Millennials grew up in an age of college-prep academics, where the only choice was to go to a college or university. We took this journey on the faith that a college education would give us the necessary skills to kick-start our careers.

It was never the only choice, any more than marriage, kids or homeownership are the "only" choice. You got sold a pig in a very expensive poke.

Not entirely millennials' fault, though; the college industry has done a very good job selling itself both as indispensable and desirable for all, aided by parents who would see any post-high-school path other than college as failure.

Truth is, most millennials are well into their 30's and have experienced a good economy throughout their adult working lives. They aren't facing conditions any harder than recent generations and aren't carrying extraordinary student debt at the median ( there is a smaller cohort who'd taken on extreme debt ).

But they've shown to be poor at saving and handling consumer credit. It's the latter that is choking them. They've also forestalled living independently and marrying. These are all indications of immaturity, not hardship.

You can Google the data if you're interested, but you'll have to wade through a lot of poor-millennials articles. That's a narrative that stuck following the 2008 recession and has been milked ever since by lazy journalists.

Klipper Says:

"Truth is, most millennials are well into their 30's and have experienced a good economy throughout their adult working lives. They aren't facing conditions any harder than recent generations..."

Millenials are the generation defined as those born between ~1980 and ~1996.

That means they currently span the age range from 23-39.

What recent generation are you comparing them to?... the generation 22 and younger?

Exactly what relevant economic conditions are you evaluating for folks who haven't even graduated and entered the job market yet?

Klipper is right. While asset accumulation among older M's was impacted by the Obama recession, the effect has been greatly exaggerated and applied to the entire generation. Otherwise M's have experienced a pretty favorable employment and investment climate.

A lot of Millennials' problems can be traced to immaturity. Whether that's the fault of the Millennials themselves or the generation that parented then (mostly Boomers) can be argued. The Boomer generation was pretty immature, too.

The Grasso piece illustrates the immaturity behind the Millennials' outlook on life and the attraction socialism (or any collectivism) holds for them; waiting for a parental figure (Daddy Government) to grease the skids and save them from the difficulty of life itself.

It's not only that collectivism will "save" them that appeals to them, it's that socialism will give them the good life: a loving spouse, well-behaved children, a nice house, and meaning to their existence. It will justify their anger, assuage their hurt feelings, and calm their fears. And it's all the other guy's fault.

Bad news, boys and girls, no collectivist system can do any of that for you, and none ever has. Collectivism can only grind you underfoot in the name of "the people" while those in power grow rich, fat, and happy.

Millennials grew up in an age of college-prep academics, where the only choice was to go to a college or university. We took this journey on the faith that a college education would give us the necessary skills to kick-start our careers.

Millennials didn't do the research before going to college or picked the easy way out and got degrees in worthless subjects, like grievance studies - majors that channelled emotions and didn't require much study or effort; ones that confirmed, and didn't challenge, one's existing outlook.

How about that idiot at the Occupy DC protest who complained he had accumulated more than $50,000 in student loan debt getting his Master's in puppetry and now couldn't find a job in puppetry?

When I was in high school, my parents (Silents) advised me to get a degree in something "useful" and avoid my preferred History or Journalism degrees. If I chose not to go to college, they urged me to put some time and effort into learning a trade. Would that more Millennials had received that advice - or followed it.

I did later put some time into getting an English degree (made the Dean's List), but dropped it when I discovered it was mostly deconstructionism and navel gazing.

Millions of young Americans are now trapped in underemployment or unemployment in their industry of choice.

They're "trapped" or inert?

"...in the industry of their choice." So they got to choose and work in the industry they wanted, but not at the level they wanted? Boo hoo. Some of us took whatever job we could get, in whatever industry, and made the best of it.

Those millions of unemployed or underemployed can take an online coding course or can go back to school and learn something that will help them be "job ready" - perhaps not, however, in "their industry of choice."

Many of us are eternally disappointed with the unjust system that blocked us from doing things past generations did, like get married, have kids and have a lovely oak-shaded, picket-fence life.

That's right. Blame the system.

Can't be your own fault, gotta be the system's. And a new system is the way to fix everything.

Millennials are like the therapy patient who discovers his inability to form a long-term relationship is related to his parents not hugging him enough as a child. Now, it's all their fault and he's off the hook for his own inability to adjust. Now, he won't have to put in the difficult work of learning how to be a complete human being.

Freedom doesn't mean you get to choose what happens to you. You do get to choose how you react to it, however. ~ Stephen R. Donaldson (The One Tree)

Yup. Here's what it looks like from my middle/upper-middle class vantage point: I went to college and law school when even a college degree in anything almost guaranteed you a job--major corporations would hire you and train. Law degrees made you special, as did master's degrees. My degrees from state schools were affordable with reasonable loans. For comparison, I needed to borrow $15K for law school. My first job was considered low-pay at $15K/year, but that ratio of debt to salary seems very reasonable today, right? In contrast, you would have to borrow at least $140K to get the same degree today, and there are very few law jobs paying $140K to start. My kids are in their twenties and are struggling a bit to make ends meet even though we were able to pay for their college education; all their friends have huge student loan debt and are pretty hopeless.

That's part of it....and universities have acted very irresponsibly in marketing their expensive "investments" without proper disclosure of risks and alternatives...but there seems to be another factor:

A therapist who works with a lot of millennials said, "But the complaint they bring up the most? “I have too many choices and I can’t decide what to do. What if I make the wrong choice?”"

Partly due to economic fear, surely, but probably also a function of helicopter parenting and "self-esteem building", resulting in brittle personality structures.

Fear of Freedom?

https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/60258.html

But they've shown to be poor at saving and handling consumer credit. It's the latter that is choking them. They've also forestalled living independently and marrying. These are all indications of immaturity, not hardship.

_________________________________________

Speaking of saving...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/this-social-security-scam-is-just-evil/ar-AAFHbH9?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

(You have to scroll past the story about scam artists first - that is, scroll halfway down.)

Excerpt:

...I asked millennials if they get annoyed when older adults discuss the need to save for retirement.

“I get QUITE annoyed when older people talk to me about investing,” wrote Leonard, a 25-year-old living in the District. “Here’s the thing. Millennials don’t want to NOT save and invest. The reality is that we need our money and every cent of it, especially for people like me who lived in San Francisco and now Washington. The ‘just put $10 away every month’ approach just seems so minuscule that it’s not even worth investing that much. So, to be honest I would rather not invest ANYTHING and get all my money than invest just $10 every month and watch it amount to more or less nothing a few months from now.”

Having said that, Leonard admitted that he was listening.

“I am fully invested to get the 401 (k) match at my job now,” he said. “And that’s because 1.) People have talked my ear off about doing it and 2.) I got a significant raise and 3.) My older self will definitely thank me later.”

I work with a lot of millennials. There is definitely a maturity issue w/ their generation. I'd say that many are about a decade behind where they should be psychologically. You see that especially when it comes to accountability and offering criticism. A lot of them are #!@#@ terrified of both and will let things reach a crisis instead of asserting responsibility. Then they'll try to diffuse blame by claiming that everyone is responsible.

A friend of mine who runs a marketing group filled with millennials calls them the 'everything is awesome!!!' generation because they tend to portray an exaggerated positivity about everything. They think that's being 'nice' but it's really a reflection of their fear of accountability. It's like they believe that being critical is being 'mean' and that makes you a bad person. Again a sign of immaturity.

Back in the 70s, Gore Vidal used to advise would-be novelists to become plumbers -- i.e., do something that will provide a steady income and write in your spare time.

That was when MFA programs and the "follow your bliss"/"do what you love and the money will follow" philosophy were becoming popular. Too many people decided they could get degrees in literature and become successful writers, degrees in puppetry (really?) and become professional puppeteers, degrees in the woke studies program of the moment and earn a living, etc.

Vidal wasn't right about much, IMO, but he got this much right. If you want a certain lifestyle, but you love something that won't support that lifestyle unless you're the 1 in 10,000 who succeeds wildly, then do work that pays what you need to afford that lifestyle and do what you love in your free time because you love it, not because your life will be a failure unless you can do it for a living. That may also mean that you can't live in any of the most expensive places in the country, either.

But that's life: one frickin' trade-off after another.

If you allow a child to grow older without adversity, what you get is an older child, not an adult.
Regardless of what they tell you or what they drive.

Millenials eat out and grab a starbucks coffee every day, have an iPhone and laptop, and travel but then complain they don't have money. They turn their noses up at perfectly good jobs that would get them dirty or that are not "fulfilling". Before getting married they think they need to be able to buy a house. Many boomers spend years and years in tiny rundown places before finally landing in the suburbs. It is called "working your way up".
If you have lived a pampered life and been the beneficiary of luxury, discovering that life is a shitshow is shocking. It is tempting to believe that gov can fix all that is ugly out there, but of course that is a lie.

@Artemis my points and comparisons are in my post. They're easy to verify by Googling. Just avoid HuffPo and similar click-baiting sites.

But to simplify further - Millennials have not faced extraordinary hardships. They were born into more affluence than any prior generation and have benefited greatly from the material and institutional support of their elders. They've also experienced a more robust and lucrative employment market than any generation since the 50's. In fact, Millennial households are wealthier than any living generation on both an income and home equity basis ( that's rarely acknowledged ).

I suspect that it's this affluence that underlies their sense of deprivation. They don't actually know what it means to be deprived and so believe they are because they have less than their parents did when they were growing up. You see that comparison used all the time w/o the recognition that their parents were in their 40's and 50's in the period they remember.

And that misconception is not really their fault. Because one deficit that Millennials have experienced is a significant reduction in educational standards and a rather morbid therapeutic culture that infected their upbringing. Alexandria Cortez is my Millennial stereotype for that reason. She's not a stupid person but obviously has received a very poor education that instilled in her an absurd and pornographic view of the world. She literally doesn't know enough to recognize when she's making a fool of herslf.

Klipper,

So the "recent" generations you were comparing the millennials too are the boomers and gen x?

The boomers are retiring at this point, and gen x is 40+.

The 50's is 70 years ago... I think your definition of recent and mine are quite a bit different.

Just to put things straight, generation x entered into the job market in earnest circa 1990... which was one of the greatest economic booms of the century.

That is hardly comparable to someone who entered the job market after the dot com bust in the early 2000's, followed by 911, followed by the housing bubble in 2008.

I think your analysis is way off.

I would be very interested in seeing your citations.

Artemis the US was in recession in the early 90's and the later dot.com era didn't have a significant effect on median household incomes trend-wise. It was really just a paper bubble.

But again, these are all easily verifiable claims. And I'm not going to provide you 'cites' for information that any informed person should know or be capable of ascertaining easily.

Typically it's the person who is making an extraordinary claim who provides the cites. That would be YOU, being that you're arguing that Millennials have faced extraordinary economic and social conditions.

Do you have any cites?

Some tips - look at the trend in the rate of return for educational investments, not just their deviation from the inflation rate. And look at housing costs in relation to adjusted household incomes and employment across regions, not just rental and purchase costs in San Francisco and New York.

Those are the two elements I've seen writers fixate on and misapply to craft this narrative. I think you'll see that the Millennial woes narrative looks an awful lot like upper middle class status anxiety once you factor the data.

Yep, that is us Kara. It's the self esteem movement in schools. Everyone is perfect. Everyone is unique and special and irreplaceable. And the first time some says we might have a little problem is when you are getting an F. So the measurement system in my generation is seriously messed up.

You see that same measurement philosophy elsewhere too. Look at reviews. Companies, people, it doesn't really matter. Usually you see a 1-5, rate this thing. But the reality is there are only two choices, 5 and all the others. 4-1 are treated the exact same. It makes it really hard to tell what is going on when all of your measurements are saturated out and lack granularity.

Klipper Says:

"Artemis the US was in recession in the early 90's and the later dot.com era didn't have a significant effect on median household incomes trend-wise. It was really just a paper bubble."

Um... the dot.com burst had a notable and significant impact on new hiring and entry level positions which by definition would not significantly impact median household income.

It would only impact recent graduates entering the job market, which is the population we are talking about.

Why would you think the job prospects and starting sallaries of folks who were 22-25 would nudge the needle on a median value?

"But again, these are all easily verifiable claims. And I'm not going to provide you 'cites' for information that any informed person should know or be capable of ascertaining easily."

If it is easily verifiable the importance of you actually providing a citation is *more* important, and not less.

The reason is that I am calling your claim into question.

That you say it is easy to find a citation for means it shouldn't be difficult for you.

That you are avoiding doing so is therefore suspicious.

"Typically it's the person who is making an extraordinary claim who provides the cites."

I haven't made a claim of any kind Klipper… I am simply expressing skepticism of your claim.

The person making the claim always has the burden of proof, that that would be you in this case.

I am further sceptical since you are apparently using a median statistic as opposed to a mean statistic which by design will exclude outlier populations including entry level job statistics and senior level management.

At the time in question the millenial generation would have been one of those outlier populations, hence I don't believe you are analyzing this properly.

I can only assess this for myself if you actually show me the data you are using to inform your opinion.

The reasons so many Millennials find attractive socialism is they were raised in an environment where everyone won. Everyone got a positive outcome -- a little bit of variance...e.g. my neighbors kids group all got trophies but 2nd place trophy was 0.5 taller and first yet another 0.5 taller. This was because the organisation and the parents made sure it was so. That is where the analogy breaks down. No government can realistically make things that equal for a whole country and there was outside resources coming in from the parents where generally no such things exist...ok, there is some foreign aid.

Another thing I see different than from Gen-X is how many things you need. When I graduated college if you had an apartment, cheap TV & dvd player and a decent car you were good. A computer and dialup internet connection and you were golden. Compared to what my niece's friends "need" and it is totally different.

I think gen-x had it tougher. The 90s weren't great. When I graduated college I was one of the few to get a good job. One roommate ended up at the Burger King he worked at in HS. Then dot-com bubble and 9/11 which was right as the last of gen-x was graduating college. The 2008 housing crisis also hit a lot of gen-x. Many just bought their first house and then lost. Notable that same friend. I think hurt a lot of older workers too. When I look at were I worked most everyone got let go but only the young cheap employees got hired back later.

Oh, one thing is that house expenses have increased outrageously. The apartment with detached garage I rented 8 years ago for $1125 was recently advertised with a move in special for $1850 w/o the garage. I believe garages are now usually an extra $200/month so in 8 years it went from $1125 to $2050.

This what worries me personally...expenses are going up a lot faster than my pay.

The Former Banker Says:

"Then dot-com bubble and 9/11 which was right as the last of gen-x was graduating college."

Can we please get a communal working definition for the generations.

If we go with the traditional definitions where Gen-X ends at those born in 1979... then those folks graduated in the spring of 2001... 9/11 occurred the next fall.

In other words, those folks already graduated and already had jobs.

Unless we go with a definition of gen-x that extends to the 1980's then by an large they avoided the 9/11 related hiring freezes.

Please take a look at the following data for reference:

https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trends-through-salary-survey-a-historical-perspective-on-starting-salaries-for-new-college-graduates/

This quote is particularly revealing:

"The dot-com bubble was evident in the rise of overall adjusted average starting salaries by more than 20 percent from 1995 to 2000. Once the bubble burst, the adjusted average salary hovered close to the $50,000 mark. Average salaries were slightly affected during the 2008 stock market crash, but greater effects were seen in new college graduate hiring, with employers reporting plans to decrease their number of new college hires by more than 20 percent."

In other words, starting salaries rose for recent gen-x college graduates by more than 20% in the 90's... then the bubble burst and 9/11 occurred just as the first millennials graduated... then they got hit with the 2008 stock market crash and new college hires dropped by more than 20%.

It is certainly true that gen-x folks got hit by the housing bubble... but the issues millennials faced was that they weren't even able to get started.

They were hired in at a depressed rate of more than 10% compared to previous generations and that was those who actually got hired despite the 20% reduction in new college grad hiring rates.

All of that explains why they are several years off in terms of first home purchases.

Gen-X got hit in terms of accumulated home value, but they had already built up enough savings for a down payment to get out of the renting market. Millennials on the other hand got stuck renting because their disposable income early in their careers wasn't sufficient to save in the same way as the generations just prior.

It is all in the data, none of this is difficult to understand.

"The reasons so many Millennials find attractive socialism is they were raised in an environment where everyone won. Everyone got a positive outcome"

I have to disagree with you there Banker. Yes we all got the same trophy or certificate or whatever irrespective of effort or accomplishment. People aren't all stupid. (Well not all the time at least.) If you have a working brain the laws of supply and demand are instinctively understood to a certain level. When everyone gets the same thing it is worthless. Even the drugged up losers understood that. They didn't work for their trophy. There was no skill or accomplishment attached to it. So they threw it in the trash as they left the school.

That didn't lead to a preference in socialism. It did lead to a general distrust in authority figures.

There's no value in being pedantic about exact generational boundaries. To a considerable extent, it's about when culture shifts appeared and who experienced them when. I was born in 1959, which makes me a Boomer by most people's definitions, but in terms of my experiences and the culture I grew up in, I am thoroughly Gen X.

"It's not only that collectivism will "save" them that appeals to them, it's that socialism will give them the good life: a loving spouse, well-behaved children, a nice house, and meaning to their existence. "

One of the issues the Millennials have with their upbringing is that they were not taught delayed gratification. I have all of those things now, but I certainly did not have them when I was 25. I knew I had to work my way up. It wasn't until about 35 that I started to experience real career and personal success.

"I think gen-x had it tougher. "

I"m not sure. A defining characteristic of Gen X is that a lot of us grew up in benign neglect, living in households with parents who had so many problems that they didn't have much time or love for us. We more or less raised ourselves. It was pretty much the opposite of what the Millennials experienced. It was tough and it left a lot of us scarred... but looking back, I think we got the better deal.

(Artemis is right, in terms of the portion of Gen X that already owned homes, or had a down payment saved up, when the housing bubble hit. If you owned a home and didn't plan to move anytime soon, and you hadn't done something stupid like get an interest-only mortgage, the short-term decline in values was only a paper loss for you. And you might have been able to renegotiate your mortgage under more favorable terms. If you had a down payment, it was obviously a good time to get in. The ones who were screwed were mainly investors and flippers who were counting on a short-term gain, although people who were forced to move due to life or job circumstances got shafted during this period too.)

I will say, too, that investing today is a lot different than it was for the Boomers. Back in the day, you could put money in a passbook savings account or bank certificates of deposit, and earn a good rate of return with very little risk. That, a few safe stock picks (AT&T was popular with retirees, since its profits were guaranteed by the federal government), and the value of their house was all that a lot of Boomers needed. They knew that at retirement, they would be drawing Social Security and a pension from work.

Of course, all of this is off the boards now. Banks are just money warehouses these days; not only do the generally not pay interest, but they also charge you for the privilege of holding your money. Most people can't follow the markets well enough to do their own stock picks. Mutual funds are a good option, but you have to do some research, and there are no "AT&T"'s out there who are going to pay good returns with little risk. And in general, you can't rely on a house to hold value, or to be liquid at the time you need to sell. For a lot of working people now, their best investment is going to be their 401k, and that's mainly because employer matching makes the rate of return a lot better than it would be otherwise.

A defining characteristic of Gen X is that a lot of us grew up in benign neglect, living in households with parents who had so many problems that they didn't have much time or love for us. ~ Cousin Dave at August 19, 2019 6:54 AM

It wasn't so much that our parents didn't have much time or love for us. We were the first generation growing up in which both parents worked - mostly out of economic necessity.

It wasn't so much that our parents didn't have much time or love for us. We were the first generation growing up in which both parents worked - mostly out of economic necessity.

Conan the Grammarian at August 19, 2019 9:25 AM

Or what they * thought * was economic necessity. A three bedroom home, and two cars in the garage isn’t what I would call economic necessity.

Truth be told if you can do math if you have to pay for day care, an extra vehicle, a work wardrobe, and fast food, that second salary covers that, and maybe a slightly nicer house, but not much more, What you are mostly doing is keeping up with the Joneses.

What economic necessity really meant was people foolishly getting married, having kids, then divorcing, and needing to pay for two of everything.

The rich can get a nanny. The middle and lower classes need grandma, and government is a really really poor substitute.

The nuclear family with two working parents, and single parenthood are only viable in cultures with high taxes and a huge social safety net, which is a dead end, because when you tax people heavily to provide support for other people’s poor choices, they stop having kids of their own, as the Northern Europeans have so bitterly discovered. And no, importing people from illiterate tribal cultures to take up the slack isn’t a good solution either.

A generation is formally the period from birth to the average age of childbearing for a given genealogical cohort. That's why the period has been increasing, due to women in the US having children later. But some fields try to use birth to fertility + some normative adjustment for consistency sake, which is where you'll see 20 or 25 years used.

But what really queers the definition is that popular media will use cultural 'generations' in place of genealogical ones. This started with the Boomers, who've been stretched to nearly 40 years in many cases. But Gen X is notably shortened and Millennial is evolving. I think we're making the same mistake here.

@Artemis I don't think we're going to get anywhere and should just stop trying. You're going to need to provide some specific complaint beyond your aversion to my making such an argument.

And FWIW the use of median is necessary to address the same variance you're complaining about. Averages are useless where you have high variance and multiple modes a/o clusters in a distribution. Median isn't perfect, but it at least reflects what's broadly obtainable for that population. As I've argued, the analysis of Millennials is skewed by a fixation on their most affluent sub-groups. That is exactly why you wouldn't want to employ an average, you're just reinforcing that bias.

Or what they * thought * was economic necessity. A three bedroom home, and two cars in the garage isn’t what I would call economic necessity. ~ Isab at August 19, 2019 11:56 AM

Well, mine both worked to put us through college. My father's salary paid the bills and my mother's was put into savings to pay for college. As a result, none of the three of us graduated college with any student loan debt.

Well, mine both worked to put us through college. My father's salary paid the bills and my mother's was put into savings to pay for college. As a result, none of the three of us graduated college with any student loan debt.

Conan the Grammarian at August 20, 2019 7:03 AM

Yes, well that turned out to be a suckers game, didn’t it? If your parents had only one income, all three of you would have been able to get pell grants, and other free money that you probably weren’t eligible for because of the double income thing.

I don’t have anything against two earner couples, if one of them has a job that allows them to stay home with the kids during vacations and after schools. My mother went back to work when I was five. My father had his business in a shop behind our house. Money was never a problem. Both my parents could have lived on half what they actually made, and sent six kids to college before schools started jacking up the tuition to take advantage of the federal loans and grants.

Yes, well that turned out to be a suckers game, didn’t it? If your parents had only one income, all three of you would have been able to get pell grants, and other free money that you probably weren’t eligible for because of the double income thing. ~ Isab at August 20, 2019 9:15 AM

Nope. Not on my father's income. It was just enough to make us ineligible for assistance, but not enough to make us "rich." By the rules then, if you were declared a dependent on someone's taxes within a year of your application, that person's income was imputed to your "need."

Besides, getting my father to take a government handout would be like pulling teeth. He used to under-withhold his taxes, preferring to pay the government the tax shortfall each year over giving it an interest free loan of his money.

Not to mention, my mother going back to work was good for her. She'd kept her licenses up to date and was able to find a job quickly. Once we'd reached high school, we were pretty self-sufficient any way. As an RN, she found working in a hospital rewarding and fulfilling. Her shift ended at 3:00, so our time alone in an empty house was fairly minimal.

Even when she could have quit after the last of us graduated college, she stayed on the job. My father retired and spent his time managing their money while my mother worked at the local hospital until her retirement.

So, Conan, your parents did exactly what I said was the correct way to deal with parenthood. Stay married. Go to work after you don’t need daycare, and still you want to argue with me?

There are other ways to get your kids thru college. ROTC. Scholarships, work study. Used to be that it was affordable without those games. My son wasn’t serious about school at 18. I told him to join the military, and then when he decided what he wanted to do, they would pay for it. Worked out great.

...and still you want to argue with me? ~ Isab at August 20, 2019 11:15 AM

I'm not arguing with you, I'm questioning the absolute certainty implied in your statements. Sometimes both parents have to work, and not simply to afford luxuries.

My mother worked when I was in elementary school, out of economic necessity. My parents hired a neighborhood teenager as a baby sitter for our after school hours. Back then, you could do that without the police calling you a bad parent. The baby-sitter was great. Half the neighborhood's elementary aged children came to our house after school because of her.

When my father was able to get back on his feet (after the collapse of the aerospace industry in the '70s) and find a job that paid what someone of his education and experience should be paid, Mom stayed home until paying for college became a concern.

Scholarships and ROTC were not options in our case. Both parents insisted they would put us through school with no obligations incumbent upon us at graduation - no service obligations, no repayment obligations, nothing. And they did. We were lucky they could, but they sacrificed to do that. We never lived in what any sane person would call luxury.

And grant eligibility then was calculated using your parents' income and your status as a dependent on that income. The government had a formula that said what percentage of your parents' income was allotted for your education, no matter what your parents were actually willing to contribute. Your actual need did not matter.

Klipper Says:

"And FWIW the use of median is necessary to address the same variance you're complaining about."

By definition median household income statistics will exclude entry level hires and senior executives.

Your claim was that the median household income didn't change much... therefore entry level income wasn't impacted.

What I am saying is that your method of analysis doesn't permit you to draw any conclusions about that population... the median value excludes those folks.

All you are really saying is that the dot com bust didn't negatively impact folks who were already 5-15 years into their careers at 2001... that doesn't include millennials.

You haven't done the analysis properly and I would still like to see your source material.

Your analysis would be akin to using median BMI values as a measure of trends for anorexics or the morbidly obese, but that isn't the right way to analyse those populations.