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This @AnnieLowrey piece is exactly what you need to read today on how Millennials are getting particularly screwed by the second major financial crisis of our lives. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/millennials-are-new-lost-generation/609832/
"This is a jobs crisis of the young, the diverse, and the contingent, meaning disproportionately of the Millennials ... It’s a cruel economic version of that old Catskill resort joke: These are terrible jobs, and now all the young people holding them are getting fired."
We're about the same age Gen Xers were when the 2008 financial crisis hit, but we're in a far worse position: We have fewer assets, less saved, less in home equity, and our incomes are lower than theirs were. And Gen Xers took the biggest immediate hit from 2008.
The difference is, Gen X is the only generation that fully recovered from the 2008 recession. Boomers mostly recovered. Millennials were left behind. And now, as a second crisis hits, we don't even have the financial cushion Gen X did. This is already very bad & set to get worse.
In 2007, on the edge of the Great Recession, Gen Xers were 27-42, and the average Gen X household was making $63,400 and had $66,000 in home equity. In 2016, Millennials were slightly younger, 20-36. But our average household income that year: $12,300. Home equity: $44,000.
When the economy went over the cliff in 2008, Gen X incomes and home values went with them: In 2010, the average Gen X household brought in just $39,200 and had $37,600 in home equity. A huge decrease.
But Gen Xers bounced back, and you can read all the details here. Millennials did not. And now, as a second downturn hits, we are just not nearly as equipped as Gen Xers were to weather it (and they weathered it poorly!), and far less equipped to come back https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/23/gen-x-rebounds-as-the-only-generation-to-recover-the-wealth-lost-after-the-housing-crash/
And yes, I am writing a book about all of this, much of which dovetails with Annie's findings. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/OK-Boomer-Lets-Talk/Jill-Filipovic/9781982153762
One thing I'm still sorting through is that Millennials are a lot less healthy than you'd assume. We don't know yet what that means in terms of coronavirus. But physically and psychologically, we are not doing great, and that will obviously impact how we weather this period.
And yes, there was a recession in 2001, but it was a relatively short and shallow one. Did it have an immediate impact? Yes. But it didn't have nearly the effects - immediate or long-lasting - as the Great Recession of 2008. And not comparable to what we're facing now.
