[addicted]

Any anecdote will suffer from survivorship bias (and also negative anecdotes). The data on the other hand are very clear that people are not doing as well as their parents. Unless you have a theory as to why Americans simply became more lazy, etc. a starting point should sensibly be a systemic explanation.

Also, just speaking about your anecdote, let me add my own. I am also doing fine. Not particularly rich but middle class, good income, and savings for retirement. But I just got hit with compounding dental issues, which despite having the most expensive health insurance from my company that's well known for providing excellent employee benefits, it will end up costing me at least 20k out of pocket, potentially going up to 30-40k due to the need for multiple surgical procedures.

And fortunately we can manage it, but if the same issue had happened to me 5 years ago, I would basically be at the edge of my savings where even a minor unexpected cost would have put me in terrible shape, and 10 years ago I may have had to declare bankruptcy, or more likely, do without either suffering in pain, or pushing off the problem to be handled by even more expensive work a few years down the line, taking on expensive debt, or setting myself up for periodontal disease which leads to a whole host of issues including significantly increased risk of dementia.

Even if one is earning and saving decently, the precariousness of life in the US of A today is incredible.

[whateveracct]

I think the data shows Millenials are now doing pretty well. Ofc it's now peak earning years for them.

Funny how that works when the Millenial narrative was very similar to Gen Z's.

Sorry to hear about the dental issues. Is the issue that it isn't covered by medical insurance at all, so out of pocket max isn't at play? Because we had a baby this year and hit our OOPM and it didn't cost nearly that much.

That sort of situation is a problem in America and I wish we'd fix it. But the governing party wants to make it worse and get cheers for that.

[programjames]

As someone in the Gen Z age bracket, I believe that they really do have a worse economy than their parents/grandparents due to no fault of their own, and that they're also much lazier than their parents/grandparents generations.

1. Social Security and housing has turned into a huge transfer of wealth from Gen Z to the Boomer generation. I don't believe I will ever receive Social Security benefits, and yet nearly 15% of my salary goes into Social Security. Also, people who own houses vote to keep their housing prices high (through zoning laws), which is... not how "investments" are supposed to work. It'd be like the US government hoarding all the gold when prices get too high. If a house is a place to live (in which case, zoning laws are perfectly fine), property taxes should be high enough that renting out a house is a much worse investment than say, government bonds. If a house is an investment, the protection racket needs to stop.

2. On the other hand, I've seen so many of my peers just... not study. Kids who easily got a 36 on the ACT, but would do the bare minimum in and outside of school. Now they're working pretty normal, white-collar jobs that pay about a median starting salary, but I know they could have easily made $150k+/year in tech if they'd just studied at any point between middle school and college. They probably won't struggle financially, but they won't ever really "make it" ($10m?) either. And, if this is the top of the class, you can imagine what it's like for those without the same natural ability.

So, on the one hand, I absolutely agree that Gen Z should have an easier time with housing, and shouldn't have to pay for their ancestors' unwise debts, but on the other hand, part of the reason they're struggling so much now is because they didn't spend the first twenty years of their life doing the only thing they were asked to do.