On December 6, 2018, Derel Thompson writes on The Atlantic:
When a staid American institution is declared dead, the news media like to haul the same usual suspect before the court of public opinion: the Millennial generation.
The 80 million–plus people born in the United States between the early 1980s and the late 1990s stand accused of assassinating various hallmarks of modern life. The list of the deceased includes golf, department stores, the McDonald’s McWrap, and canned tuna. Millennials tore up napkins, threw out mayonnaise, and mercifully disposed of divorce and Applebee’s before graduating to somewhat postmodern crimes: “Have Millennials Killed Serendipity?” With the national murder rate in long-term decline, it may even be said that Millennials are killing killing.
But according to a new report by economists at the Federal Reserve, this genre of news analysis is pure fiction.
When researchers compared the spending habits of Millennials with those of young people from past years, such as the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, they concluded that “Millennials do not appear to have preferences for consumption that differ significantly from those of earlier generations.” They also found that “Millennials are less well off than members of earlier generations when they were young, with lower earnings, fewer assets, and less wealth.”
Millennials aren’t doing in the economy. It’s the economy that’s doing in Millennials.
My history with the accused goes back several years.
In 2012, I published a column in The Atlantic with Jordan Weissmann, now a writer at Slate, called “The Cheapest Generation.” That headline—which got us in trouble because it was the only thing most people read—was a bit of a misdirection. The deeper question of the piece was whether the Great Recession might permanently reduce young people’s taste for houses and cars—two of the most vital engines of the economy.
For years, various outlets, including The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center, continued reporting that young people were buying fewer cars and houses than those in previous generations at a similar point in their life. In 2016, about 34 percent of Americans under 35 owned a house; when Boomers and Gen Xers were under 35, about half of them did.
But the fact that young people are buying fewer houses and cars doesn’t prove that they want fewer houses and cars. It might mean they simply can’t affordthem. That latter conclusion is now supported by research from the Federal Reserve.
Fed economists found that the depressed rate of homeownership among Millennials was entirely about income and affordability. Young Boomers and young Gen Xers made significantly more money at a similar point in their life cycle, they said, and controlling for income and employment wiped out all generational differences.
