Now That Millennials Are Rich, Whom Will Pundits Pity Next?

Millennials will be richest generation in the history of the richest nation in the history of the world. If you recognize the previous assertion, then you have a good memory. It was argued in my 2018 book The End of Work, which in reality had a much better working title, The End of Laziness.

The book made a case that a globalized division of labor between humans and machines was setting the stage for an impressive present and future of work. In particular, the jobs of the present and future would more and more reflect the unique skills and intelligence of everyone on the way to work becoming an expression of passion, as opposed to something we have to do in order to pay the bills.

The book was partially a response to the popular view that millennials were lazy, entitled, ironic, and primed for unproductive, non-remunerative lives defined by greatly reduced economic opportunity borne of past policy errors. The chapter predicting millennials would be the richest generation yet was easy to write as there was little insight to the prediction. Of course it came true.

According to a recent front-page report by Wall Street Journal reporters Joe Pinsker and Veronica Dagher. “Millennials are now wealthier than previous generations were at their age. They can’t believe it either.”

That millennials perhaps can’t believe their fortune isn’t surprising only insofar as non-millennials were so confident millennials had little to look forward to. As the late Robert Samuelson wrote in the Washington Post back in 2011, “A specter haunts America: downward mobility. Every generation, we believe, should live better than its predecessors”, but “For young Americans, the future could be dimmer.”

In 2014 National Review’s excellent Kevin Williamson disappointingly observed in “Generation Vexed” (a cover story about “downwardly mobile Millennials”) that: “They may communicate with smiley faces and 140-character bursts of text, but Millennials still have sufficient command of the English language to comprehend the fact that they’re getting, in the words of an earlier and happier and more fortunate generation, hosed.” Williamson’s analysis somehow concluded that among other things, budget deficits were laying a wet blanket on millennial opportunity, which was a non sequitur. Indeed, while deficit spending in no way stimulates economic growth (to believe it does is to suggest central planning of resources boosts production), it’s a certain market signal of a prosperous present and future for your country. About the prosperity part, if you’re confused look up the debt of Peru, or Zimbabwe, or Russia. 

The main thing is that what made my prediction so simple were the critiques of millennials, along with the economic outlook that supposedly doomed them. Regarding entitlement and ease of life, that’s long described every young generation in the United States. It’s a sign of progress such that society is turning formerly scarce necessities and luxuries into common goods. Young people naturally expect more, but precisely because they can, they’re increasingly free to pursue narrow specialties that uniquely elevate their earning capacity.

On the economics front, it will be said again that government spending and debt in no way boosts growth. At the same time, the richer the country the greater the opportunity within, and a country with debt as vast as the U.S.’s must be incredibly rich.

After that, missed by both Samuelson and Williamson (and many others) was that their gloomy outlook for millennials was the surest sign the millennial outlook was brilliant. Both pundits glossed over that they were repeating what pundits have said about American youth as long as there has been American youth, only for predictions of doom to paradoxically signal progress. In other words, a society luxurious enough to be defined by indolence and sloth in youth must be one full of people delaying adulthood because they can. But when they become adults, they enhance or replace all the advances that are commonplace to them on the way to a much better future, and much greater wealth.

Yes, it’s once again called progress. We’ll know the future is actually bad if America’s young are ever the opposite of spoiled and entitled. This state of being can always be found in the world’s poorest countries where, per Samuelson, “the future could be dimmer.” His problem was that he, like Williamson, was writing about the United States.

Republished from RealClear Markets

Author

  • John Tamny

    John Tamny is a popular speaker and author in the U.S. and around the world. His speech topics include "Government Barriers to Economic Growth," "Why Washington and Wall Street are Better Off Living Apart," and more.

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