Gen Z Americans are leaving their European cousins ​​in the dust

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The idea behind the concept of generations is that people born at a particular time share similar experiences, which in turn form common attitudes.

The “Greatest” and “Silent” generations, born in the first decades of the twentieth century, experienced economic distress and global conflict, and continue to form relatively left-wing views. Baby boomers grew up accustomed to growth and prosperity, and have become strongly conservative.

The story was similar for millennials, who entered adulthood in the wake of the global financial crisis to be greeted with high unemployment, anemic income growth, and deficits. House price inflation to income ratiosAnd the hero continues strong Progressive politics.

Much analysis and discourse treats Millennials and Generation Z as close cousins, united in their struggle to achieve the prosperity of previous generations. But the validity of this deletion depends a lot on where you look.

Millennials across the Western world have been truly united in their economic plight. From the United States and Canada to Britain and Western Europe, the group born in the mid- to late 1980s lived their formative adult years against a backdrop of weak or stagnant wage growth and declining home ownership rates.

Absolute upward mobility – the extent to which members of one generation earn more than their parents’ generation at the same age – has declined steadily. In the United States, by the time a person born in 1985 reached the age of 30, his or her average income was only a few percent higher than that of his or her parents at the same age, a far cry from the clear and tangible generational gains of 50 percent to 50 percent. 60 percent were born in the 1950s.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the narrative of millennial distress is no myth. They may be considered the most economically unhappy generation of the last century.

But then we hit a crossroads. For young people in Britain and much of Western Europe, conditions have only gotten worse since then. If you thought less than 1 percent annual growth in living standards afforded by millennials was bad, try growth below zero. Britons born in the mid-1990s have not only seen living standards stagnant, but declining. Throughout Europe, there are precious few things with which young people can be happy.

But in America, Generation Z is moving forward. Living standards in the United States have grown at an average rate of 2.5 percent per year since the cohort born in the late 1990s entered adulthood, blessing this generation not only with a much higher capacity for upward mobility than older Millennials, but also with better Living faster than baby boomers. At the same age. And it’s not just income: Gen Z Americans are also outpacing Millennials on the housing ladder.

All indications are that the decades-long slowdown in generational economic progress in the United States has not only not stopped, but is heading in the opposite direction. Americans born in 1995 have greater upward mobility relative to their parents than those born in 1965. Zoomers by name, Zoomers by socioeconomic nature.

Both the changing economic trajectories of American youth and the divergence from their European counterparts raise interesting questions.

From a social perspective, in the age of limitless social media narratives Algorithms that reward negativityCan the meme of the plight of young adults survive contact with the reality of Generation Z in America? With a torrent of negative social comparisons only a smartphone away, how might the growing realization that American youth are on a higher trajectory affect European youth?

Turning to politics, will the youngest group of American voters go their own way? The fact that it was not just younger men, but also young women, who swung behind Donald Trump in the US election suggests that this may already be happening. A group that considers itself among life’s winners may not develop the same instinct for social solidarity that its oppressed ancestors did.

in an era”Vibe shifts“, the shift from a sense of downward mobility to one of rising prosperity may be the largest yet. The difference in musical temperament on both sides of the Atlantic would certainly inject a new urgency into the matter. Europe is looking for an uptick of its own.

Whichever way you look at it, restarting America’s economic conveyor belt could be a momentous moment.

[email protected], @jburnmurdoch