Due to today’s economy, young adults are earning slightly more or slightly less than their moms and dads depending on gender, according to a new poll conducted by the non-profit Young Invincibles and the think tank, Demos. However, according to a separate study, all young adults are more likely to have a difficult time making their way to a middle-class income than their parents.
Young Adults Encounter Gender and Age Income Disparity
According to the study, many of young adults are facing income disparity across genders and compared to older generations. The Young Invincibles study looked at wage data for 25- to 34-year-olds in 2010 as compared to the wages of the same age group in 1980. The data found that women have experienced slight growth in their income of $1.17 for every $1 their moms earned 30 years prior.
Men, however, were not as lucky. The research shows that young men are actually earning 10 cents per hour less than their fathers did 30 years ago.
Overall, the study found that, given social and economic trends over the past three decades, the young women are faring slightly better than their moms did at the beginning of their careers, largely because of advances for women in the workplace.
On the other hand, young men have fewer opportunities due to the decline of manufacturing, constructions and other male-dominated industries.
Middle-Class Income Earner is More Difficult Today
While young women have been able to experience slight improvements in social and economic status over the past 30 years, a separate study called “The State of Young America” revealed that neither men nor women are having an easy time moving into a middle-class income status.
Tamara Draut, co-author of the report, stated, “In a single generation, it has become harder to either work or educate your way into the middle class.”
High unemployment, the housing market slump, the high cost of college tuition and increasing medical costs are impacting young adults’ ability to find security in their earnings.
Since it seems that much of what encompasses the American Dream—buying a car and house, getting married and starting a family, etc.—are too challenging to reach, a whopping 48 percent of young adults ages 18 to 34 believe their generation will be worse off than their parents, the State of Young America poll found.
With only 22 percent of young adults thinking they’ll fare better and the rest seeing no change at all, young adults’ outlooks on their own futures appears to be grimmer than ever.
