ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the economic outcomes of households headed by young adults in the USA using basic measures of their well-being. It explore whether Millennials in the USA are in more dire financial straits than members of Generation X, the Baby Boom, and the Silent generation were when they were young. The chapter uses household income data for the US Census Bureau, as well as other indicators of household well-being (education, poverty, wealth) to assess whether Millennials are faring better than prior generations when they were the same age as today’s Millennials. The chapter finds that Millennial households are not faring much differently than previous generations when they were young adults. However, the overall outcomes of Millennials conceal large differences within this generation. Households headed by college-educated Millennials are doing significantly better than college-educated Boomer households were in 1980. Less-educated Millennial households are faring worse than earlier generations of similarly educated households. The author concludes that the shift toward a knowledge economy that places a premium on higher education manifests itself in the diverse economic outcomes of today’s young adult households.
