Seems that millennials are doing OK financially after all, and that worries about being poorer than their parents are overblown:
The article is behind the paywall. How does the author claim the millennial doing well financially? Good jobs? Inheritance from parents?
Earnings are higher in real terms than previous generations (at the same age) and home ownership levels are similar. The main change is that women are earning a lot more (due to increased levels of education) while men are not.
Interestingly the author got lots of pushback on Twitter from millennials complaining they canât afford to buy a house, but a likely explanation is that the people on Twitter are disproportionately located in places like NY, LA and SF where housing is expensive, and not in the middle of the country where housing is cheap (note this Twitter thread also contains a link which may not be as strongly paywalled):
https://twitter.com/jean_twenge/status/1648485142363795456
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Anecdata: my Millennial nephews are all quite successful. Extremely different paths: officer in the military, tech startups, construction.
One is even a homeowner, in San Diego to boot.
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My kids are millennials, and both are self supporting. One is financially better off than the other, but neither is struggling. If they felt that they deserved certain things in life that they donât have, and if they borrowed to get those things, then perhaps they would be âbroke.â Fortunately, they have always lived within their means.
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One millennial I know paid off the law school loan within a few years after getting the degree and bought a house. Another gets paid very well and has huge savings. A third donât earn much and neednât much, has a small inheritance from grandparents and thinks life is rosy. I wonder if the misconception wasnât propelled by the media. Pity stories sell better?
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As it says in the article, a disproportionate share of millennial journalists live in NY where itâs hard to afford to buy a house, especially on a journalistâs salary. And the whole journalism profession has suffered massive disruption and layoffs the last few years. Hardly surprising that becomes the media narrativeâŠ
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Well, my husband is a millennial although we try to pretend itâs not true since I am a mid-range GenX. (We have over a decade between us.) He was very young when we met and so didnât live a âtypicalâ millennial life.
While we are not doing extremely well due to service-oriented career choices that arenât very well paid, we have owned houses across several states for the past few decades and have good savings. We are very frugal. He also left NYC when we married so wasnât trying to save money there. Because we associate mostly with people between our two ages, I know lots of millennials across the country who are mid-range household incomes (40-60th percentiles) who own homes, pay bills, have cars without debt, etc.
I will say for the ones I know who are making normal (under $100,000) family incomes and are fine, some common factors are: they are college educated, they married in their 20s, one parent stayed home with the children until the youngest was in school or even longer, they do not live an âexcitingâ lifestyle with all the expensive entertainment, dining out, travel, etc. that some segments seem to think are what oneâs 20s and 30s are for. Instead for most it was college education/trade training, marriage, buy a house, raise small children for that time period, which may sound expensive but somehow seems to be what makes them in good position now. 
Edit- I should also add that they (and we) live in houses built mostly from 1950-1980 and do any upgrades themselves. They are not the types on House Hunters who walk into nicer houses than most people have and yet point to everything saying âtotal gut! total gut!â Instead, they slowly fix it up themselves.
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My millennial niece is at this moment in India for a month. She travels all over the world. Sheâll take jobs abroad, like teaching English, to get housing and a stipend. She has a very flexible job in production and dog walks here and lives with roommates.
Sheâs living her best life and doing things her way. I call this success.
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On the subject of house buying, there have clearly been generationally great buying opportunities. For Gen X that was the mid to late 90s and for Millennials it was the early 2010s. That was good for the older half of each cohort. The younger half hasnât done so well if they were buying in the mid 2000s (Gen X) or the last two years (Millennials). But the flipside is that the older half of each group graduated into a recession whereas the younger half mostly saw an improving job market. Maybe that also affects attitudes of whether to settle down vs enjoying freedom in your 20s?
It will be interesting to see if the older part of Gen Z go through something similar in the next couple of years time if we are going to have a recession and high interest rates that then put downwards pressure on the housing market.
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I havenât read the article, just the thread, but Iâm glad to finally hear what Iâve been seeing for quite some time now is actually common and not the outlier. There have been many students who have gone through the high school where I work and most end up successfully supporting themselves. Those who donât we can usually peg while theyâre in high school. Itâs not âthe timesâ that do them in.
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As always generalization doesnât make sense. Itâs all about personality and the drive. My millennial DS graduated during last recession, had a rough start of his career but is very ambitious and doing very well running his company now
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Iâm a millennial. An older one, but technically, Iâm a millennial. I might be the only one on here who is a parent. DH is young Gen X.
We live on our own and are financially successful on paper (our EFC is more than what most private collegesâ COAâs are) but we are still renters. My parents are so ashamed that they wonât even enter our rental to visit us. I know we arenât broke- far from it- but we look broke, especially to our parents. Part of the reason for that is because we got married after college and two years later had our DS24. Choices have consequences and we have done well for ourselves and made the best of it. We arenât ashamed, even if it looks like we should be.
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Thatâs crazy! I donât thinking renting in and of itself is an indicator of functioning well. I know many life-long renters who are very wealthy.
And glad to see another older-Millennial/Gen X combo on here!
Edit:
I realize I should have been clear about the crazy part.
My parents came to visit me often in my Section 8 apartment even though I had a college degree and then had studied at Oxford. They were not embarrassed by me (they were a little concerned for our safety with the baby there.)
The idea your parents wonât visit you in your home, even if you were indeed very poorly off, seems insane to me.
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Please donât be ashamed of being frugal! We are GenXers who live in such a modest way for âtwo professorsâ that when things go well for us, we save 2K a month for our daughterâs college. This is not how our peers live who want to entertain people in charming Craftsman houses from the early 20th century. You are doing all the right things, and the result will be that you child is not a debt slave.
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I never knew people looked down on renters before! I know people who choose to rent because they donât want to own, not because they canât afford it - and others who simply choose or need to spend their money on other things rather than a downpayment, esp if they opted for a non high paying, but âenjoyed by themâ career.
I never once thought I was supposed to look down upon them! And even if Iâm supposed to, I wonât. Thatâs crazy. Itâs your parents who are in the wrong, not youâŠ
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I am a boomer (an old boomer!) and a renter. I used to own a condo but had to sell it because of tremendous financial difficulties in 2007. I love where I live in my beautiful rental (with limited rent increases due to the NYC rent stabilization regulations), and it just doesnât make sense for me to own. So I donât.
Shame on your parents!
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We have neighbors who didnât speak to us for 3 years because we were renting before we bought the house (they thought weâd be gone soon like the previous tenants so there was no point getting to know us). It was only when they spoke to our contractor (who they assumed was fixing the house up for sale) that they discovered we owned the house. But after that we became great friends.
That doesnât mean they looked down on you though. It just means they thought you were temporary. Maybe they did due to the three years part, but Iâm not sure Iâd see it as definite. Iâve been to places where people didnât even know their neighbors at all other than by sight. They just interacted in different circles and were busy.
But who knows. Iâm on CC to learn more about others from college choices to life, so I guess Iâve just learned thereâs that segment of humans in life. Iâm glad I either havenât met any of them IRL or at least itâs never come up in conversations within my circles. My circles include some who are quite wealthy, but itâs more of a âMillionaire Next Doorâ type of wealth than âNose in the Air.â
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The anti- renter thing isnât necessarily a wealth thing. When I was a kid living in Philly, no one liked renters. Back then it was extremely rare for a rowhome to be divided into a duplex. There was one in our area and it was definitely considered âthe problem houseâ. This was a working class neighborhood and a rowhome turning into an apartment was a sign that the neighborhood was taking a turn for the worse.
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