Narrative Violation: Younger American Adults Are More Confident About the Economy Than Older Americans
The misery of America’s young adults has become an ingrained part of our cultural narrative. You are no doubt familiar with the typical factors that are supposedly making things much more bleak for younger Americans: home buying is unaffordable, new entrants have a harder time finding jobs, Social Security is doomed, and politics is irretrievably broken.
The trouble with this view is that it just is not true. Younger American adults are actually more positive about the economy and the direction of the country than older Americans.
This week’s report on consumer confidence from the Conference Board included a chart breaking the results down by generation. What you’ll notice is that there is a huge gap between the confidence of Millennials and Generation Z, on the one hand, and Gen X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation on the other. While confidence is low across the board, the younger generations have far more confidence about the economy than older Americans. What’s more, in recent months, the confidence of Millennials and Gen Z has been flat to rising while Gen X and Boomer confidence has declined.
And it is not just the Conference Board’s measure that shows this narrative violating distinction. In YouGov’s polling for the Economist, Americans aged 18-29 are far more likely than the older Americans to say the state of the economy is good or excellent. According to the latest poll, released Monday, 32 percent of the 18-29 year old cohort say the state of the economy is good or excellent. That compares with 19 percent of 30-44s, 24 percent of 45-64s, and 24 percernt of everyone 65 and over.
More Optimism About Finances and Earnings
Younger Americans are also more likely to say they are better off than they were a year ago. According to the YouGov poll conducted on July 3-6, 18 percent of 18-29 year olds say they are better off and so do 19 percent of 30-44 year olds. Just 11 percent of 45-64 year olds say that and 16 percent of those 65 and older. Asked what they expect for their personal finances a year from now, 31 percent of 18-29s say they expect to be better off. Among the 30-44s, 29 percent expect to be better off. Move up to the 45-64 category and the better off share falls to 23 percent. Among older Americans, it is just 17 percent.
When asked about earnings from work, 14 percent of the youngest American adults say they expect to make a lot more over the next year than they did over the past year. That compares with nine percent among the 30-to 44-year-olds, seven percent among the 45-to 64-year-olds, and one percent among the 65-plus cohort. Thirty-six percent of the youngest group say they expect to earn slightly more, compared with 34 percent of 30-44s, 24 percent of the 45-64s, and 25 percent of the 65 and older group.
Younger Americans are also much less worried about losing their jobs than their slightly older peers. Just nine percent of the youngest group say they are “very worried” about losing their jobs, and 66 percent say they are not worried at all, according to the July 3-6 YouGov poll. The 30-44 year old crowd is much more worried, with 15 percent saying they are very worried and 54 percent not worried at all. Among the 45-64 year olds, the very worried number drops back down to six percent, and the not worried rises to 67 percent. The older than 65 crowd barely worries about losing their job at all, likely because many are retired.
Of course, not everything is rosy with the young. They are a bit more wary about whether now is a good time to invest in stocks. They are much less likely to say they are very happy with their current job—seven percent versus 24 percent for 30-44s, 24 percent for 45-64s, and 25 percent for over 65s. But they aren’t significantly more miserable at work. The share saying they are unhappy or very unhappy is not much different than any group other than the 65 percent and older group, who have a very low share of job dissatisfaction.
But even on the broadest question of whether the country is headed in the right direction, younger Americans are more positive. Thirty-two percent said the country is on the right track, according to the YouGov poll released this week. That falls to 23 percent for the 30-to 44-year-old group, 26 percent for the 46-64, and 29 percent for the 65-and-older group.
None of these numbers scream positivity. But they do indicate that the image we have of an America where the younger workers and recent graduates are particularly miserable has things backward. They are the most positive and optimistic cohort in the country.
Which raises the question: why are the young people so much happier than the rest of America?
It’s a question that has not really been explored because of the powerful influence of the illusion that the young are particularly unhappy.
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