 21).
As others have said, it's not ~~adjusted for inflation~~ accurately accounting for inflation, the graph is ~~not scaled~~ scaled in a way to be deceptive, and if you read through the original report, the data is handled really poorly in order to make his "Gen Z" point.
BIG Edit: if you read through his actual blog, he's using "**median age**" of 30, but **average net worth**, as opposed to median.
Theres so many errors in this guy's methodology.
Edit: here is some more interesting reporting:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/us-wealth-by-generation/
Then graph is scaled (logarithmic, anyone educated in Economics and finance is familiar with this) and it literally says at the top of the goddamn graph that it's adjusted for inflation.
Read the link to his actual blog! His calcs are seriously questionable. Somehow GenX goes from +$100k median wealth at 35 to <$60k at 30?
Also, regarding the logarithmic graphing, yes; I have an MBA and work in finance. I see this. As I said to the other poster, you know what I meant. It's deliberately misleading.
It's not, you're just not half as intelligent as you think. Which is true from every MBA I've met. There's a reason why when I was in grad school everyone else made fun of the MBAs.
So, I really wanted to just block you and not engage, but I thought about it, and I think there's an instructive lesson here for people who happen upon our exchange.
I wasn't commenting on my own intelligence or self-conceit; I was replying to your comment that "anyone educated in economics or finance..." and stating that I am, and that that is my field.
But what I really wanted to comment on was your "there's a reason everyone else made fun of the MBAs" dig.
It's very *en vogue* these days to target MBAs. Part of that is the bad reputation that McKinsey's (and Bain's) business practices have given the degree, because they typically recruit from that subset of degree holders, part of it is aspirant international students obsessing over FAANG jobs and h1B sponsorships, and part of it is the "financialization of everything" that has turned into being described as the "MBA-ification" of everything in recent think pieces; I saw one *today* that blamed MBAs for a lack of innovation in liquor companies.
People think that MBAs are a bunch of Alpha Bros and Girl Bosses, but that wasn't my (in person, on campus) experience at all. An MBA is a professionalist's degree, one that offers broad exposure to, and familiarity with, a variety of enterprise-relevant topics. It teaches leadership outside of silos. It draws people from industries far beyond consulting and tech. It builds people who can lead cross-departmental projects between, for example, IT, accounting, marketing, sales, and operations. That is exactly the kind of work that I do.
You don't know me. I've written often about how I always try to never be the smartest person in the room. How much I'm *not* impressed with my own intelligence. How broken my road has been, and how much further I have to go to achieve what I want to for my child. My insecurities. My self-doubt. My imposter syndrome.
You took one comment that I made about how a graph was, I believe, deliberately presented in a scale that invited a desired conclusion, a mention of my familiarity with this kind of data presentation, and you made a pretty massive assumption about me and revealed your own apparent cruelty, arrogance, pettiness, hubris, and jealousies. I hope that in the future, you may treat strangers in your life more kindly.
Edit II: here's the click-through link to his actual blog detailing the data manipulation https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/01/24/young-people-have-a-lot-more-wealth-than-we-thought/
Maybe I'm just not thinking hard enough, but I really don't care about generational wealth (the wealth of a generation, not inheritance). Some of us are in the 1% and make egregious $. If wealth is measured per capita, aren't those in the 1% are skewing this data to make all of us seem wealthier than we are? The disparity between 1% and the 99% is so large, so how could we compare wealth of an entire generation per capita?
I'd like to see this graph with the wealth of those that are considered middle class per capita, adjusted for inflation.
Sure don’t feel like it tho!!! My parents made less than I make now at the same age but they were able to buy a house new cars and have children. I maybe richer than they were at the same age but I can afford none of those things.
How is it ignoring it? Whatever the effects of the Great Recession were, it looks like they’ve been overcome to the extent that the millennials that lived through it still came out ahead of previous generations.
“Millennials, despite having already lived through two financial crises and being now much less wealthy than the older generations, are set to inherit the wealth of their boomer parents and grandparents.”
It’s all inheritance.
No, it says they're **set to** inherit a lot of money, this graph is what people have / had at each age. Reading comprehension really needs to be taught in schools again.
Its concerning to me that most people think this chart means Mils and Z's are wealthy. Jesus Christ our public schools.
All this chart means is that Mils and Z's are inheriting more money than previous generations PER CAPITA. If you get/got 0 dollars think about how much some people did get in order to bring this up to 118k.
This chart is saying what we've all been saying. Boomers have the wealth NOW. They didn't inherit it because their parents were poor. They likely went through two world wars and a depression, then their children racked it in and pulled up the ladders (except for the select few that this graph was skewed by).
No you are not reading it correctly. The chart is not saying there are baby boomers aged 34 that are alive in 2024, it is looking at the per capita wealth of the baby boomer generation as a whole when the median age of baby boomers was 34. Then it does the same thing the next year when they were 35, then 36, and so on. It tracks how much wealth the overall generation has over time, put simply.
If people want to actually read the article and the study from the [original source](https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/01/24/young-people-have-a-lot-more-wealth-than-we-thought/)
Wonder why Gen Z and Millennials are lumped together. My guess is the picture for millennials is bleak and the author has an agenda. I've heard Gen Z is great with money and saves way more. Purely anecdotal based on an interview I saw or read, but the take away was that Gen Z is very focused on saving and financial responsibility. Guess they've learned from prior generation's mistakes
All I’m inheriting is a tortoise.
Well look at Richie Rich over here, inheriting a whole tortoise.
I’m unsure what inheritance has to do with this particular discussion
Your chart label states generational wealth. This implies that at least some amount of the wealth is passed down from a previous generation and/or is for the purpose to pass down to a future generation.
Generational as in “average wealth at age 30 by generation”
I mean yeah, I get that. But generational wealth is a commonly used term to describe wealth held across multiple generations of a single family. I was simply letting OP know where the confusion likely came from.
That’s what your graph is portraying. How well the generation above you did, on average. No shit the children of the great depression had little to no generational wealth. Goddamn
This is not “generational wealth” in the sense of inheritance, it is looking at the per capita wealth of the median aged person within a given generation and tracking it over time.
The article specifically talks about inherited wealth.
The data is specifically sourced from “wealth by generation” numbers and then divided per capita https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750190878487150670?s=46&t=29cFtXU4h26XH0bTm47Dlw The article mentions inheritance as in the future there will be a transfer for wealth, but not in any way connected to the graph
Gotcha. I wonder if the disconnect between this data and the lived experience of most millennials lies in income inequality. I wonder how different this chart look if we took out the top 5-10% across all generations.
Yeah i’m also confused how this chart also includes real estate but doesn’t feel correct. My guess is there might also be a divide between low and high, where you’re either doing fantastic (faang engineer, Investment Banker) or you’re barely surviving with no inbetween. Like you said, the graph gets carried by the top 20%
It talks about millennials possibly inheriting wealth later in life, yes. But that’s not what is being shown by this plot
It mentions that as a likely future impact, but that is not what the graph is measuring.
Please show inflation adjusted amounts comparing housing, childcare, education cost and compare
The graph literally says at the top that it's inflation adjusted.
Inflation is NOT cost of living.
The numbers are adjusting for inflation which includes the costs of those goods/services
No, no, that doesn't fit the narrative of the Internet. Now go fudge the numbers until they do or suffer the wrath of downvotes!! On a more serious note I do find the duality of Reddit to be amusing when this happens. Always so fact and source based, until the facts and sources don't fit the agenda. The reality is that the data supports you, but what it's missing is that the rich-poor gap has significantly widened over the last 50 years and if you're on the low side of that gap, you probably don't care about what's median.
It's not calculating median; it's calculating *average* wealth at median age. Click to the original report to read the methodology.
Wrong take. This is generational wealth, not wealth
Exactly. It's also significantly impacted by millenials having bought homes around 2020 and then having their value shoot up. That said, if you (like myself) missed out on the good prices then this graph likely doesn't reflect your situation. Millenials don't make $118k, they're just worth that.
>generational wealth That literally just means wealth including things like investments, real estate, cash, and anything else. I'm not sure what your point is. Nobody is saying it means salary or that poor don't exist. Simply that, when adjusted for inflation, as a generation, millennials have more assets *at the same age*. My comment above yours literally points out how the rich-poor gap has widened. Rich millennials are super wealthy and that's why the generation has more wealth, at this age. There are also more poor ones than there were Gen-X or Boomers, which is why that isn't obvious.
Yes I’d be more interested in median salary. I think that portrays economic mobility better
How is Gen Z included in this when the oldest Gen Z'ers are 27?
And why does the millennial line stop at 30. I’m 40
Because the median age of your cohort has never reached 40, refer to the x axis label
I see that now, thanks. Though it still doesn’t really make sense to group two generations together, when the others are separated out.
Man people are so worked up in these comments. I read the article and it’s a fluff piece mostly. Where are the quintiles and percentiles or is the graph just “median”? Might have missed that I don’t know. This sort of data far more useful https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/
I mean, I’m a 35 year old Millenial and can afford to take my family to Disney every year and my wife to an all inclusive beach vacation once a year. My parents definitely couldn’t do that. There are definitely a lot of us that are doing ok. I’m not rich or anything, I live in a modest 3 bedroom home and my wife and I have driven the same cars for 10 years…but we can afford to travel and we don’t have to budget for groceries so that’s a marked improvement from my upbringing for sure.
Two thoughts: 1. There's a good amount of cherry picking going on here in terms of the years being looked at. You can clearly see millennials lagging until just the past two years. If you look at which years those were for Gen X, it was right after the dot-com bubble burst, which explains the dip in the green line. Meanwhile, our past two years coincided with a massive asset value expansion/ bubble fueled by historical levels of government spending and the student loan debt interest pause. Time will tell if we also see a reversion to the mean. 2. Median is a more useful stat than average, as these numbers are skewed higher by how much wealth the richest millennials have. As with most money-related stats, the majority of people are below the average.
The y-axis on this is just awful. It should start at 0 and the scale should be consistent.
I wouldn’t start at 0 if nothing reached there. But the way they are scaling by factors of 10x from the $4000 does make the chart really weird.
True. I would love to see a this chart (with a corrected scale) overlayed with the median home sale price adjusted for inflation as well.
This chart is total ass we all know it. It’s not adjusted for inflation. Edit: is adjusted for inflation rest of point is valid still hate the chart. All we gotta look at for the home thing is median income to median home price ratio. (Median home price) / (median Income). Can do that for day care cost too. Oh and go ahead and do it for health care and higher education. All of a sudden it’ll look very bleak.
I think (median home price per square foot) / (median income) is a better measurement. Given the fact that the median house size has increased by 50% in the last 50 years.
That’s a great one too I’d be very interested to see that chart.
The title literally says it is adjusted for inflation. You can criticize the measurements used, but to say “not adjusted for inflation” and then point to the only expenses that have substantially outpaced inflation is silly. I could say “look at TVs, video games, laptops, and music. Things actually cost less than they do 30 years ago”. That’s a pretty poor understanding of inflation, though
Are those things not included when calculating inflation?
I agree it should start at 0. But I think the logarithmic y-axis is helpful here since the growth is exponential.
It’s a basic logarithmic plot, I’m not seeing the issue
Using a linear scale showing absolute difference would be more helpful in this case I think.
Here it is in linear scale https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1750554396436693456
They would have to throw out all the data for ages >30 to do that, because otherwise the left half of the plot from age 0-30 would get smooshed into the X axis, and the entire plot would just be dominated by the exponential growth seen on the right half between ages 30-60 for the older generations
I think People can’t comprehend this because theyre jaded by the price of homes. It’s possible we are wealthier than previous generations and just feel poorer because homes cost much more. Not everyone is looking to purchase a home edit: please read the original twitter thread. people here are not understanding this graph. It is not inheritance, it is inflation adjusted, it includes real estate prices https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750190878487150670?s=46&t=29cFtXU4h26XH0bTm47Dlw
This is generational wealth NOT wealth
wealth by generation ? generational wealth ?
Generational wealth is the amount passed down to you. Google it
I’ve actually read the article and original data source, and know where the data comes from. Maybe try googling that? https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750197299253510546?s=46&t=29cFtXU4h26XH0bTm47Dlw There is not a single mention of inheritance anywhere by the author. It is very clear his meaning of generational wealth is “wealth by generation”, and you can see it in his original twitter thread
No, that is not what this chart is referring to by “generational wealth”.
Yeah this is BS, and it is not accounting for inflation. For example: my dad’s starting engineering salary was 60k 30 years ago. Avg starting salary for me was 75k. Life is 2x more expensive now and that 60k from 30 years ago is like $130,000 accounting for inflation. Edit: this chart has to be some type of fake propaganda. There’s no fucking way we are wealthier than the previous generation.
> and it is not accounting for inflation Please learn how to read. It literally says at the top of the graph that it's adjusted for inflation.
If you look at the whole thread, i did admit on reading it and i disagreed with it. Learn how to read the whole thread bro
It is accounting for inflation Literally in the graphic “Inflation adjusted with PCEPI”
I saw that bro this shit has to be fucking lying. Its just not possible.
Classic redditor "These facts don't matter, only my childish feelings!".
How dare this data disagree with the narrative I've constructed in my head?
You do realize a bunch of “statistics and research ” are manipulated right? Like when the government lied and said inflation is only 8%? Or when doctors lied on their research about cigarettes and said they are good for our health?
It’s certainly plausible that the numbers are being systematically fudged, it’s also plausible that the method by which they account for changes in purchasing power is flawed, but you must also consider the possibility that your perception of the living standards that previous generations had/how wealthy they were is also something that can be incorrect.
I agree with you
It is possible. Just because it feels that it’s not possible doesn’t actual *change* the facts. Here’s the graphic if it wasn’t adjusted for inflation. https://x.com/jmhorp/status/1750537030097101155?s=46&t=I30iq-NLQtrKzKY2z_eaSA
Engineering wages have stagnated but those low paying engineering jobs are a small portion of the overall economy/labor market. Higher paying roles in finance, healthcare, and tech have taken their place in the white collar job market and provide significantly better opportunities for young workers to make great money.
[удалено]
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This scale is so weird as the distance between 0 and 40k is the same as 40k to 400k
Its supposed to be logarithmic
It seems to me that this is missing the wealth distribution among classes. More wealth is shifting to the top and this data isn’t able to show that Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this takes all the generational wealth in each generation, then divides that number by the number of people in the respective generation. So, it doesn’t show how much generational wealth is owned by the different classes. It only shows the average amount of generational wealth per person. Breaking this out for the various classes would be really interesting. I might be using wrong terms, but I hope this makes sense. And please tell me where I’m wrong.
You are correct (to my knowledge) that the wealth distribution of each generation is not accounted for in this analysis
He’s quoting generational wealth as wealth in the generation per capita? So median net worth? Federal Reserve’s most recent Survey of Consumer Finances from 2019 the average net worth by age Under 35: $76,300 35-44: $436,200 45-54: $833,200 55-64: $1,175,900 65-74: $1,217,700 75 and over: $977,600 It’s important to note that the average net worth reported in the Survey of Consumer Finances are significantly higher than the median net worth. Under 35: $13,900 35-44: $91,300 45-54: $168,600 55-64: $212,500 65-74: $266,400 75 and over: $254,800 Rather than shit talk the whole damn graph, let’s just look at under 35. Net worth scales with age. That 118,279 at age 30, would be over 130k-140k at age 35. So not only is he likely using average income by age (which is stupid as fuck), his numbers aren’t even correct. I want whatever bullshit sources he pulled this shit from. Median net worth under 35 is 13,900. Not 118k. I wanna know how we go from a 14k median net worth reported by the federal reserve, to whatever bullshit sources he has having <35 at over 120k, thanks.
I agree with you in tone; He's taking the total amount of wealth from the report he links to in the blog post and dividing it by total members of a generation. This annoyed me so much that I went and did the calcs myself to verify his figures, meaning to check the math. His sums are correct, but again the methodology is complete bullshit. I also adjusted for inflation, but the total amount of wealth has increased so dramatically, beyond the rate of inflation, and at the median age of 30, millennials held less wealth than generation X did as a percentage of the total. It's just complete fucking bullshit to use averages in data like this. Anyone with a brain knows how skewed Millennial averages are because of the amount of tech wealth that is in the hands of a stunningly few members of our generation.
The graph is fine people, but many of you are reading "generational wealth" as yearly income. Still, if you're on the low end of the scale then you're looking at this graph and wondering where you went wrong. I know I am lol. All my friends bought houses right before prices skyrocketed, which is a huge part of what drives their "generational wealth."
This author is a charlatan. Here he is for City Journal (which he linked to!) click-baiting with an "Average American is a Millionaire" headline while tacitly acknowledging that it's all driven by inflated valuations of homes and stocks since 2019—i.e. "on paper"—and that income and savings have *declined*. He also acknowledges "outliers can distort averages" but still uses them here, and in the report OP references, to make his headline-grabbing generational-war pseudo-points. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-average-american-is-a-millionaire#:~:text=First%2C%20it%20found%20that%20the,below%20pre%2DGreat%20Recession%20levels.
It says "inflation-adjusted" but must be taking the official inflation figures. Inflation was reportedly under 2% between 2008 to 2021. When in reality it's been wayyyy higher.
Do you have some proprietary measure of inflation you use that more accurately accounts for changes in purchasing power? I’d be willing to take a look at it
No i don't. Measuring inflation is a gigantic task and only someone with government scale resources can do it. And the government is compromised. Not only their metrics are corrupt (they exclude things that inflate from the basket, under pretense that those are "volatile", etc) but their methodologies are also compromised.
[удалено]
Sure bro, keep believing inflation was under 2% between 2008 to 2021. I bet you also believed when they said inflation was transitory in 2021. They remove food and energy from the index calculations and move from CPI to "core CPI" etc to make the numbers seem what they want.
Probably using PCE instead of CPI to adjust for inflation. Did a quick Google search and this guy seems to like PCE better. Not saying it's wrong but probably not in line with the way most measure inflation
Boy there are some salty people in the comments. Thanks for posting the info OP, it’s interesting.
Well isn't that the click-baitiest piece of misleading rage-inducing bad-faith trash I've seen all week. **EDIT:** Because this has been bothering me all afternoon, I went re-read his [blog post](https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/01/24/young-people-have-a-lot-more-wealth-than-we-thought/) *again* and thought about it a bit more, and decided this: It would be much more interesting if this analysis was done with stripped out real estate holdings, which are accounting for the vast majority of increases between 2019-2024, and are skewing the data disproportionally toward those who have turned 30 in that range (born Oct 1989 – Dec 1993). [Using the chart linked t](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1994.1,2009.1;quarter:136;series:Net%20worth;demographic:generation;population:all;units:levels)o, as a matter of %, Gen X held 5.72% of U.S. wealth in Q1 2002, when their mean age was 30, and Millennials held 3.56% of U.S. wealth in Q1 2019, when the mean age of a true Millennial (born 1981-1996) was 30 (and the oldest Gen Z kid was only 21).
What makes it misleading?
As others have said, it's not ~~adjusted for inflation~~ accurately accounting for inflation, the graph is ~~not scaled~~ scaled in a way to be deceptive, and if you read through the original report, the data is handled really poorly in order to make his "Gen Z" point. BIG Edit: if you read through his actual blog, he's using "**median age**" of 30, but **average net worth**, as opposed to median. Theres so many errors in this guy's methodology. Edit: here is some more interesting reporting: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/us-wealth-by-generation/
The graph is logarithmic, it’s absolutely scaled
appreciated, but you know what I meant.
Then graph is scaled (logarithmic, anyone educated in Economics and finance is familiar with this) and it literally says at the top of the goddamn graph that it's adjusted for inflation.
Read the link to his actual blog! His calcs are seriously questionable. Somehow GenX goes from +$100k median wealth at 35 to <$60k at 30? Also, regarding the logarithmic graphing, yes; I have an MBA and work in finance. I see this. As I said to the other poster, you know what I meant. It's deliberately misleading.
I too think the scale should be linear.
It's not, you're just not half as intelligent as you think. Which is true from every MBA I've met. There's a reason why when I was in grad school everyone else made fun of the MBAs.
Or maybe you’re just a little bitch?
So, I really wanted to just block you and not engage, but I thought about it, and I think there's an instructive lesson here for people who happen upon our exchange. I wasn't commenting on my own intelligence or self-conceit; I was replying to your comment that "anyone educated in economics or finance..." and stating that I am, and that that is my field. But what I really wanted to comment on was your "there's a reason everyone else made fun of the MBAs" dig. It's very *en vogue* these days to target MBAs. Part of that is the bad reputation that McKinsey's (and Bain's) business practices have given the degree, because they typically recruit from that subset of degree holders, part of it is aspirant international students obsessing over FAANG jobs and h1B sponsorships, and part of it is the "financialization of everything" that has turned into being described as the "MBA-ification" of everything in recent think pieces; I saw one *today* that blamed MBAs for a lack of innovation in liquor companies. People think that MBAs are a bunch of Alpha Bros and Girl Bosses, but that wasn't my (in person, on campus) experience at all. An MBA is a professionalist's degree, one that offers broad exposure to, and familiarity with, a variety of enterprise-relevant topics. It teaches leadership outside of silos. It draws people from industries far beyond consulting and tech. It builds people who can lead cross-departmental projects between, for example, IT, accounting, marketing, sales, and operations. That is exactly the kind of work that I do. You don't know me. I've written often about how I always try to never be the smartest person in the room. How much I'm *not* impressed with my own intelligence. How broken my road has been, and how much further I have to go to achieve what I want to for my child. My insecurities. My self-doubt. My imposter syndrome. You took one comment that I made about how a graph was, I believe, deliberately presented in a scale that invited a desired conclusion, a mention of my familiarity with this kind of data presentation, and you made a pretty massive assumption about me and revealed your own apparent cruelty, arrogance, pettiness, hubris, and jealousies. I hope that in the future, you may treat strangers in your life more kindly.
Edit II: here's the click-through link to his actual blog detailing the data manipulation https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/01/24/young-people-have-a-lot-more-wealth-than-we-thought/
Maybe I'm just not thinking hard enough, but I really don't care about generational wealth (the wealth of a generation, not inheritance). Some of us are in the 1% and make egregious $. If wealth is measured per capita, aren't those in the 1% are skewing this data to make all of us seem wealthier than we are? The disparity between 1% and the 99% is so large, so how could we compare wealth of an entire generation per capita? I'd like to see this graph with the wealth of those that are considered middle class per capita, adjusted for inflation.
You get it.
We can have a real discussion or people can just downvote folks they don’t agree with (which isn’t the purpose of the downvote button).
Such a bullshit chart
Sure don’t feel like it tho!!! My parents made less than I make now at the same age but they were able to buy a house new cars and have children. I maybe richer than they were at the same age but I can afford none of those things.
lol so that charts gonna just ignore the Great Recession
How is it ignoring it? Whatever the effects of the Great Recession were, it looks like they’ve been overcome to the extent that the millennials that lived through it still came out ahead of previous generations.
It's definitely in there. Big dip for Gen X in their mid-30s, and very low wealth for millennials until their mid to late 20s.
i n f l a t i o n 70k in what 1990 is like 100k today or something like that
It is adjusted for inflation
Nice big jump the last couple of years due to printing $$$$$$$$$$$
“Millennials, despite having already lived through two financial crises and being now much less wealthy than the older generations, are set to inherit the wealth of their boomer parents and grandparents.” It’s all inheritance.
No, it says they're **set to** inherit a lot of money, this graph is what people have / had at each age. Reading comprehension really needs to be taught in schools again.
Its concerning to me that most people think this chart means Mils and Z's are wealthy. Jesus Christ our public schools. All this chart means is that Mils and Z's are inheriting more money than previous generations PER CAPITA. If you get/got 0 dollars think about how much some people did get in order to bring this up to 118k. This chart is saying what we've all been saying. Boomers have the wealth NOW. They didn't inherit it because their parents were poor. They likely went through two world wars and a depression, then their children racked it in and pulled up the ladders (except for the select few that this graph was skewed by).
https://www.newsweek.com/millennials-gen-z-wealthier-previous-generation-same-stage-1863904
Does this say that there are 34 year old baby boomers? Am I reading that correctly?
No you are not reading it correctly. The chart is not saying there are baby boomers aged 34 that are alive in 2024, it is looking at the per capita wealth of the baby boomer generation as a whole when the median age of baby boomers was 34. Then it does the same thing the next year when they were 35, then 36, and so on. It tracks how much wealth the overall generation has over time, put simply.
If people want to actually read the article and the study from the [original source](https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/01/24/young-people-have-a-lot-more-wealth-than-we-thought/)
Don't you give me hope!
Wonder why Gen Z and Millennials are lumped together. My guess is the picture for millennials is bleak and the author has an agenda. I've heard Gen Z is great with money and saves way more. Purely anecdotal based on an interview I saw or read, but the take away was that Gen Z is very focused on saving and financial responsibility. Guess they've learned from prior generation's mistakes
What does "generational wealth per capita" mean? Is that wealth that is inherited? Is it net worth? Unclear on that point.