The Young Are Richer Than You Think

The generational story we're often told is simple: Boomers got houses and pensions, Millennials got the short end of the stick with student debt and a sequence of economic crises, and Gen Z got an even worse deal, but at least they got TikTok. The fact that Boomers have more money today than other generations is obviously right. With decades of earning and compounding on their side, comparing Millennials' current wealth with Boomers' only tells us that 35-year-olds have less money than 65-year-olds. Duh. A few years back, Ernie Tedeschi (Head of Economic Insights and Research at Stripe) tweeted an analysis making a more interesting point: Gen Z and Millennials in the US are not poorer than Boomers were at the same age. A narrative violation. Below, I tried to reproduce Tedeschi's analysis using public data from the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances, and extended it beyond Tedeschi's initial look at medians to assess wealth distribution more broadly. Click around to see the numbers…