In the nearly eight years since I first described millennials as “the screwed generation,” things have only worsened for those born between 1982 and 2000—and the coronavirus is now accelerating that slide.
In the midst of a pandemic, millennials are twice as likely to be uninsured as Boomers (PDF). Despite their superior educational credentials, millennials on average earn wages that are 20 percent less than what Baby Boomers made at the same age. Millennials are far less likely to own homes than Boomers were, and those millennials with homes are far more likely to have rich parents.
Seniors may suffer a much higher risk from the virus, but, from an economic point of view, it’s the millennials getting screwed the most. In a new report, Data for Progress found that a staggering 52 percent of people under the age of 45 have lost a job, been put on leave, or had their hours reduced due to the pandemic, compared with 26 percent of people over the age of 45.
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Some recent research suggests that the pandemic may impact this generation in terms of such things as mental and physical health, leading to shortened lifespans. Before the pandemic, about 8 percent of American teens (members of Generation Z) reported trying to kill themselves each year and about 70 percent suffered from loneliness. In 2020, these numbers will likely be higher, suggests an excellent analysis in The Atlantic. The young generations are already more likely to report poor mental health, per the American Psychological Association, and suicides among people ages 10-24 soared 56 percent from 2007 to 2017.
This reflects the pessimism felt by millennials, both here and globally, about their futures, with most not expecting to do better than their parents. Their dismal prospects are reflected in the lowest marriage rates in history and loathness to start families. Battered now by pestilence and its aftermath, they could well become what one conservative writer referred to as a “resentful generation.”
Particularly vulnerable are the two-thirds of Americans between 25 and 32 who lack a four-year college degree. In the past, these workers would have been employed in factories or worked in a small businesses, or even started one. You do not need a PhD to operate a donut shop, a gym or a hair salon.
But now factory work has declined as companies have shifted their production to China and other parts of the developing world. The Main Street option was fading even before the COVID lockdown, as evidenced in falling rates of business formation, particularly among the young. The share of GDP represented by small firms has dropped from 50 to 45 percent since the 1990s. The share of young firms in all industries has fallen in the last 40 years. Increasingly more industries have become dominated by large, superstar firms with access to Wall Street capital.
But even educated youth now suffer consistently lower wages, notes Pew, than their counterparts from previous generations. Many young people, including some college graduates, are employed in low-wage industries such as hospitality, retail and restaurants, fields now suffering the largest share of the job losses. Even those still working often have little ability to control working conditions, terms of employment, or gain guarantees for health coverage.
Remarkably this growing generational gap can be seen even in Silicon Valley. As the oligarchs have gotten richer, most new jobs in the Valley have paid poorly. Indeed. according to a 2018 UC-Santa Cruz study, nine out of 10 jobs in the Valley now pay less than 20 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Once a free-wheeling, and entrepreneurial industry, high-tech has become an increasingly concentrated and stratified industry, sort of like Detroit in the 1950s, but with almost unimagined riches for those near the top but with a lot fewer secure, good-paying jobs.
Over time these divides could engender radical results. The progressive gentry might share Millennials’ widespread distaste for Donald Trump, but the two groups may not embrace the same vision of the post-Trump world.
In this sense the Boomer elites resemble the old French nobility that, as de Tocqueville observed, supported many of the writers and causes that ended up threatening “their own rights and even their existence.” Today we are witnessing a similar farce, as the world’s richest people line up behind causes that, as they gain power, could relieve them of their fortunes, if not their heads.
The gentry may also share millennial concern about the pandemic or climate change, but they also see in both an opportunity to enhance their profits and power. Like their aristocratic forebears, the oligarchs, huddled in their country estates, are surviving the pandemic in good style. To a large extent, the tech gentry has benefited from the lockdown as it has humbled its analog rivals.
To be sure, millennials and the successor generation, the so-called Zs, will likely vote for Joe Biden—according to a Harvard survey by as much as two to one. But analysts like those at the 538 site suggest the former vice president may appeal even less to them than did Hillary Clinton four years ago, potentially auguring trouble actually getting them to the polls, a major concern for Democratic pollsters and strategists.
What many millennials want is something far more radical. In the primaries, Bernie Sanders dominated among both Latinos and voters under 30. In California, according to exit polls, Sanders received 57 percent of support among young voters and Warren 12 percent; Joe Biden won a pathetic 5 percent. Support for a moderate, insider restoration seems likely to be minimal.
Instead, among young Democrats support for socialism at least rivals that for capitalism. After a decade of historically slow growth, many young people no longer believe in the American system, being demonstrably less patriotic as well as less religious than previous generations. They do have faith, as Pew notes, in massive government programs as a way to address social and economic problems.
This discomfort with the status quo is evident even in the tech heartland. San Francisco and Seattle represented three of the top six zip codes sending money to socialist Bernie Sanders. Despite opposition from the oligarchs, Sanders defeated Biden handily in the three key tech counties of Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco, where Sanders and Warren combined to win 53 percent of the vote.
The leftward drift of millennial Democrats represents a decisive break with comfortable gentry progressives. Millennial activists, convinced we face imminent disaster from both the climate and the pandemic, display little patience with the “enlightened” tech and Wall Street moguls. After all, if we are on the verge of a global apocalypse, how can anyone justify the luxurious lifestyle embraced by so many of the world’s most public green advocates, from Jeff Bezos and Prince Charles and Richard Branson to Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore?
The Green New Deal proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez epitomizes this new divide. However economically absurd its proposals, the GND represents a direct assault on the Boomer elites’ approach. Rather than enrich the oligarchs benefiting from social distancing and green energy, her plan would be financed in large part by expropriating their wealth.
As ever more young people feel abandoned by the system, they are likely to become ever more susceptible to extreme solutions. This may trend to the left overall, but it’s notable that less educated white millennials backed Trump in 2016, and, given their distrust of government, seem likely to do so again this year.
Like Bernie-style socialism, Trumpian nationalism reflects an angst that could transform American politics in ways not congenial to the progressive gentry. The percentage of the vote from millennials and Generation Z, their successors, has increased since 2016 from 30 to close to 40 percent. Despite their lower turnouts, millennials should be the nation’s largest voting block by 2024.
With the economy disintegrating and likely to remain troubled in the years ahead, we can expect more millennial rage against not just Trump, but also the comfortable hypocrisies of the Boomer elites. They may not lose their heads like the French aristocrats they so resemble, but they could be separated from their fortunes and hold on power sooner than they might imagine.
