Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated in a press conference 2019-03-21 when talking about millenials and the state of student loans in America, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”
This made people heated on both sides, some agreeing that they too had never seen American prosperity while others opposed this view stating that America is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Both the left wing and right wing parties seem to clash on this issue frequently, stating that the other is wrong. However, is it possible that they could both be right?
Stepping back and looking at the big picture, the US is a very prosperous country and aggregates a lot of wealth. To say we’ve never seen prosperity is not true as a general statement about the world. As of 2019, the USA accounted for 15.93% of global GDP. The US poverty line for a family unit of four sits just shy of 10x the international poverty line (IPL), and for an individual it sits almost 20x above the IPL. In fact, if you look at the data by consumption vs income, you’ll find that no American is actually poor by international standards. By consumption, they’re all middle class or better. But as Forbes seems to hint, maybe what we’re talking about isn’t true poverty vs. prosperity, but income inequality.
The statement that a generation has not seen prosperity may be true from many people’s perspectives when you define prosperity as “economic well-being”. They have never known a time where they had no bills piling up, three month’s wages in their bank account, or generally felt like they were financially stable. It’s existed around them for many people, but not them. Millenials make up the largest generation living below the poverty line, the largest generation of single mothers, and the largest generation of renters. These factors may be interrelated in many ways, but either way this helps illustrate the point that prosperity isn’t a reality for many millenials. It’s better than living in true poverty stricken countries, but when you’re in the bottom 10%, you’re not thinking about people across the world who really do have it worse than you; you’re figuring out how you’re going to pay the rent and feed the kids.
A lot of the reason millenials see it this way is because they compare it to what their parents’ and grandparents’ generations had, and that was a golden age (though some didn’t experience that due to segregation during that time). The USA is more prosperous than a lot of the world currently, but its people are not more prosperous than they used to be. Millennials see that their grandparents were able to support a family and buy a house on a single unskilled labor job, whereas a family of two unskilled laborers may not be able to afford to buy a house or even support their family without financial assistance with their combined income. It’s generally advised that you buy a house worth 3-5x your annual income. Factory workers in 1954 on average earned $1.68/hr, or about $3500/yr, and the average home price was $8650. To put that in perspective, the median salary for a millenial in 2019 was $47,034 while the median price of a home was $320,700.
Millennials see the 0.1% realize income increases of about 340% since 1980 while most saw about 23%, and productivity has continued to rise at a steady pace while hourly compensation has stagnated. Taking that a step further, about 18,000 people own over 10% of all wealth in the US, and their income actually increased by over 500% since 1980. Millennials see others telling them their financial problems are because they drink Starbucks and eat avocado toast when they can’t even afford to eat out more than once a month. They’re told to get a second job with Uber to afford to pay the rent (and Uber doesn’t even officially recognize its workers as employees).
There may be a level of entitlement in the millennial generation, but it’s because they want something that their parents or grandparents may have had and seems unattainable to them now. They have their coffee and phones and cars, but many don’t own land, have more debt than assets, and have multiple jobs but not careers. It’s fair to say millenials are allowed to want something, and it’s not unfair to ask questions on how the USA as a whole can take steps toward income equality and a better standard of living than exists today. Handouts or drastically raising the minimum wage may not be the answer, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer.
To sum it up, the comparison being drawn by the left isn’t vs. other countries, it’s vs. other people in the same country that talk down to them for not having money and then give them advice from an ignorant viewpoint on how to get money. It may be human nature to talk down to younger generations, but if we’re to improve, we need to have more meaningful discussions to truly understand each other’s plights. In the Bible, James says, “Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.”