It Sucks to Be 33

from New York Times I'm Michael babo. this is the. [Music]. daily today a massive microgeneration of. babies born in the early 1990s have. ended up in a lifelong competition for. everything that is shaping both their. lives and the entire US economy for. better or worse my colleague Gina smik.

is one of. [Music]. [Applause]. them it's Thursday March. [Music]. 14th hi Gina hi Michael how's it going. it's going all right I'm excited for. this conversation about you about PE. millennials.

so we usually come to you to talk about. the biggest Trends in the US economy we. talk to you about what the Federal. Reserve is up to interest rates being. raised interest rates being lowered the. state of inflation but today is. different as as I'm hinting at this is. going to be a conversation focused on. you and people like you oh man makes me. sound like a narcissist which I guess is. somewhat. appropriate well so just tell us how you. came to this yeah so I am an economics.

reporter and I've always been interested. in demographics and because I've been. covering economics for you know over a. decade at this point one thing that I've. consistently noticed is that every time. I make a really big life decision it. seems like a huge portion of the US. economy has been making that decision. right along with me basically at the. exact same time so for a couple of. concrete examples here the year I bought. a house the housing market just went. absolutely crazy when I rented my first.

apartment rental prices in the city that. I was living in were going up very. sharply when I got married the wedding. industry was having this incredible year. like the strongest year in a generation. isn't that pretty normal because when. you're in a certain stage of Life lots. of people are doing the exact same thing. I mean isn't that very typical no so. what I'm talking about here is something. a little bit different I'm not talking. about within my friend group it seemed. like everyone was doing the same thing. I'm talking about in the actual. statistics everyone was doing the same.

you know I was looking at the enti. economy and realizing that I was kind of. being like the statistical agent like I. was theal in the economy as I went. through it and I realized that that's. actually because I'm part of this really. important cohort of people born in 1990. and 1991 who are turning 33 or 34 this. year and we actually represent the. biggest part of the biggest generation. in the United States just say that one. more time I mean that feels like a. genuinely new piece of information I. just want you to repeat so I can absorb.

it yes so we are the biggest part of the. biggest living generation in America the. people who were born in 1990 and 1991. are the two biggest population years in. the country if you look at it on a chart. you get a little Peak right over 1990. and 1991 and that means that the. millennial generation is sort of skewed. towards people who are now in their. early 30s this population group if you. add 1990 and 1991 together is about 9.5. million people so a pretty large group.

of Americans fascinating and what was it. about 1990 and 1991 that. explains that what was in the water so. to speak these were two really big birth. years a lot of babies were born in 1990. and 1991 in the United States partially. because some of these folks are the. children of the big years of the baby. boo H it was also more than just birth. we had quite a bit of immigration that. added to this generation you know both. in the 199 s and the 2000s I think some.

of sort of the dream kids and then also. some young adults in the time since have. really added to this generation and so. that combination of immigrants and. natural population growth has. contributed to make these two years. really the biggest population years at. the moment so Gina when you had that. Sensation that when you zigged everyone. around you was zigging and when you. zagged everyone around you was zagging. it's because to a certain degree it's. true this huge part of the population. was was mimicking what you were doing.

because there are so many of you right. okay so stepping back what does it mean. for you and for the economy that this. cohort is so large well economics is all. about demand and Supply right and so. what this has meant for the cohort which. I call Peak Millennials you can use. whichever word you prefer is that at. every stage of our economic lives we've. created a lot of demand which the. economy has then had to try to keep up.

with the metaphor that I use which our. colleague and your frequent guest Ben. Castleman helped me come up with is that. this group of people you know my. generation have moved through the. economy sort of like a person squeezing. into a too small sweater H and what does. it look like to try as a cohort to. squeeze into a sweater that is too small. it means that you know right at the. outset it's a little bit uncomfortable. because you're kind of stretching the. sweater out as you get it on.

and then it means that eventually you. leave the sweater a little bit stretched. out a little bit flabby and so the. reason that I got interested in this as. it relates to Millennials is that we're. sort of at this critical juncture and. squeezing the sweater. on these folks are now in the age range. where they're making really big economic. decisions whether that's buying a house. or having kids right and that's really. important for the peak Millennials. obviously but because they're such a big. generation or such a big sub generation. it's also potentially pretty influential.

for the broader United States. economy so I think to really understand. what you're talking about it would help. us to understand what the impact on the. economy has been so far as Peak. Millennials have tried to fit into this. metaphorical sweater so where Gina do. you think we should. start you know I think there are. probably three areas where we can see. this most clearly I think the first one.

and a good place to start is college the. second is the labor market and then the. third is housing so let's start with. Peak Millennials entering college so. when my cohort went off to college we. really stretched the existing system so. rewind this is 2008 and 2009 the Great. Recession is just hit so unemployment is. shooting up and we're seeing even older. people shelter in colleges and. universities to sort of waight out that. re session MH at the same time these.

Peak Millennials are coming in and we're. this huge generation of people and so. between all of that population and the. fact that people are enrolling in. college anyway enrollment just shoots up. institutions that had previously been. able to welcome anybody needed to start. turning applicants away you get stories. about colleges expanding in this period. And so just in general the system is. really sort of trying to accept all of. these very many. applicants then this generation. graduates and in recent years you've.

actually seen Schools starting to close. or merge because they're no longer. serving this massive cohort in some. places that's because there's been this. cultural shift away from college but in. many places it's also about demographics. so Peak Millennials are such an enormous. force in higher education in this period. that higher education literally expands. in some cases and then contracts when. Peak Millennials finish moving through. them they absolutely contribute to that. trend and then they also have this.

really interesting impact when it comes. to student debt so again rewind to 2008. 2009 the job Market's not great people. are going back to school or staying in. school longer and this is also the era. of for-profit colleges which took in a. lot of students and left them with sort. of sometimes dubious credentials but a. lot of student loans and what all of. this means taken together is that a very. big number of people in this very big. age group end up taking out student debt. and student debt actually surpasses. credit card debt as the biggest source.

of debt outside of mortgages during the. years that this microgeneration is in. college so a refuge from a bad economy. doesn't feel like a refuge for a lot of. peak Millennials because they're. accumulating so much debt and what I. guess you're about to tell me is that. because they're entering the economy in. the middle of the Great Recession the. job market is also pretty tricky right. so the people who don't finish college. enter into a very difficult labor market. sort of in the depths of the Great. Recession the people who do finish. college and graduate in say 2012 or 2013.

or somewhere in that neighborhood are. still graduating into a pretty. historically weak labor market because. as you probably remember Michael it was. a very long drawn out recovery from that. very deep recession and so what we get. is the era of Baristas with Bachelor. degrees you know everybody is talking. about the fact that employers sort of. have their pick of the litter when it. comes to entry-level employees which. they do based on the scale of peak. Millennials right yeah there are a ton. of them and the job market is weak and. so there really is a very tough entry.

into the labor market for these people. one that is probably at least at the. margin exacerbated by just how big the. cohort of people is and so what we see. when we look back on this era is that. some Millennials and particularly those. who hadn't finished their college. degrees found that they were earning. less than previous groups had at the. same age right when they entered the. labor market we also see that because. student debt had shot up so much that. student debt to starting salary as sort. of a ratio really shot up during this. period which meant that it could be.

harder for these folks to build wealth. right they're earning less they owe more. thus their ability to do big Financial. things is just going to suffer which I. think of course brings us to housing. right so we've been steadily seeing this. uptick in the age at which people start. to get into the housing market to cite a. statistic that I think illustrates this. the median age of firsttime home buyers. has climbed from something like 31 and. 2013 to about 35 in 2023 so it's just.

really been moving up over this period. four years that's a big leap in what. should be an average that is very hard. to move yes and part of this is again. bad timing a lot of these Peak. Millennials were coming into our 30s. sort of in the wake of the pandemic you. know at a time when housing prices. climbed really really rapidly and then. interest rates starting in 2022 began to. really take off and so that combination. of much higher interest rates and very.

high home prices has meant that. affordability has just been really. difficult at the exact moment that the. peak of the millennial generation began. to look to buy okay so in short the. story that you are telling here about. this cohort your. cohort is that at the exact moment where. they need or want something in this. economy a college degree a first job a. house and when it financially speaking. should make sense for them to want it.

and get it the sheer scale of the cohort. combined with some very powerful. external economic forces like the Great. Recession or a housing crunch High. interest rates means that demand becomes. so great that the thing this cohort. wants becomes incredibly hard to get. that is the unique burden of being part. of this peak Millennial group you all. are essentially crowding each other out.

yes so a lot of this is timing obviously. but it does seem that at least on the. margin it can be that we eat each. other's economic lunch and what that. means is we've seen these big delays. among this cohort and making big. decisions as compared to Generations. they came before and so that when people. joke that we Millennials complain a lot. who would joke that people do people do. Michael and the reality is that the. complaining reflects something. real so many people in this age group.

feel that at every turn of our economic. lives our generation has been behind and. now we're playing. ketchup we'll be right. back so J I want to understand the. long-term implications of this. demographic reality that you have been. describing what is it going to mean for. Peak Millennials and for the rest of the. economy. that your cohort is in the middle of.

this fierce battle for resources and. have been so delayed in so many economic. areas of life so I think there are a few. ways to think about this but I actually. over the course of my reporting met this. man who is in this age group he's 33 and. I think he's kind of this perfect. encapsulation of some of the trends that. we're talking about here and some of the. consequences that result from them okay. so his name is Thomas Stiller he grew up. in Eerie Pennsylvania in a pretty middle.

class family his dad was a teacher and. his mom was a nurse and as he's moved. through adulthood he struggled to. achieve that middle class lifestyle. himself he's got a master's degree in. medical social work but he also has. student loans as a result of that and. that's left him sort of struggling. financially to pay that off and save. money so he currently Works two jobs and. at one point he even took on a third at. a Wendy's drive-thru MH and still you. know he and his wife are struggling to. buy up a house they're struggling to. move some where before they start a.

family and so they've really had to push. back the timeline a little bit and it's. meant that their dreams of you know. buying a house and then eventually. having kids are basically on hold for. now which is a very Vivid consequence. and a very Vivid long-term consequence. of these delays how typical is that of. peak Millennials that this set of. economic delays you have been describing. lead to a decision not to have a family. yeah well we have very clearly seen is.

that fertility Trends have been very low. for the generation you know we have not. had a lot of childbearing among. Millennial women and sort of the age at. first child birth has been going. steadily up and so I think there's a. question of whether that's going to. change but for now what we've seen is is. not a lot of childbearing among this. group and talk to us about why that is. going to matter in the broader. economy so it matters for a whole bunch. of reasons you know when they're are. fewer children there are fewer people in.

the economy which obviously affects the. size of the economy just in a very. mathematical way you know kids involve a. lot of spending people in general. involve a lot of spending they add to. growth and then I think later on there. are really serious potential. consequences because this will impact. what the retirement system looks like. for all of us fewer kids today means. fewer adults in a few you know decades. paying into the social security system. which means that we are obviously going. to have a lot of peak Millennials who.

are retiring at a time when there are. fewer people to sort of pay into the. system that will fund that retirement. right so the reality of peak Millennials. delaying having kids is a genuine. Financial strain on the government. especially it's cherished safety net for. retirees absolutely okay so how else. should we be thinking about the. long-term impacts of all of this so. there is research from back when the. Baby Boomers were the biggest generation.

into how being such a large generation. can affect long-term economic health so. we know from the late Boomers so the. people who were born in the late 1950s. and early 1960s that really big sub. generation that people who entered the. labor market in that generation who. joined sort of a weak job market and. then had a lot of competition. experienced some pretty bad long-term. consequences from that we saw them have. a lot of financial strain we saw them. having elevated levels of homelessness. and those problems really followed them.

for a number of years after they entered. the job market and I asked a lot of. economists about this I said you know. are these baby boomers or these late. Boomers the prototype for Millennials. and I think this is the one place in the. story where we actually run into a. silver lining um which is that Economist. and demographers told me that the. Millennials are probably better off than. those late baby boomers because while. the generations are actually kind of. similar in size Millennials are actually. a little bit bigger what you see is that. those Boomers represented a huge jump in.

size relative to the generation that had. come just before whereas Millennials. represent a jump in size relative to the. generation just before but not as big of. a jump and so it's that differential. that matters it's how much the sweater. has to stretch relative to how big it is. you know in the Boomer's case it went. from being an extra small fitting onto a. giant and in the Millennials case it. went from being an extra large and had. to fit onto a giant and so I think that. that size differential has been really. really important and so what Economist. will tell you is that there are some.

reasons to hope that while Millennials. are clearly doing things later while. there has obviously been Financial. strain caused by sort of timing also. potentially generational size. Millennials might end up okay in the end. you know we are seeing these folks. managed to build wealth you know it's. taken them a while but in in recent. years we've seen them really start to. amass wealth in stocks wealth in. retirement accounts we're seeing them. have very low unemployment rates you. know there are signs that these folks. are finally finding their footing in in. the labor market and in the economy as a.

whole so I think you know again it Bears. reiterating that this generation has. been very delayed in a lot of economic. developments but the late is not. necessarily entirely derailed right but. in the meantime this cohort will still. be delayed in marching through the. economy and as it uncomfortably. stretches out the sweater the metaphor. we've been beating to death in this. episode and I wonder what that's going. to mean for the rest of us those of was. not in Peak Millennial or perhaps even.

at all millennial generation you know in. some ways there are positives here in. the labor market for example the latter. part of gen z may actually benefit from. having such a comparatively small. graduating class so when they get to the. point that they're replacing these. Millennials this very big generation. they'll actually be coming into a. situation where the sweater is a little. bit roomier than it previously was and. so they could actually benefit in the. labor market from that the people coming. up behind Peak Millennials are going to.

have more opportunity because Peak. Millennials were so big a couple of. economists suggested that to me yeah I. think there's also another really big. negative one for that demographic though. which is that they're going to be. competing with Millennials in the. housing market so just given the sheer. generational numbers we know that these. folks these Millennials in particular. the peak Millennials are going to be. competing for entrylevel homes for. pretty much years to come and so I think. what we see from analyses from. economists and from the government. is the demand for entry level single.

family homes is likely to remain really. high for basically the rest of the. decade as a result so a lot of. competition in the housing market and. then you know as with all things I think. there's probably a political Dimension. to this you know I think that I I talked. to a lot of people anecdotally for this. story it wasn't wasn't just a data. reporting project and when you talk to. people in this generation you will often. hear that they feel a little bit. disillusioned by how this has played out. you know they don't feel great about the. fact they strling to hit some of those. sort of Financial and economic.

Milestones that people in our parents. generation for example hit at much. earlier stages right or earlier years. and so you know to return to the man. that I had quoted earlier Thomas Stiller. from Pennsylvania you know he was. telling me that he just feels like. something has kind of gone wrong and he. actually told me that he blames. capitalism he feels like we're in the. system where wealth and the means of. obtaining it have become really. concentrated and few hands and he was. telling me that he's actually always. been a Democrat but he just doesn't even.

know that he can votee for anyone in. this election and there's this real. sense of disillusionment and so I think. there's you know the both the Practical. consequences but then also sort of these. like less economic but more sociological. potential points of Fallout from the. size of this generation right what you. just said very much Jes with polling. we've seen over the past few months from. the times and elsewhere showing that. younger Americans are drifting away. especially from President Biden. because they don't think the system is.

working and it seems like this fellow. you talk to very much reinforces that. through his own very frustrating. experiences in the economy yeah I think. that's the case and I think it it was. really interesting to me while reporting. this story to hear some of those. frustrations echoed over and over again. so Gina this of course all started with. you wanting to better understand your. own demographic you are Peak Millennial.

so now that you've done all this. reporting talk to all these people how. are you thinking about what it means to. be a member of this group do you feel. like you better understand yourself now. and what is that. understanding you know I think growing. up in this generation you read so many. think pieces about the many things that. Millennials were accused of killing and. I think you watched a lot of TV segments. about how we weren't buying houses.

because we were busy eating avocado. toast and I think a lot of the tone was. that there was maybe something wrong. with us you know that we had somehow. gone ay or made some bad choices and. that that was having an after effect in. our economic. lives and I think that sort of all of. that Fierce attention and and all of. that focus on this generation happened. because of our sheer size and also the. timing with which we hit at these really. important junctures in the economy where.

we sort of exacerbated some challenges. that already. existed and so put very simply I think. we kind of are the problem but it's not. our. [Music]. fault well Gina thank you very much we. appreciate it thank you for having. me.

we'll be right. back here's what else you need to. another day this week John Barnett a. former quality manager at Boeing who. accused the company of engaging in. unsafe manufacturing practices on its.

passenger planes was found dead with. what appeared to be a self-inflicted. gunshot. wound we talked with Barnett who went by. the nickname swampy in 2019 Boeing was. the place I mean they were the place to. work you know speaking to my colleague. Natalie KF Barnett recounted how his. original Pride at being a Boeing worker. had turned into disillusionment and oh. my God I it was amazing when I put that.

boing shirt on how my chest puffed out. you know I'd walk into the store around. here and they're like oh you are for. boing that is is awesome and thank y'all. so much and you're just mean so much to. this area you know wow and it was just. awesome and it's. [Music]. just we don't have that anymore here. Barnett said he felt obligated to become. a whistleblower after witnessing what he.

described as rushed and shoddy work at. the Boeing factory in Charleston South. Carolina where he worked claims that. Boeing disputes I just think it's. critically important that the activities. going on within boing are made aware to. the people whose lives could be affected. you know is a quality manager at Boeing. you're the last line of defense before a. defect makes it out to the Flying public.

that's a huge responsibility to many. Barnett's accusations which began in. 2017 now seem pre safety problems have. plagued Boeing ever since including the. crash of two Boeing 737s in 2018 and. 2019 and the blowout of a fuselage panel. on an Alaska Airlines flight 2 months. ago Barnett died in Charleston on. Saturday he was scheduled to finish a. deposition that day for a lawsuit in.

which he accused Boeing of retaliating. against him for becoming a. whistleblower today's episode was. produced by Will Reed and AA chv with. help from Kate lesty it was edited by. Mark George with help from Patricia. willins contains a original music by. Alicia bitup Maran Lozano Rowan nisto. Cory shrep and Dan Powell and was. engineered by Chris Wood our theme music.

is by Jim brunberg and Ben laner of. wonderly that's it for the daily I'm. Michael babbaro see you. tomorrow.