Analysis of Federal Reserve data shows millennials make 20 percent less than their baby boomer parents did at the same age, even though millennials are better educated.
The advocacy group Young Invincibles released the analysis Friday showing that millennials make a median household income of $40,581, The Associated Press Reported. They also have a lower home ownership rate and higher student loan amounts than their parents did, on average.
Millennials also have just half the median net worth of baby boomers at only $10,090, the AP reported. Black and Latino millennials were even more disadvantaged than whites, although these groups made improvements over previous generations.
The number of 25- to 29-year-olds with college degrees has increased from 23 percent in 1990 to more than 35 percent in 2015, but their incomes were only slightly higher than those of baby boomers who never went to college at all, the AP reported. The figures given are adjusted for inflation.
Millennial Andrea Ledesma is 28 and laments her $18,000 salary making pizza after graduating from college four years ago. Her parents had bought a house and were raising children by her age, she said, while she shares an apartment with her boyfriend in Milwaukee, the AP reported. Ledesma also has $33,000 in student debt.
In today’s dollars, her mother Cheryl Romanowski was making $19,500 at her age, working at a bank without a college degree.
“I think the opportunities have just been fading away,” Romanowski said, the AP reported.
The lower incomes of millennials could impact Social Security and Medicare as less money flows into the programs that many seniors depend upon for income and medical care in their twilight years, the AP said.
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