Poor Millennials: We're Screwed

If you're looking for some nice flashy infographics and cute animations, this is the article for you. If you're looking for deeply depressing stats and stories about the millennial generation, this is also the article for you. The Huffington Post plasters this piece with fancy graphics, but the content is dead serious. It paints a bleak picture of the economy for millennials (those born between 1982-2004), from how student debt and housing costs have skyrocketed as wages have fallen. This piece does an extremely thorough job picking apart misconceptions and, more importantly, illustrating the structural factors at work that leave millennials in such dire situations.  

What is different about us as individuals compared to previous generations is minor. What is different about the world around us is profound. Salaries have stagnated and entire sectors have cratered. At the same time, the cost of every prerequisite of a secure existence—education, housing and health care—has inflated into the stratosphere. From job security to the social safety net, all the structures that insulate us from ruin are eroding. And the opportunities leading to a middle-class life—the ones that boomers lucked into—are being lifted out of our reach. Add it all up and it’s no surprise that we’re the first generation in modern history to end up poorer than our parents.

The author goes through job insecurity, the 2008 recession, the war on unions and social welfare programs, the gig economy and "domestic outsourcing", lack of healthcare, and that individuals are often just one injury or illness away from disaster. Housing prices and how retirement is entirely out of reach are also things factoring against us. Thankfully, he also lays out some changes that might stave off collapse, and turn the ship around, so to speak. From rebuilding unions and raising the minimum wage, there are things we can do to remedy some of these issues facing millennials today.