Millennials in Poverty? It Depends On How You Look.

Is this true?

Pretty much, yes. This is for 30-year olds:

This shouldn’t be surprising. Many Millennials faced the full force of the Great Recession in their early 30s, and that had a big effect on their income. At the same time, the system worked the way it was intended: they also received more government assistance than other generations during this time. When you put this together, their poverty rate was about the same as Gen X and lower than either boomers or boomer parents at the same age:

My only real objection to Filipovic’s tweet is her description of the social safety net as “badly tattered.” In fact, it’s grown steadily since the 60s and is quite robust these days. Republicans seem to spend their entire careers fighting to tear it apart, but the truth is that they’ve only nibbled around the edges. We may still not be as generous to the poor as social democratic Europe—and our anti-poverty programs are egregiously splintered and inefficient—but spending is pretty high and it’s reponsible for keeping poverty at lower real levels than it was for older generations.

Generally speaking, I think it’s important to keep two things in mind at the same time. It’s true that Millennials face unusual pressures: the Great Recession, student debt, and high housing costs foremost among them. At the same time, Millennial income at age 30 has recovered from the Great Recession and is now higher than it was for boomers and Xers.

(This data precedes the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be years before we know how that affected different generations.)

Bottom line: Millennials, on net, are not as well off as previous generations: they have slightly higher incomes but noticeably higher expenses. At the same time, the difference with previous generations is smallish and they really aren’t massively impoverished. The real scandal here isn’t so much intergenerational as inter-class: Why is it that income has barely budged for everyone in the past three generations?

Answer: Because the rich have gotten nearly all the gains. That’s the common enemy, not the ordinary folks who are a decade older or younger than you.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate