On: The War on the Young

[jsm386]

Young people today will most likely become the first generation in US history not to surpass their parents' living standards.

I've seen this phrase, in various versions, in lots of places over the past few months. Is this a new proposition, or was the idea floated (incorrectly) during the Great Depression or the 1970s oil crisis/stagflation downturn?

[kiba → jsm386]

Maybe the economy will manages to weaseled their way out despite the huge obstacles that has been placed in front of it.

It look like the government is doing everything it can to make the obstacle even higher and thicker though.

[DanielBMarkham → jsm386]

This is a new idea. The current generation is the first generation that everybody thinks will not do as well as the preceding one.

During all of the economic problems of the past, polls consistently shown that people, as bad as things were, expected their kids to have a better financial life than their own. This is no longer true.

[shawndrost → DanielBMarkham]

Citation?

[DanielBMarkham → shawndrost]

Can't easily find the historical evidence, but here's the current data: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/311/once-again-the-future-aint-w...

Note that the data is different depending on whether you ask "will children do as well as their parents?" or "will your children do as well as their parents?"