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Gen Z has lower unemployment and higher earnings than millennials did at the same age, though fewer are participating in the workforce, new analysis finds
This report is showing data from 2005-2008 for Millennials (Iraq war and into the recession) compared to 2021-2024 for GenZ aka when our economy and job market was significantly better than it is now.
Don’t know how this can be spun as a positive or reflective of current economic conditions..
‘05 and ‘06 the economy was fine. Decimated ‘08 to ‘13, started coming back in ‘14.
Neither time period is positive. Much of the same. College grads can’t find work on their field. Many are moving back in with parents and finding service/retail type employment to make ends meet. The one advantage zoomers had was seeing it happen to millennials and following the same path anyway. Otherwise very similar.
04-06 good,
07 transition,
08-13 was poo,
14-15 transition,
16-22 was great (not for service workers)
23-24 transition,
25-present is not so good. Not 💩 though
I think it's important to stress to people just how bad a terrible choice in president can be.
George W Bush and his Great Recession created in almost wasted 7 to 8 years of economic recovery and career stall for millennials.
20 years of war had a massive cost as well.
We're a decade into this Trump mess.
The mismanagement of the first Trump term took four years of Biden carefully managing the inflation caused by covid, PPP loans, the original tax cuts, the original tariffs and we were just coming out of it before Trump torpedoed us back into whatever this inflationary spiral is going to be...
Is this going to be another lost decade?
Where we all have to expect that we're just going to do less well than we would have otherwise done?
And do people really think about their choices politically in terms of that because I think it might actually have some value if people who have lived a while kind of said hey just as an FYI you vote stupid and you're going to lose a decade.
Yep, the last estimate I saw was about eight trillion in direct costs from 2001 - 2022. Of course the best part is that nearly all of the money was borrowed. Or about 20% of the total debt that we have outstanding was tied to those wars.
That's true but heavy is the head that wears the crown.
George W Bush had his Secretary of State lie to Congress to start a war.
All of those lies pissed Colin Powell off so much he left the Republican party.
It's on him.
He ignored major warnings about the housing market and debt there as well. Some of those housing policies started under Clinton and the Republican controlled Congress. Newt Gingrich probably caused 2008 more than anyone but Bush had plenty of time to adjust and didn't.
The dude transformed the country in ways free President's ever have. The Middle Class died on his watch.
Same way Obama will own Obamacare even though it's Romneycare which was originally the Republican Heritage Foundation alternative to HillaryCare in the 90s. And the reason why Obamacare didn't fix everything is because it was the Republican plan to shovel tons of money to insurance companies. It was a clever two steps forward, giant leap sideways, and big step back in some ways. But folks aren't going to have the nuance in their memory to recall that we got the Republican healthcare plan because Joe Lieberman fucked Obama on the public option.
No one blames Congress.
And, now with Trump...he ignores Congress and does whatever constantly. Courts have been stacked with cronies to rubber stamp a host of clearly upside down decisions.
By the time we knew it was a lie a lot of ships had sailed.
I'm not saying you're wrong that Congress can't handle this stuff but that's not really historically how America works.
There's never been a president removed from office and they're absolutely should have been.
Bill Clinton should have been removed for the blowjob.
George W Bush should have been removed for lying about weapons of mass destruction.
Ronald Reagan should have been removed for all the Iran-Contra stuff.
Nixon should have been removed from office.
Trump should have been removed at his first impeachment.
I do blame Congress but also, the executive power since Bush has grown and Congress has ceded their authority and responsibility to the exec branch right along with the judiciary.
> I do blame Congress but also, the executive power since Bush has grown and Congress has ceded their authority and responsibility to the exec branch right along with the judiciary
it sounds like we basically agree: we should elect congressmen who believe in the system of checks and balances outlined in the united states' constitution.
I don't really think GWB can be blamed for the great recession. Its causes are many and varied, some inherited from the dot com crash, some from banking deregulation passed before his time, and most were all private actions not public ones, AND he was out of power for most of the fallout so you can't exactly be annoyed at his recovery program. His wars were honestly pretty light on economic impact comparatively speaking.
The economy was very strong from 2005 to 2008. That's when it crashed. If the data is suggesting Gen Z is outperforming those years, then it's an even more notable gap since most millennials actually faced a far worse economy. The 2021 rebound has been nuts.
Yeah, I’ve seen this firsthand comparing my employment opportunities/situations to my Gen Z coworkers’ employment history.
I graduated high school in 2009. I got my associates around 2011. I continued for a bachelors but didn’t finish and dropped out around 2013, instead focusing on building my resume and eventually going to a trade school in 2017. My previous schooling had no impact on my employment. I was still working fast food/retail jobs. I was promoted to a district manager for a small restaurant chain, but that still didn’t help my employment. Eventually, in 2018, I got a good career opportunity. I attributed it to my past managerial experience and certifications from the trade school I went to in 2017. I started out making around $18 an hour, which was significantly more than I’d ever made in my life. I was ecstatic.
But when I started this new job, I realized I was being hired at an entry level position alongside several Gen Z kids who were straight out of high school, who were also being paid $18 an hour. My past education and work experience played almost no part in me being hired, and it played no part in my pay. The economy had finally recovered, and people were once again being hired for decent career opportunities straight out of high school.
Part of me was happy for the Gen Z kids, but another part of me is still bitter about it, especially when they complain about their wage. I can’t help but think, “you have no idea how good you have it.” But I think their willingness to complain about their wages collectively is what has helped drive up wages a bit over the last 5 years or so. They’re not willing to work for $7.25 like I was, so companies have had to pay more to get entry level positions.
The Iraq war didn’t have a major effect on the labor market and the time period just barely catches the beginning of the recession. And of course it’s not going to include data from 2026, research lags a bit, that’s the nature of things.
I also love how all the data bros here are ignoring the "fewer are participating in the workforce".
> In addition to posting a glut of fake job postings, it’s apparently becoming the norm for employers to ghost applicants and rescind job offers, leaving them feeling completely demoralized. As an act of desperation, many job seekers are now “spraying and praying,” or blasting out hundreds of applications at once, only to receive automated rejection emails instead.
No, it's people leaving the job market. Stick your fingers in your ears.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/08/02/why-people-are-dropping-out-of-the-workforce-and-not-looking-for-new-jobs-the-market-wore-me-down.html
You've posted this same second-rate click-bait multiple times in this thread.
For those who want to inform themselves on the labor force participation rate: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2026/aug/what-is-behind-sharp-drop-labor-force-participation
Here's what it actually looks like. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/lns11300060
The crux of the CNBC article is literally using the incorrect chart.
An article with the opposite opinion, to balance the flavors: https://archive.is/jkV3P
Look, you could have just read the article, it says nearly the same thing instead of your "umm actually" response.
I'll post it as a wall of text because only experts do that:
> Economists say several compounding factors are likely driving down the labor force participation rate, like an exodus of retiring workers and lower immigration into the U.S. Some working parents, especially moms of young kids, and people with disabilities may be striking out as they face more competition for remote or flexible work opportunities that are harder to come by today, Long says.
> Mental wellbeing could also play a part. Coda says he stopped his job search in June after a conversation with his wife, who'd noticed how the tiresome process soured his mood.
> "Other than the death of a family member or a close friend, [unemployment] is one of the most devastating things that people face," Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, told CNBC in June.
> About half of job seekers say the search negatively impacts their mental health due to rejection, lack of responses, financial pressure and waning motivation, according to an April Resume Genius survey of 1,000 active U.S. job seekers.
There's piles and piles of commentary on this, all the studies reach the same conclusion - the downward trends in labor participation are all fully attributed to more schooling and fewer people choosing to work while in school.
No? Did you read the links? Labor participation among young adults is falling as they are increasingly opting for post secondary schooling, labor participation among students (specifically teens) is falling as fewer opt to work during school.
What aspects of this do you interpret as basically worthless?
Is school more or less expensive than it was 20 years ago?
You can't say that inflation and cost of living don't matter for evaluating the relative prosperity of a given generation, and then use the fact that large portions of that generation aren't working at all because they're trying to become more educated, as proof that they're more prosperous.
Where's the money coming from? It can't be coming from gen Z if they're not working. Loans?
Nobody said inflation and cost of living doesn't matter. CPI is an average, it measures aggregate cost of living. Some things being higher than that average mathematically means other things are lower than it - apparel, cars, insurances, groceries, etc have all increased much lower than the rate of inflation over time.
>and then use the fact that large portions of that generation aren't working at all because they're trying to become more educated, as proof that they're more prosperous.
Who's suggesting anything about prosperity? The comment was very straightforward. The decline in labor participation among those age groups is entirely explained by increased schooling. That's it. I think you're reading a whole lot that's not written then getting mad at things that nobody's saying lol.
He follows people down comment chains and spams walls of text. That's good enough for the majority of this sub who don't question what the "experts" think.
The trick is that his sources are usually outdated, because economics don't follow repeatable processes like the sciences do, so he can hide behind the "I'm an expert and I'm obsessed with this site and hate the people on it. I hate Redditors, upvote me laymen that I hate!" But once people read the articles and push back, the insults start flying. IDK, sounds like a boring hobby to me.
Don’t know how anyone can delude themselves into thinking there was some massive switch up from 2023/2024 to 2025/2026 as it relates to the job market.
Am I the only one that remembers M2 increasing by $6T between 2020-2022, and it being a policy goal to get people back to work? The economy might not have been awful in 2005 but the government wasn’t hyper stimulating the economy.
Again… you’re just looking for narratives to explain away the data to assuage cognitive dissonance. Trust the science… except when you don’t like the results. You’re the one cherry picking.
The analysis is simply comparing the two generations at the same age.
There are a million narratives that could argue either direction. You’re just focusing on the ones that agree with your biases.
Fwiw, Gen z in the US that are working are making more money (adjusted for inflation) than boomers too. I think the median gen z salary a couple of years ago was in the 40k range whereas boomers and millennials at around age 25 averaged in the 30k range iirc
Sort of, in that it uses things like the CPI to adjust for inflation.
But lots of costs (e.g. college tuition, health care, rent, housing prices) are far outpacing the CPI, so even if some of those are included as part of the CPI aggregation, the actual numbers hit harder.
CPI is a weighted basket of average consumption, so I mean while some things are increasing at a rate higher than the average, this means other things are necessarily increasing at a lower rate. CPI is the aggregate change.
And if you're paying for, say, college tuition, then you feel the increase a lot more than its ~1% weight in the CPI.
There are lots of reasons why people can experience drastically higher "inflation" than reflected in the CPI. They just need to be more exposed to those categories than the weighting.
You don’t feel it a lot more with college tuition because the rate of inflation on tuition has been lower than flat to lower than overall inflation. Universities have had difficulty attracting students and have kept tuition increases modest. This is especially true for middle tier and smaller schools.
I think the desire is to see it adjusted for GDP. Wages have been declining as a proportion of GDP since the 70s, which kinda implies that the inflation numbers aren't accurate on larger timescales.
This makes sense when you account for the fact that, all else being equal, goods and services should always get *cheaper* over time, as new methods and technologies improve efficiency, yet inflation measurements assume that food and housing is no easier for us to produce now than it was 50 years ago.
Wages have been declining as a proportion of GDP. This implies that people can afford a smaller proportion of the total goods/services produced by their society (i.e. by their own labor).
Inflation-adjusted wages have been increasing. This implies that people should be able to afford a greater proportion of the total goods/services produced by their society, since they should have more purchasing power.
These two can only be reconciled in one of two ways: either GDP is an overestimate of goods/services produced, or inflation is an insufficient measure of currency devaluation. Choose your poison.
That’s a false dichotomy. Imagine if you have a village where everyone is employed in manual agriculture, they take out a loan and buy a tractor to share and now half the workers can produce the same amount of food while the other half can become artisans or merchants which further contributes to economic output. They use some of their additional economic output to pay off the loan for the tractor.
It’s completely conceivable that economic output GDP rose more than wages as some of the economic output has to go to paying off the debt.
Debt is the mechanism which causes inflation, almost by definition.
Debt is the issuance of new currency, which inflates that currency. When they take out that loan to buy a tractor, that causes inflation of tractor prices. That's why a standard way to combat inflation is to raise interest rates to discourage people from taking out loans.
So yes, obviously GDP can rise more than wages because it *has* risen more than wages. My point is that it rising more than wages is evidence of true inflation. (Which yes is almost certainly caused by some debt issuance somewhere else in the system.)
Yeah, efficiency at producing unnecessary stuff tends to improve faster than efficiency at producing necessary stuff, for whatever reasons.
Regardless, total nominal wages (i.e. compensation of employees) have declined as a proportion of nominal GDP too, so it isn't simply a matter of using slightly different denominators.
"People spent a greater share of their income on food 50 years ago than they do now." Yeah, that's my point. Inflation adjustment doesn't take this into account at all, and assumes that food has the exact same inflation-adjusted value as it had 50 years ago, despite the fact that it's worth substantially less in terms of labor.
If people produce twice as much food (which is very roughly true), while committing half as many hours of labor (which is also very roughly true), then I'd expect food to cost roughly a quarter as much of one's wage now, after adjusting for inflation.
In contrast, it still costs like 60% as much as it used to proportionally, and that's in spite of inflation-adjusted wages increasing by like 50%! Food should cost less than half of what it does, and that extra price is completely ignored by inflation measures.
Please read even the Wikipedia page on Real vs Nominal Value. You're saying that "you want to see real dollars instead of real dollars". Inflation is the change of prices over time (e.g. a coke in 1950 might cost $0.05 and a coke in 2010 might cost $1.50). Economists create a basket of goods/Commodity Bundle to track the price changes over time (inflation). The most famous one is the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and it includes a good amount of items (Food, Transportation, Shelter/Housing, Recreation, and etc.)
Below is the most used formula most people use for Real Dollars unless they specify otherwise:
Real Dollar Value = Original "Nominal" amount x (CPI Target Year/ CPI Original Year).
They say that, but it never matches up to my experiences with Big Macs or eggs or gas. Like gas is well over 300% more now. Same with “the dollar menu”
“Real dollars” does not account for the extinction of Taco Bell’s 89¢ burrito or the buffet in America.
We all can agree that the dollar comparison still does not account for the complete extinction of things such as Taco Bell’s 89¢ burrito or the buffet in America.
Holy crap the comments in this post are depressing for an economics sub.
Let's do some basic explainers on how to do statistical analysis real quick.
Lesson 1: you need to find comparable time periods.
That's the end of today's lesson.
Millennials were born between... Anyone? 1981 to 1996.
Gen Z were born between... Anyone? 1997 and 2012.
Now, what year is 24 years after 1981? Correct. 2005.
Now, what year is 24 years after 1997? Correct. 2021.
So the analysis is comparing the groups against the same age. You don't cherry pick economic periods, when doing that, as that would be a different analysis. Not better or worse, but different. That would be comparing a pre recession economy to a post one.
Can't tell you how often someone on this sub takes real incomes, compares it to inflation, and uses that to show everyone that wages haven't kept up with inflation lol.
Problem is the only people who want to moderate it are the ones who want it to look more like /r/economy lol. Reddit as a platform is the issue, it cross promotes all this stuff and drives a ton of randoms to these subs, nobody who should be moderating an econ sub wants to spend their time dealing with the sort of aggressive ignorant people that come here.
After the acquisition by Google, every sub on Reddit got exponentially more political and exponentially more inundated with bots. Most likely to emulate the type of rage-based engagement that fuels Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The problem is that reddit is not a place for serious people. In fact, the more karma someone has and the longer they've been on redddit, the less likely they are to be a serious person.
Ideally, there's some way to filter out the weirdos with 200k+ karma since they are, statistically, the biggest losers in US society and have nothing of value to add to a discussion between normal people.
People on here don’t know what “real” means and think CPI is not accurate because “muh feels tell me”. It’s not econ, it’s just lost people from default subs whose brains are mush after a decade of non stop political arguing.
What amuses me personally is that they're claiming 2021 was the start of some economic boom but I remember, as usual, redditors bitching and moaning about inflation non-stop from the moment Biden took office. I was here.
The problem isn't the time periods chosen, per se; the problem is that the article has a bizarre emphasis on generation. You could completely remove all references to "Gen Zers" or "millennials" (why is one capitalized and the other is not?) and it would improve the economics relevance of the article.
Ironically, you're the one injecting arbitrary generation start and end years into an economics sub, when those have no place in economics.
>Ironically, you're the one injecting arbitrary generation start and end years into an economics sub, when those have no place in economics.
Is that really a point you want to stand on? That, the study of Economics, has no place to examine generational differences? Like, Economics doesn't look at the "baby boomer" generation and the effects it is going to have on economic policies as they retire and die? The wealth transfer from said generation, etc?
Generations are just labels, that have a commonly agreed upon definition, ascribed to a range of birth years. It is used instead of, or in addition to, saying "people born between x and y." And it ABSOLUTELY has a place in economics.
Adopting terminology from other fields like Sociology is a slippery slope. Talking about people retiring, wealth transfer, etc, keeps the conversation focused on Economics. Talking about the "baby boomer" generation's effects on future policies is precisely the sort of phrasing that risks conversations veering off into politics.
Even if you're disciplined enough to stay in an Economics mindset regardless of terminology (unlike many other people, unfortunately), the terminology is still almost never precise enough to be appropriate. Millennials include everyone born from 1981 to 1996, but this analysis only includes those born between 1981 and 1984. Giving the specific years is literally 4 times as precise as using the generational terms.
I think phrases like "people aged 21-24" promotes much clearer thinking anyway, and forces the reminder that this analysis is of only 2 relatively arbitrary populations of 21-24 year-olds. There are plenty of other years available for economic analysis that someone using generational terminology might never even bother to glance at.
>Millennials include everyone born from 1981 to 1996, but this analysis only includes those born between 1981 and 1984. Giving the specific years is literally 4 times as precise as using the generational terms.
That I will definitely agree with. It was no doubt for the clickbait attraction of the headline. I agree that there are merits to more precise language, and that the author/editor could have applied it. But alas, with modern day "news," I think that ship sailed long ago.
You gave me the idea of tracking down the original report to see if it's better than the "news" variant, and I was treated with this in the Limitations section: "The results describe each generation’s experiences during the periods studied and don’t establish that generational differences caused the outcomes."
Also slight correction: this analysis includes those born in 1981-1988, but only during the years 2005-2008, and only when they are 20-24 years old. (So someone born in 1981 would appear in the data only in 2005 when they're 24, while someone born in 1988 would appear in the data only in 2008 when they're 20.) I'm not sure if that makes using generational terms more precise, or less, but figured I should correct myself anyway.
>"The results describe each generation’s experiences during the periods studied and don’t establish that generational differences caused the outcomes."
If only I wasn't so lazy and could have looked that up to help my point originally lol.
>this analysis includes those born in 1981-1988, but only during the years 2005-2008,
Now this, really hits on your point. Not only did they use generation labels, but then it also misled based on them!
And to the rest, yeah I'm struggling to wrap my head around that. Because then they certainly introduced additional confounding variables and some selection bias. Well. I give up. I'll stick with the study is probably crap, but also oof, some folks in the comments do need to refresh/learn how to properly segment samples for study.
Replace when I wrote, "That, the study of Economics, has no place to examine generational differences"
With "That arbitrary generation start and end years have no place in economics." Which is a direct quote mildly adjusted to fit the sentence structure around my point.
Then tell me what parts of what I wrote are incorrect.
I would like to add that the headline points toward a self selection process. Specifically if Gen Z has higher wages but lower workforce participation than there is likely a situation where those that cannot get a good enough job simply drop out of the workforce. To what degree this explains the difference is obviously up to the data.
It’s disingenuous though because of the American Rescue Plan- it’s like the supersize me guy claiming McDonald’s was causing his deteriorating health while not divulging that he was a severe alcoholic.
It's funny that the title is "Surprising new data..." as if anyone who actually follows the data put out by the government hasn't been saying this for years.
I still remember 2008. I was competing for jobs that paid $15/hr because everyone who was older than me had been laid off and was taking literally whatever they could get. I distinctly remember interviewing for paralegal jobs, and competing against certified attorneys for the same job because of all the law firm closures and downsizing at the time.
How the fuck we're trying to spin one of the worst economic downturns of my lifetime into some sort of generational productivity assessment is beyond me. But I suppose that's basically where journalism is at these days.
I mean for fuck's sake, look at this headline. It's doing everything in its power to dress up the mass unemployment of Gen Z by making it sound like the only reason so many of them don't have jobs is because they don't want them; they don't want to "participate". Completely ignores the reality that many companies don't even consider or hire juniors anymore. Just a whole load of nonsense being spun here.
Again, this sub is an ivory tower circlejerk. Gen Z is leaving the market because it is absolute hell and a waste of time.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/08/02/why-people-are-dropping-out-of-the-workforce-and-not-looking-for-new-jobs-the-market-wore-me-down.html
Very little insight to be gained here. Gen Z is skipping university more than millennials did. while also simultaneously living at home for longer than millennials did as well. So both can be true, and it’s not altogether surprising. Moreover, as other commenters have pointed out, comparing job markets and economies from the 2008 recession era to now is like comparing apples to oranges. Gen Z folks that are participating in the job market are most certainly earning more than millennials did during that time frame.
Love how they stopped at 2024 and excluded 2025 and half of 2026. I wonder what technology has had mass adoption since then and is causing lots of job loss. Hmmmm....
Duh. We've known for decades that every single generation has it better than the one before. Gen Alpha will also be much better off than Gen Z. The only people who think otherwise are just the doom scrolling losers on social media/reddit
So…low earners were driven out of the workforce and the upper echelon who’s left does better than all millennials? Sounds like when charter schools exclude disabled kids and then tout improvements in test scores.
But the unproductive investor class is getting wealthier so the 'mrket' is doing great... so thats nice.
historically this either leads to ww3 for the wealthy elite to put people through the meat grinder to balance out their economies, or UBI, and they dont want ubi, and bunch more words to pad out the length of the comment because automod rules that dont make any sense.
Which makes sense. Millennials are a huge generation and they had to compete with boomers still in the workforce. Gen Z is much smaller and boomers are retiring in droves. There’s a labor shortage.
Gen Z might make more money but the money is worthless now. I make $22 dollars an a hour right now as a millennial and let me tell you I’d kill for that wage in 2011
Compare the inflation-adjusted price of a house per square foot in 2011 with the inflation-adjusted price now, and I think you'll agree that inflation does not fully account for the growing worthlessness of money.
BrocksNumberOne | 10 hours ago
This report is showing data from 2005-2008 for Millennials (Iraq war and into the recession) compared to 2021-2024 for GenZ aka when our economy and job market was significantly better than it is now.
Don’t know how this can be spun as a positive or reflective of current economic conditions..
elite_bender | 9 hours ago
‘05 and ‘06 the economy was fine. Decimated ‘08 to ‘13, started coming back in ‘14.
Neither time period is positive. Much of the same. College grads can’t find work on their field. Many are moving back in with parents and finding service/retail type employment to make ends meet. The one advantage zoomers had was seeing it happen to millennials and following the same path anyway. Otherwise very similar.
Bostonosaurus | 7 hours ago
04-06 good, 07 transition, 08-13 was poo, 14-15 transition, 16-22 was great (not for service workers) 23-24 transition, 25-present is not so good. Not 💩 though
alilhillbilly | 6 hours ago
I think it's important to stress to people just how bad a terrible choice in president can be.
George W Bush and his Great Recession created in almost wasted 7 to 8 years of economic recovery and career stall for millennials.
20 years of war had a massive cost as well.
We're a decade into this Trump mess.
The mismanagement of the first Trump term took four years of Biden carefully managing the inflation caused by covid, PPP loans, the original tax cuts, the original tariffs and we were just coming out of it before Trump torpedoed us back into whatever this inflationary spiral is going to be...
Is this going to be another lost decade?
Where we all have to expect that we're just going to do less well than we would have otherwise done?
And do people really think about their choices politically in terms of that because I think it might actually have some value if people who have lived a while kind of said hey just as an FYI you vote stupid and you're going to lose a decade.
lolexecs | 4 hours ago
>20 years of war had a massive cost as well.
Yep, the last estimate I saw was about eight trillion in direct costs from 2001 - 2022. Of course the best part is that nearly all of the money was borrowed. Or about 20% of the total debt that we have outstanding was tied to those wars.
https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/paper/overview
alilhillbilly | 4 hours ago
Yep. And let's not forget the damage it did to a generation of soldiers.
It's ridiculous to me that we're gonna do to Gen Z what we did to Gen X and Millennials with stupid wars
dust4ngel | 3 hours ago
> I think it's important to stress to people just how bad a terrible choice in president can be
while this is true, the president can't do much without a congress going along with him and a supreme court ruling in his favor.
alilhillbilly | 3 hours ago
That's true but heavy is the head that wears the crown.
George W Bush had his Secretary of State lie to Congress to start a war.
All of those lies pissed Colin Powell off so much he left the Republican party.
It's on him.
He ignored major warnings about the housing market and debt there as well. Some of those housing policies started under Clinton and the Republican controlled Congress. Newt Gingrich probably caused 2008 more than anyone but Bush had plenty of time to adjust and didn't.
The dude transformed the country in ways free President's ever have. The Middle Class died on his watch.
Same way Obama will own Obamacare even though it's Romneycare which was originally the Republican Heritage Foundation alternative to HillaryCare in the 90s. And the reason why Obamacare didn't fix everything is because it was the Republican plan to shovel tons of money to insurance companies. It was a clever two steps forward, giant leap sideways, and big step back in some ways. But folks aren't going to have the nuance in their memory to recall that we got the Republican healthcare plan because Joe Lieberman fucked Obama on the public option.
No one blames Congress.
And, now with Trump...he ignores Congress and does whatever constantly. Courts have been stacked with cronies to rubber stamp a host of clearly upside down decisions.
He put those justices on the court.
dust4ngel | 2 hours ago
this is a weird argument:
> George W Bush had his Secretary of State lie to Congress to start a war ... it's on him
that's at least two people complicit in the war of choice. obviously, congress could have voted to impeach.
> now with Trump...he ignores Congress and does whatever constantly
guess what congress could do about this if they weren't complicit in what he's doing.
alilhillbilly | 2 hours ago
By the time we knew it was a lie a lot of ships had sailed.
I'm not saying you're wrong that Congress can't handle this stuff but that's not really historically how America works.
There's never been a president removed from office and they're absolutely should have been.
Bill Clinton should have been removed for the blowjob.
George W Bush should have been removed for lying about weapons of mass destruction.
Ronald Reagan should have been removed for all the Iran-Contra stuff.
Nixon should have been removed from office.
Trump should have been removed at his first impeachment.
I do blame Congress but also, the executive power since Bush has grown and Congress has ceded their authority and responsibility to the exec branch right along with the judiciary.
dust4ngel | an hour ago
> I do blame Congress but also, the executive power since Bush has grown and Congress has ceded their authority and responsibility to the exec branch right along with the judiciary
it sounds like we basically agree: we should elect congressmen who believe in the system of checks and balances outlined in the united states' constitution.
alilhillbilly | 51 minutes ago
that would be so nice
Sililex | 19 minutes ago
I don't really think GWB can be blamed for the great recession. Its causes are many and varied, some inherited from the dot com crash, some from banking deregulation passed before his time, and most were all private actions not public ones, AND he was out of power for most of the fallout so you can't exactly be annoyed at his recovery program. His wars were honestly pretty light on economic impact comparatively speaking.
End3rWi99in | 9 hours ago
The economy was very strong from 2005 to 2008. That's when it crashed. If the data is suggesting Gen Z is outperforming those years, then it's an even more notable gap since most millennials actually faced a far worse economy. The 2021 rebound has been nuts.
asbestosmilk | 7 hours ago
Yeah, I’ve seen this firsthand comparing my employment opportunities/situations to my Gen Z coworkers’ employment history.
I graduated high school in 2009. I got my associates around 2011. I continued for a bachelors but didn’t finish and dropped out around 2013, instead focusing on building my resume and eventually going to a trade school in 2017. My previous schooling had no impact on my employment. I was still working fast food/retail jobs. I was promoted to a district manager for a small restaurant chain, but that still didn’t help my employment. Eventually, in 2018, I got a good career opportunity. I attributed it to my past managerial experience and certifications from the trade school I went to in 2017. I started out making around $18 an hour, which was significantly more than I’d ever made in my life. I was ecstatic.
But when I started this new job, I realized I was being hired at an entry level position alongside several Gen Z kids who were straight out of high school, who were also being paid $18 an hour. My past education and work experience played almost no part in me being hired, and it played no part in my pay. The economy had finally recovered, and people were once again being hired for decent career opportunities straight out of high school.
Part of me was happy for the Gen Z kids, but another part of me is still bitter about it, especially when they complain about their wage. I can’t help but think, “you have no idea how good you have it.” But I think their willingness to complain about their wages collectively is what has helped drive up wages a bit over the last 5 years or so. They’re not willing to work for $7.25 like I was, so companies have had to pay more to get entry level positions.
fx2600 | 8 hours ago
The Iraq war didn’t have a major effect on the labor market and the time period just barely catches the beginning of the recession. And of course it’s not going to include data from 2026, research lags a bit, that’s the nature of things.
HumorAccomplished611 | 7 hours ago
2008 wasnt even the height of the recession. It was 2010.
resuwreckoning | 8 hours ago
lol this is an amusing interpretation.
im_a_goat_factory | 9 hours ago
It’s about as good of a year compare as one could ask
Olangotang | 6 hours ago
I also love how all the data bros here are ignoring the "fewer are participating in the workforce".
> In addition to posting a glut of fake job postings, it’s apparently becoming the norm for employers to ghost applicants and rescind job offers, leaving them feeling completely demoralized. As an act of desperation, many job seekers are now “spraying and praying,” or blasting out hundreds of applications at once, only to receive automated rejection emails instead.
This sub is an ivory tower circlejerk.
Ok-Class8200 | 6 hours ago
Lower labor force participation rate with young people is mostly due to higher postsecondary enrollment, not fake job postings lol.
Olangotang | 6 hours ago
No, it's people leaving the job market. Stick your fingers in your ears. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/08/02/why-people-are-dropping-out-of-the-workforce-and-not-looking-for-new-jobs-the-market-wore-me-down.html
weatherwar | 4 hours ago
You've posted this same second-rate click-bait multiple times in this thread.
For those who want to inform themselves on the labor force participation rate: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2026/aug/what-is-behind-sharp-drop-labor-force-participation
Here's what it actually looks like. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/lns11300060
The crux of the CNBC article is literally using the incorrect chart.
An article with the opposite opinion, to balance the flavors: https://archive.is/jkV3P
Olangotang | 4 hours ago
Look, you could have just read the article, it says nearly the same thing instead of your "umm actually" response.
I'll post it as a wall of text because only experts do that:
> Economists say several compounding factors are likely driving down the labor force participation rate, like an exodus of retiring workers and lower immigration into the U.S. Some working parents, especially moms of young kids, and people with disabilities may be striking out as they face more competition for remote or flexible work opportunities that are harder to come by today, Long says.
> Mental wellbeing could also play a part. Coda says he stopped his job search in June after a conversation with his wife, who'd noticed how the tiresome process soured his mood.
> "Other than the death of a family member or a close friend, [unemployment] is one of the most devastating things that people face," Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, told CNBC in June.
> About half of job seekers say the search negatively impacts their mental health due to rejection, lack of responses, financial pressure and waning motivation, according to an April Resume Genius survey of 1,000 active U.S. job seekers.
weatherwar | 4 hours ago
Wait, it says
>Economists say several compounding factors are likely driving down the labor force participation rate
From the 20 year highs? And nothing to do with "young people" - you know, the context of this conversation?
That's crazy! I guess I'll have to encourage everyone reading this thread to read the articles and look at the charts!
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 5 hours ago
https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/10/mens-falling-labor-force-participation-across-generations/
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2024/article/why-did-labor-force-nonparticipation-increase-from-1999-to-2022.htm
https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/post/all-school-and-no-work-becoming-the-norm-for-american-teens/
There's piles and piles of commentary on this, all the studies reach the same conclusion - the downward trends in labor participation are all fully attributed to more schooling and fewer people choosing to work while in school.
Dismal_Buy3580 | 5 hours ago
>fewer people choosing to work while in school.
You do see how this sentence makes the entire rest of your comment basically worthless right?
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 5 hours ago
No? Did you read the links? Labor participation among young adults is falling as they are increasingly opting for post secondary schooling, labor participation among students (specifically teens) is falling as fewer opt to work during school.
What aspects of this do you interpret as basically worthless?
Dismal_Buy3580 | 5 hours ago
Is school more or less expensive than it was 20 years ago?
You can't say that inflation and cost of living don't matter for evaluating the relative prosperity of a given generation, and then use the fact that large portions of that generation aren't working at all because they're trying to become more educated, as proof that they're more prosperous.
Where's the money coming from? It can't be coming from gen Z if they're not working. Loans?
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 4 hours ago
Nobody said inflation and cost of living doesn't matter. CPI is an average, it measures aggregate cost of living. Some things being higher than that average mathematically means other things are lower than it - apparel, cars, insurances, groceries, etc have all increased much lower than the rate of inflation over time.
>and then use the fact that large portions of that generation aren't working at all because they're trying to become more educated, as proof that they're more prosperous.
Who's suggesting anything about prosperity? The comment was very straightforward. The decline in labor participation among those age groups is entirely explained by increased schooling. That's it. I think you're reading a whole lot that's not written then getting mad at things that nobody's saying lol.
Olangotang | 3 hours ago
> The decline in labor participation among those age groups is entirely explained by increased schooling
Oh, I didn't realize we were in 2023 and not 2026, 3 years later and after a wrecking ball government was elected.
You're such a dishonest hack 😊
Olangotang | 5 hours ago
He follows people down comment chains and spams walls of text. That's good enough for the majority of this sub who don't question what the "experts" think.
The trick is that his sources are usually outdated, because economics don't follow repeatable processes like the sciences do, so he can hide behind the "I'm an expert and I'm obsessed with this site and hate the people on it. I hate Redditors, upvote me laymen that I hate!" But once people read the articles and push back, the insults start flying. IDK, sounds like a boring hobby to me.
CommitteeofMountains | 2 hours ago
This is often the trick behind claims of boomer prosperity, as well. Then stagflation hit.
random-meme422 | 4 hours ago
Don’t know how anyone can delude themselves into thinking there was some massive switch up from 2023/2024 to 2025/2026 as it relates to the job market.
Olangotang | 3 hours ago
I literally cannot believe this sub right now. What happened in late 2024?
Effective-Result6499 | 2 hours ago
It's more about the K-shape economy. Not all Gen-Z got laid off/can't find jobs, those that did well in those years, many of got to keep doing well.
Equivalent_Lunch_944 | 8 hours ago
Thank you for adding your comment because intuitively this didn’t feel right but cherry picking the post COVID boom makes a ton of sense
fx2600 | 8 hours ago
How is this cherry-picking? All detailed analysis are going to be backwards looking, there’s nothing abnormal about the selection.
User-NetOfInter | 8 hours ago
2021+ were boom years. Economy was cranking
Check_Me_Out-Boss | 8 hours ago
05-07 was a great economy so the comparison makes no sense.
Background-Depth3985 | 7 hours ago
This comment is nothing but made up narratives to assuage cognitive dissonance.
Equivalent_Lunch_944 | 7 hours ago
Am I the only one that remembers M2 increasing by $6T between 2020-2022, and it being a policy goal to get people back to work? The economy might not have been awful in 2005 but the government wasn’t hyper stimulating the economy.
Olangotang | 7 hours ago
No, M2 was reclassified into M2SL which includes savings accounts. This was in May 2020.
Background-Depth3985 | 7 hours ago
Again… you’re just looking for narratives to explain away the data to assuage cognitive dissonance. Trust the science… except when you don’t like the results. You’re the one cherry picking.
The analysis is simply comparing the two generations at the same age.
There are a million narratives that could argue either direction. You’re just focusing on the ones that agree with your biases.
The facts don’t care about narratives.
HumorAccomplished611 | 7 hours ago
M2 did the same thing in 2008.
NovarKalar | 10 hours ago
Ah yes, I'm sure the primary difference between 2005-2008 and 2021-2024 was generational preference.
Absolutely nothing else could possibly explain the economic differences between those two time periods. /s
Amadon29 | 9 hours ago
Fwiw, Gen z in the US that are working are making more money (adjusted for inflation) than boomers too. I think the median gen z salary a couple of years ago was in the 40k range whereas boomers and millennials at around age 25 averaged in the 30k range iirc
Terrible-Fun-4992 | 9 hours ago
I bet that’s true in real dollars but I’d love to see it compared to cost of living. Prices of gas, average rent, etc.
Adventurous-Roof488 | 9 hours ago
Real dollars is adjusted for cost of living.
Konukaame | 8 hours ago
Sort of, in that it uses things like the CPI to adjust for inflation.
But lots of costs (e.g. college tuition, health care, rent, housing prices) are far outpacing the CPI, so even if some of those are included as part of the CPI aggregation, the actual numbers hit harder.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 5 hours ago
CPI is a weighted basket of average consumption, so I mean while some things are increasing at a rate higher than the average, this means other things are necessarily increasing at a lower rate. CPI is the aggregate change.
Konukaame | an hour ago
Right.
And if you're paying for, say, college tuition, then you feel the increase a lot more than its ~1% weight in the CPI.
There are lots of reasons why people can experience drastically higher "inflation" than reflected in the CPI. They just need to be more exposed to those categories than the weighting.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 52 minutes ago
Yes, your personal inflation isn’t aggregate inflation. Obviously. This doesn’t mean inflation isn’t wrong lol.
Adventurous-Roof488 | 17 minutes ago
You don’t feel it a lot more with college tuition because the rate of inflation on tuition has been lower than flat to lower than overall inflation. Universities have had difficulty attracting students and have kept tuition increases modest. This is especially true for middle tier and smaller schools.
random-meme422 | 4 hours ago
Econ sub and people don’t know how CPI works.
incredible
astrawberryandakiwi | 7 hours ago
Lmfao
NovarKalar | 8 hours ago
I think the desire is to see it adjusted for GDP. Wages have been declining as a proportion of GDP since the 70s, which kinda implies that the inflation numbers aren't accurate on larger timescales.
This makes sense when you account for the fact that, all else being equal, goods and services should always get *cheaper* over time, as new methods and technologies improve efficiency, yet inflation measurements assume that food and housing is no easier for us to produce now than it was 50 years ago.
fx2600 | 8 hours ago
>Wages have been declining as a proportion of GDP since the 70s, which kinda implies that the inflation numbers aren't accurate on larger timescales.
That isn’t at all implied
NovarKalar | 7 hours ago
Fair, allow me to elaborate on the logic:
Wages have been declining as a proportion of GDP. This implies that people can afford a smaller proportion of the total goods/services produced by their society (i.e. by their own labor).
Inflation-adjusted wages have been increasing. This implies that people should be able to afford a greater proportion of the total goods/services produced by their society, since they should have more purchasing power.
These two can only be reconciled in one of two ways: either GDP is an overestimate of goods/services produced, or inflation is an insufficient measure of currency devaluation. Choose your poison.
fx2600 | 7 hours ago
That’s a false dichotomy. Imagine if you have a village where everyone is employed in manual agriculture, they take out a loan and buy a tractor to share and now half the workers can produce the same amount of food while the other half can become artisans or merchants which further contributes to economic output. They use some of their additional economic output to pay off the loan for the tractor.
It’s completely conceivable that economic output GDP rose more than wages as some of the economic output has to go to paying off the debt.
NovarKalar | 6 hours ago
Debt is the mechanism which causes inflation, almost by definition.
Debt is the issuance of new currency, which inflates that currency. When they take out that loan to buy a tractor, that causes inflation of tractor prices. That's why a standard way to combat inflation is to raise interest rates to discourage people from taking out loans.
So yes, obviously GDP can rise more than wages because it *has* risen more than wages. My point is that it rising more than wages is evidence of true inflation. (Which yes is almost certainly caused by some debt issuance somewhere else in the system.)
fx2600 | 6 hours ago
In this case both real and nominal GDP went up because worker productivity increased dramatically. GDP isn’t a measure of “true inflation”.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 5 hours ago
> Wages have been declining as a proportion of GDP since the 70s, which kinda implies that the inflation numbers aren't accurate on larger timescales.
Fun fact, the GDP deflator, IE the big broad derivative of inflation that comes out of GDP calculations, runs lower than CPI.
It's generally agreed in economics that CPI slightly overstates inflation in a broad sense.
NovarKalar | 3 hours ago
Yeah, efficiency at producing unnecessary stuff tends to improve faster than efficiency at producing necessary stuff, for whatever reasons.
Regardless, total nominal wages (i.e. compensation of employees) have declined as a proportion of nominal GDP too, so it isn't simply a matter of using slightly different denominators.
Adventurous-Roof488 | 8 hours ago
They are cheaper relative to wages. People spent a greater share of their income on food 50 years ago than they do now.
Housing is cheaper and easier to produce but local jurisdictions create barriers that increase the cost of housing.
NovarKalar | 6 hours ago
"People spent a greater share of their income on food 50 years ago than they do now." Yeah, that's my point. Inflation adjustment doesn't take this into account at all, and assumes that food has the exact same inflation-adjusted value as it had 50 years ago, despite the fact that it's worth substantially less in terms of labor.
If people produce twice as much food (which is very roughly true), while committing half as many hours of labor (which is also very roughly true), then I'd expect food to cost roughly a quarter as much of one's wage now, after adjusting for inflation.
In contrast, it still costs like 60% as much as it used to proportionally, and that's in spite of inflation-adjusted wages increasing by like 50%! Food should cost less than half of what it does, and that extra price is completely ignored by inflation measures.
Terrible-Fun-4992 | 8 hours ago
Ooop ok thanks. Then id like to see it in real dollars instead of just inflation adjusted 😁
Adventurous-Roof488 | 8 hours ago
The word “real” means it’s adjusted for inflation.
MuKaN7 | 8 hours ago
Please read even the Wikipedia page on Real vs Nominal Value. You're saying that "you want to see real dollars instead of real dollars". Inflation is the change of prices over time (e.g. a coke in 1950 might cost $0.05 and a coke in 2010 might cost $1.50). Economists create a basket of goods/Commodity Bundle to track the price changes over time (inflation). The most famous one is the CPI (Consumer Price Index) and it includes a good amount of items (Food, Transportation, Shelter/Housing, Recreation, and etc.)
Below is the most used formula most people use for Real Dollars unless they specify otherwise:
Real Dollar Value = Original "Nominal" amount x (CPI Target Year/ CPI Original Year).
Pornfest | 3 hours ago
They say that, but it never matches up to my experiences with Big Macs or eggs or gas. Like gas is well over 300% more now. Same with “the dollar menu”
“Real dollars” does not account for the extinction of Taco Bell’s 89¢ burrito or the buffet in America.
RedAero | 2 hours ago
Why would you assume that a national average should somehow match your personal, individual experience?
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 5 hours ago
> I bet that’s true in real dollars but I’d love to see it compared to cost of living
Wait until you find out what "real dollars" means!
Pornfest | 3 hours ago
We all can agree that the dollar comparison still does not account for the complete extinction of things such as Taco Bell’s 89¢ burrito or the buffet in America.
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 3 hours ago
It’s easy to cherry pick individual items, but that’s the reason we measure things in aggregate, with an index.
Spaduf | 7 hours ago
Assuming you agree that inflation is only 2-3%
Danne660 | 5 hours ago
I bet you have been saying that for many years.
Equivalent_Lunch_944 | 6 hours ago
But just think of how many flat screen TVs you could buy today
EchoChamberTech | 9 hours ago
Holy crap the comments in this post are depressing for an economics sub.
Let's do some basic explainers on how to do statistical analysis real quick.
Lesson 1: you need to find comparable time periods.
That's the end of today's lesson.
Millennials were born between... Anyone? 1981 to 1996. Gen Z were born between... Anyone? 1997 and 2012.
Now, what year is 24 years after 1981? Correct. 2005. Now, what year is 24 years after 1997? Correct. 2021.
So the analysis is comparing the groups against the same age. You don't cherry pick economic periods, when doing that, as that would be a different analysis. Not better or worse, but different. That would be comparing a pre recession economy to a post one.
Sadly_NotAPlatypus | 8 hours ago
This isn't an economics sub anymore, it desperately needs moderation.
1-Dollar-Doge-Coins | 5 hours ago
The number of people in these comments that don't understand what "real dollars" means is shocking.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 5 hours ago
Can't tell you how often someone on this sub takes real incomes, compares it to inflation, and uses that to show everyone that wages haven't kept up with inflation lol.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | 5 hours ago
Problem is the only people who want to moderate it are the ones who want it to look more like /r/economy lol. Reddit as a platform is the issue, it cross promotes all this stuff and drives a ton of randoms to these subs, nobody who should be moderating an econ sub wants to spend their time dealing with the sort of aggressive ignorant people that come here.
RedK_33 | 3 hours ago
After the acquisition by Google, every sub on Reddit got exponentially more political and exponentially more inundated with bots. Most likely to emulate the type of rage-based engagement that fuels Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
bihari_baller | 4 hours ago
I find r/askenonomics and r/neoliberal to be of higher quality these days.
one-won-juan | 3 hours ago
Yep, it has largely turned into pure politics unfortunately …
windemotions | 4 hours ago
The problem is that reddit is not a place for serious people. In fact, the more karma someone has and the longer they've been on redddit, the less likely they are to be a serious person.
Ideally, there's some way to filter out the weirdos with 200k+ karma since they are, statistically, the biggest losers in US society and have nothing of value to add to a discussion between normal people.
random-meme422 | 4 hours ago
People on here don’t know what “real” means and think CPI is not accurate because “muh feels tell me”. It’s not econ, it’s just lost people from default subs whose brains are mush after a decade of non stop political arguing.
RedAero | 2 hours ago
What amuses me personally is that they're claiming 2021 was the start of some economic boom but I remember, as usual, redditors bitching and moaning about inflation non-stop from the moment Biden took office. I was here.
NovarKalar | 8 hours ago
The problem isn't the time periods chosen, per se; the problem is that the article has a bizarre emphasis on generation. You could completely remove all references to "Gen Zers" or "millennials" (why is one capitalized and the other is not?) and it would improve the economics relevance of the article.
Ironically, you're the one injecting arbitrary generation start and end years into an economics sub, when those have no place in economics.
EchoChamberTech | 6 hours ago
Hold up.
>Ironically, you're the one injecting arbitrary generation start and end years into an economics sub, when those have no place in economics.
Is that really a point you want to stand on? That, the study of Economics, has no place to examine generational differences? Like, Economics doesn't look at the "baby boomer" generation and the effects it is going to have on economic policies as they retire and die? The wealth transfer from said generation, etc?
Generations are just labels, that have a commonly agreed upon definition, ascribed to a range of birth years. It is used instead of, or in addition to, saying "people born between x and y." And it ABSOLUTELY has a place in economics.
NovarKalar | 3 hours ago
Adopting terminology from other fields like Sociology is a slippery slope. Talking about people retiring, wealth transfer, etc, keeps the conversation focused on Economics. Talking about the "baby boomer" generation's effects on future policies is precisely the sort of phrasing that risks conversations veering off into politics.
Even if you're disciplined enough to stay in an Economics mindset regardless of terminology (unlike many other people, unfortunately), the terminology is still almost never precise enough to be appropriate. Millennials include everyone born from 1981 to 1996, but this analysis only includes those born between 1981 and 1984. Giving the specific years is literally 4 times as precise as using the generational terms.
I think phrases like "people aged 21-24" promotes much clearer thinking anyway, and forces the reminder that this analysis is of only 2 relatively arbitrary populations of 21-24 year-olds. There are plenty of other years available for economic analysis that someone using generational terminology might never even bother to glance at.
EchoChamberTech | 3 hours ago
>Millennials include everyone born from 1981 to 1996, but this analysis only includes those born between 1981 and 1984. Giving the specific years is literally 4 times as precise as using the generational terms.
That I will definitely agree with. It was no doubt for the clickbait attraction of the headline. I agree that there are merits to more precise language, and that the author/editor could have applied it. But alas, with modern day "news," I think that ship sailed long ago.
NovarKalar | an hour ago
You gave me the idea of tracking down the original report to see if it's better than the "news" variant, and I was treated with this in the Limitations section: "The results describe each generation’s experiences during the periods studied and don’t establish that generational differences caused the outcomes."
Also slight correction: this analysis includes those born in 1981-1988, but only during the years 2005-2008, and only when they are 20-24 years old. (So someone born in 1981 would appear in the data only in 2005 when they're 24, while someone born in 1988 would appear in the data only in 2008 when they're 20.) I'm not sure if that makes using generational terms more precise, or less, but figured I should correct myself anyway.
EchoChamberTech | an hour ago
>"The results describe each generation’s experiences during the periods studied and don’t establish that generational differences caused the outcomes."
If only I wasn't so lazy and could have looked that up to help my point originally lol.
>this analysis includes those born in 1981-1988, but only during the years 2005-2008,
Now this, really hits on your point. Not only did they use generation labels, but then it also misled based on them!
And to the rest, yeah I'm struggling to wrap my head around that. Because then they certainly introduced additional confounding variables and some selection bias. Well. I give up. I'll stick with the study is probably crap, but also oof, some folks in the comments do need to refresh/learn how to properly segment samples for study.
Pornfest | 3 hours ago
No lol reread their comment again.
They said “…have no place in economics”
You then accuse them of saying “the study of economics has no place…”. In a categorical logic sense, invert your Venn diagrams, homie.
EchoChamberTech | 3 hours ago
Replace when I wrote, "That, the study of Economics, has no place to examine generational differences"
With "That arbitrary generation start and end years have no place in economics." Which is a direct quote mildly adjusted to fit the sentence structure around my point.
Then tell me what parts of what I wrote are incorrect.
Beneficial_Way6807 | 4 hours ago
I would like to add that the headline points toward a self selection process. Specifically if Gen Z has higher wages but lower workforce participation than there is likely a situation where those that cannot get a good enough job simply drop out of the workforce. To what degree this explains the difference is obviously up to the data.
Equivalent_Lunch_944 | 8 hours ago
It’s disingenuous though because of the American Rescue Plan- it’s like the supersize me guy claiming McDonald’s was causing his deteriorating health while not divulging that he was a severe alcoholic.
EchoChamberTech | 6 hours ago
My point is that it's not disingenuous, it's just different and it is measuring two different things.
One analysis would be to say, "let's look at the labor force metrics between these two generations, as they turned 24 through turning 29."
The other analysis would be to say, "let's look at the labor force metrics between these two generations, by measuring post-recession boom periods."
The problem with the first, has been widely pointed out that the economy was different.
The problem with the second, would be that the two groups would be at different ages and work experience levels in the measurable period.
Neither is wrong. It's two different measurements.
HumorAccomplished611 | 7 hours ago
Thats your only take? Not PPP loans? Also 2021 was into recovery while 2005 was a regular economy.
2008 started TARP
Equivalent_Lunch_944 | 6 hours ago
Yes 2021 was recovering and TARP happened at the end of the millennial timeframe 2008 vs the beginning of the Gen Z timeframe 2021.
angrysquirrel777 | 10 hours ago
It's funny that the title is "Surprising new data..." as if anyone who actually follows the data put out by the government hasn't been saying this for years.
CyberSmith31337 | 7 hours ago
I still remember 2008. I was competing for jobs that paid $15/hr because everyone who was older than me had been laid off and was taking literally whatever they could get. I distinctly remember interviewing for paralegal jobs, and competing against certified attorneys for the same job because of all the law firm closures and downsizing at the time.
How the fuck we're trying to spin one of the worst economic downturns of my lifetime into some sort of generational productivity assessment is beyond me. But I suppose that's basically where journalism is at these days.
I mean for fuck's sake, look at this headline. It's doing everything in its power to dress up the mass unemployment of Gen Z by making it sound like the only reason so many of them don't have jobs is because they don't want them; they don't want to "participate". Completely ignores the reality that many companies don't even consider or hire juniors anymore. Just a whole load of nonsense being spun here.
Olangotang | 6 hours ago
Again, this sub is an ivory tower circlejerk. Gen Z is leaving the market because it is absolute hell and a waste of time. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/08/02/why-people-are-dropping-out-of-the-workforce-and-not-looking-for-new-jobs-the-market-wore-me-down.html
MuteTadpole | 9 hours ago
Very little insight to be gained here. Gen Z is skipping university more than millennials did. while also simultaneously living at home for longer than millennials did as well. So both can be true, and it’s not altogether surprising. Moreover, as other commenters have pointed out, comparing job markets and economies from the 2008 recession era to now is like comparing apples to oranges. Gen Z folks that are participating in the job market are most certainly earning more than millennials did during that time frame.
tuxedoes | 7 hours ago
Love how they stopped at 2024 and excluded 2025 and half of 2026. I wonder what technology has had mass adoption since then and is causing lots of job loss. Hmmmm....
HumorAccomplished611 | 7 hours ago
and 2008 was when unemployment went up to 6.7% which didnt peak end of 2009 at 10%. Over doule what it is now.
Joltizer | 8 hours ago
Duh. We've known for decades that every single generation has it better than the one before. Gen Alpha will also be much better off than Gen Z. The only people who think otherwise are just the doom scrolling losers on social media/reddit
Pabu85 | 7 hours ago
So…low earners were driven out of the workforce and the upper echelon who’s left does better than all millennials? Sounds like when charter schools exclude disabled kids and then tout improvements in test scores.
Osiris_Raphious | 5 minutes ago
But the unproductive investor class is getting wealthier so the 'mrket' is doing great... so thats nice.
historically this either leads to ww3 for the wealthy elite to put people through the meat grinder to balance out their economies, or UBI, and they dont want ubi, and bunch more words to pad out the length of the comment because automod rules that dont make any sense.
Any_Sale2030 | 5 hours ago
Which makes sense. Millennials are a huge generation and they had to compete with boomers still in the workforce. Gen Z is much smaller and boomers are retiring in droves. There’s a labor shortage.
No_Bookkeeper4453 | 8 hours ago
Gen Z might make more money but the money is worthless now. I make $22 dollars an a hour right now as a millennial and let me tell you I’d kill for that wage in 2011
calmingchaos | 8 hours ago
The numbers are real dollars, inflation is baked into this already.
NovarKalar | 8 hours ago
Compare the inflation-adjusted price of a house per square foot in 2011 with the inflation-adjusted price now, and I think you'll agree that inflation does not fully account for the growing worthlessness of money.