Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life

[Calista241]

Source: USA Today

SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) — Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.

With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.

The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

The generational gap is a central dilemma for the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, who essentially pledged a return to the prosperity of post-World War II America. The analysis also hints at the issues of culture and identity that divided many voters, showing that white millennials — who still earn much more than their blacks and Latino peers — have seen their incomes plummet the most relative to boomers.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/13/millennials-falling-behind-boomer-parents/96530338/

[TeamPooka]

1. 1980's-forward GOP plans have been a success then.

[guillaumeb]

2. So if millenials must work far longer, for less benefits,

it is more likely that they will die on the job, thereby lessening the burden on Social Security.

[LisaM]

3. This doesn't track with my own personal experience at all.

However, I'm a late Boomer. (I think that there is a pretty distinct difference between early and late Boomers). I graduated from college during the Reagan years. The job market was terrible. Own my own house at age 28? Hell, I don't even own a house now, and have never had the wherewithal to do so. I have an English degree and worked at a daycare for four years.

I sympathize with the plight of the underemployed, but I don't like being pitted against millennials at every turn. I did not ride a gravy train of big pay for easy-to-find jobs. And I know a lot of Boomers in the same boat.

[Yo_Mama]

4. Late boomers (I'm in your boat, so I understand), align more w/ millennials.

It's also rather dependent on the exact bracket in which one entered the job market - those caught in the 80-83 mess never did catch up.

This trend has been developing over time, and slowly getting worse.

[JenniferJuniper]

6. Some call us Generation Jones

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones

I ain't no boomer and Gen X doesn't fit either.

But I interviewed a millennial today, and I'm definitely not one of them either.

[LisaM]

7. Yes, or "Tweeners"

I just cringe every time I see an article like this. Geeze, I lived in shared housing (and a couple of stints with my parents) until my late 20s, just rented a room in a house with friends. I briefly had my own (studio) apartment, which I loved, but I had to give it up to pay tuition.

[Yo_Mama]

9. All non-trustfund kids did that in the 80s that I knew.

We all did it. Apartments were expensive; renting a house and packing in was the norm for younger people with jobs. Even after we got good jobs, we did it to pay off loans/save for future.

[LisaM]

13. Exactly. I remember running out of money between paychecks, too.

I paid my bills but then I'd live on things like potato chips and oranges for two days. And like many of us, I either didn't make long-distance calls or waited until 11:00 pm to do it!

But, I know millennials have their own challenges, which I'm not trying to disparage. I just wish they'd lay off me.

[TexasBushwhacker]

35. And most of us who had some savings got hit by the dot com

bubble AND the 2008 crash. Plenty of us are sandwich generation too, having taken care of our parents while our kids were at home. As a Joneser, I did NOT keep up. In fact, my best earning year was 2003.

[LisaM]

38. The only time I had huge income jumps was the 90s

I don't think Bill Clinton was perfect on all the issues but those were good times for me.

[Hoyt]

10. Ten years earlier a lot of people were caught up with Vietnam. My draft number was so low

that for a couple of years no major employer would even offer an interviews. Probably just as well since most employers for my training were involved in war production.

But, there's no question that good jobs were easier to come by decades ago and younger people have to switch jobs and careers more often from the start nowadays.

I think the implications in the article for all generations are a problem. Truthfully, it was kind of stupid to think every generation would do better than the one before.

[raccoon]

43. Thank you. ITA it's much harder to find a "good" job than it used to be. There have been

fewer and fewer of them over the years.

Truthfully, it was kind of stupid to think every generation would do better than the one before.

Fewer and fewer jobs offer medical insurance. If we had Medicare for all, that would help a great deal.



I

[etherealtruth]

11. I was borne in the 1960s .... we have nothing in common with the baby boomers

[YOHABLO]

25. If you are within 1946 to 1964 you are a baby boomer.

[Doreen]

29. So what is a person born in 1967?

[TexasBushwhacker]

36. Generation X n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. It's the Late Boomers that are being compared with Early Millennials

Those 25-34 in 1989 - ie born 1955-64 - with those 25-34 in 2013 - ie born 1979-88. 1965 onwards is 'Generation X', by most definitions.

If you take a typical graduation age as 22, these Boomers graduated 1977-86 - pretty much the Reagan years.

As always, these analyses are looking at the whole country. Each individual's life has been different.

[progree]

8. Also 56% less net worth (all numbers adjusted for inflation)

Last edited Sat Jan 14, 2017, 03:33 PM - Edit history (9)

selected excerpts...

With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.

Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

The analysis of the Fed data shows the extent of the decline. It compared 25 to 34 year-olds in 2013, the most recent year available, to the same age group in 1989 after adjusting for inflation.

The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 percent less than it was for boomers.

This decline has occurred even though younger Americans are increasingly college-educated. The proportion of 25 to 29 year-olds with a college degree has risen to 35.6 percent in 2015 from 23.2 percent in 1990, a report this month by the Brookings Institution noted.

More: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/millennials-falling-behind-boomer-parents-080144745.html

My own perspective is that of an early boomer. I had to go into military service (the Navy) to keep from being drafted into going to Vietnam, though I am not a military kind of guy. Then when I got out and looked for a real civilian job, in 1976- early 1977, the unemployment rate was 7.5%, and I had almost given up. Then we had inflation build from like 7% to 13% over the next few years (with super-high interest rates and housing prices climbing into the stratosphere), followed by a super-recession with the unemployment rate peaking at 10.8% -- even worse than the peak unemployment rate of the Great Recession (10.0%)

Official Unemployment rate https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000


So yeah, we had a quite a few very difficult years. That said, I think today's young have it worse, and I feel bad for them. For one thing, college tuition was much much less for us, and few of my cohorts had a big student loan burden. I think that's a big factor holding down today's young.

Also back then, people with high school or less education could often get a good paying job (especially if white), today that's virtually impossible.

Back then, there were actually career jobs with pensions. Now we have a lot of gigs and mostly self-pensioning via 401k's.

And those bad years were followed by OK years and then the Clinton boom when 22 million net new jobs in 8 years. But since 1999 we've had 2 severe crashes followed by recoveries that barely almost got us back to where we were before.

Millennials face higher Social Security and Medicare taxes (or fewer benefits) thanks to ever declining worker-to-retiree ratios (even if the Republicans don't fuck with it), and will have to deal with global warming in a serious way or perish. I hope to be dead from natural causes before it really gets bad.

And a world with more nuclear weapons states with the means to deliver them long distance. I only have to hope that nothing goes wrong during the next 20, maybe 30 years. Millennials have to hope nothing goes wrong during the next 50-70 years.

[progree]

12. Trends in Family Wealth, 1989 to 2013, CBO, August 2016

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51846-Family_Wealth.pdf

The analysis for this report used data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial survey of U.S. families
sponsored by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in cooperation with the Department of the
Treasury. In some places, those data were supplemented with information from Forbes magazine’s list of the nation’s
wealthiest 400 people.

Unless otherwise specified, all dollar amounts are reported in thousands of 2013 dollars. Family wealth over time is
adjusted for inflation using the price index for personal consumption expenditures as calculated by the Bureau of
Economic Analysis.

As far as income:

(1) See the Appendix: Data, Measures of Wealth, and Previous Analyses of Income

(2) In the past, CBO has examined trends in the distribution of income. See for example, Congressional Budget Office, The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2013 (June 2016), pp. 21–24, http://www.cbo.gov/publication/51361 .

=====================================================

In case anyone wants to dig into this. Its the same Survey of Consumer Finances that is the source of much of the report in the OP.

[enid602]

31. NET WORTH

"The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 percent less than it was for boomers." That means that the median net worth of boomers is about $22k. Good luck trying to retire on $22K.

[progree]

33. They are comparing the net worth of 25-34 year olds in 2013 to that of 25-34 year olds in 1989

and adjusting for inflation (all numbers are expressed in 2013 dollars).

Very disappointing that 25-34 year olds in 2013 have 56% less net worth than 25-34 year olds did in 1989 (in 2013 dollars).

But no, boomers today have a heck of a lot more net worth than $22K (and in 2013).

Here's one snip --

The median net worth for U.S. households headed by people aged 55 to 64 was almost 8 percent lower, at $143,964, than those 75 and older in 2011
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-02/baby-boomers-poorer-in-old-age-than-their-parents

although still not good at all

I'll fix my "networth" misspelling.

[font color = blue]>>"The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 percent less than it was for boomers."
That means that the median net worth of boomers is about $22k. Good luck trying to retire on $22K. <<[/font]

[TexasBushwhacker]

37. My guess is that for a lot of boomers, that $143K net worth is mostly house n/t

[madville]

14. I have mixed feelings

My dad is a Boomer, I grew up watching him work 80 weeks during the week and then we were always on the go on the weekends, his energy to do things is endless, the guy can't sit still to this day. Both my granddads were the same, one was a farmer, the other a union electrician, work non-stop then play non-stop in their off time.

I love doing nothing. I want to work as little as possible and then in my off time do as little as possible. Saying that, I started working in a union environment at 18 years old in the 90's, made good money working 60-80 weeks, bought a house with a FHA loan, was married at 19 with a kid, etc. Got divorced at a point, had no money, sold everything, kept working, found a niche, kept working, bought another house, built some financial security. You know what? I still love doing absolutely nothing.

I've done ok, easily make good money, working in a technical field as long as I'm willing to work the hours, travel, and/or be on call.

I do get irritated with some younger folks though, maybe it's just being middle age but it's a pain in the ass finding people willing to work and sacrifice their time in exchange for money. Throw in needing people to pass a drug test, have decent credit and an explainable arrest record to get a security clearance, and show up to work regularly and it gets even tougher.

I sympathize with them though because I don't want to be doing any of this stuff either.

[msongs]

15. what % of time at "work" does the avg millenial spend on cell phones or net surfing on the clock nt

[JenniferJuniper]

17. I won't talk about an entire generation

but I manage five of them, and two are so seriously addicted to their phones that I had to tell them this week that they could not go near them during work hours. Put the ringer on in case someone needs to reach you in an emergency and leave it in your purse/desk. I hate treating them like 4 year olds but it's bad.

They would quite literally text or surf on their phone the entire day. Talking to customers and texting at the same time. Talking to co-workers and texting at the same time. In meetings and texting the entire time.

I'm not exaggerating.

The other three are mostly fine, but these two have a serious problem that is probably going to cost them their livelihoods very soon.

I know other managers who will not hire anyone under 35. Reverse age discrimination? I don't know.

[hibbing]

20. Texting in meetings

I guess I'm just turning into Get Off My Lawn Guy, but it bothers me. I would never in my life be texting during a meeting. Now it seems that is acceptable behavior. Hell,even my boss boss, who I think is in her late 40s texts during meetings.


Peace

[JenniferJuniper]

21. I want to know what is so interesting

in their lives that they need to convey what's happening every blessed moment to someone. In writing. To the point that they completely ignore the real live people right next to them.

But then how can you actually have a life if all you do is send messages all day through a little rectangle?

[TransitJohn]

28. Sort of like how the older crowd here rushes to DU to post what they're watching on TV

All day every day. Ugh.

[JenniferJuniper]

30. Not really.

I'm talking about nearly 30 year old people who cannot move their fingers away from their phones for long enough to get an hours worth of work in during the day.

So, kind of a false equivalency I'd say.

[TransitJohn]

32. An hour a day?

Whatever you say.

[JenniferJuniper]

39. Yep. An hour a day.

but of course you don't have to believe me. Try the old Google machine for further anecdotes and stats.

The phone addiction problem is a known issue with many millennials, and I'm trying to get these people to get their work done in midst of it. This is something I have not experienced as in 25 years of management. A couple of my direct reports will be likely losing their jobs soon because they can't seem to control it. They make at least 60k a year.

This is quite different from the doddering old people you think spend too much time telling people out here what's going on in the news. Frankly, as someone who does work all day, I appreciate the heads up so I know what to watch later when I have an hour or two to watch TV.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. Not at all alike. Watching TV is another leisure activity, which it has always been possible

(or at least attempted) to combine with something else (I can remember growing up getting annoyed with my parents when they said "hang on, who's that?" in the middle of some TV drama, because they were trying to read a book at the same time as keep an eye on the TV plot).

Texting something non-work-related in the middle of a meeting is nothing at all like how you choose to spend your leisure time. You might compare it to people who doodle during meetings, I suppose.

[TransitJohn]

27. Less than the over 60 set, in my experience

They're at least focused and on-point in meetings, and produce deliverables much quicker, too. The older workers, by and large, are playing Bejeweled constantly, and show up unprepared to meetings, not even having read the pre-distributed agendas. This Gen Xer would rather work with a Millenial than a Boomer, by and large.

[JenniferJuniper]

40. Fire them then. As I'll

have to fire a few 20 somethings who can't get their jobs done because for some reason they cannot get their fingers off the friggin' telegraph machine.

[YOHABLO]

16. I hate to say it but: millennials need to get their ass out and vote progressive. At least vote.

If we don't take the Senate this time around, then kiss your dream house goodbye.

[Auggie]

42. +1

[FrodosNewPet]

18. There's more middle aged people than young at temp labor jobs

Born in the early 60s, blue collar... almost everyone blames you for everything. Millennials blame you for stealing"their" jobs. Older boomers blame you for not being as prosperous as them.

It's getting harder and harder not to just say"Screw it all, I surrender, it's your mess to clean up"

[azmom]

19. I bought my first home when I was 27. When my

Daughter told me she felt that she would never be able to afford a home, I almost cried.

She's in her third year of college and many of her recent graduated friends are unemployed and couch surfing. She fears that may happen to her too.

It's all so sad. When I graduated from college, I found a job within a month of graduating.

[JenniferJuniper]

23. Markets are high most places now but

they cycle. I never thought I'd be able buy a house either, but a market crash allowed me to buy a 3 bedroom 2 bath townhouse 12 miles from Boston for 93k in '93 (easy to remember).

I had graduated from college in '84 and it took me 9 months to find a full time job.

She's just a kid. If she does her research and is willing to start at a bottom rung and work hard, with a little timing luck she'll have a house. Not that home-ownership is necessarily all that it's cracked up to be.

I hear Gen Z is expected to be an industrious generation.

[pstokely]

44. over saturation of college grads

too many people being pushed to go to college when some people might be better off going to a votech program

[bettyellen]

22. And older Xers and Boomers get laid off when they're too highly

And replaced by people who'll ask a whole lot less.
Payscales have plunged in a lot of industries. Don't envy any of us.

[Skittles]

24. and they have more bills

cell phones, cable, computers, virus protection, etc

[Warpy]

26. Older boomers like me started work while the New Deal was in effect

The late 70s and double digit inflation from the oil shocks with no indexing of the minimum wage to inflation started the decline of US wages. We've now had 40+ years of seeing wages go up slowly but purchasing power decline rapidly.

I am not surprised by this statistic. I am angry. I hope Millennials are.

[DonCoquixote]

34. when people wonder why millennial's don't vote

they need to look at statistics like this. There is nothing more discouraging than knowing right from the get-go that you will start at a disadvantage even if you did everything that you were supposed to do. It's all very cute to go ahead and say "those kids are on their phones too much" or various other clichéd hired stereotypes of millennial's. The truth is these kids know that they are starting off with their future damaged, to say nothing of the old age that they have to look forward to once global warming kicks in.

I understand that some boomers are among the strongest fighters for true social justice and true economic justice. I know that some of them have never stopped fighting the good fight, even in the 80s and 90s, where they would've been lauded for "changing with the times." However there is a faction among baby boomers of both left and right that is made it abundantly clear that the world is still going to revolve around them. It is no accident that right after we have the first generation X/Jones president that the election gets turned right back to the baby boomers. And yes, millennial's will vote for a baby boomer, ask those that were willing to vote for Bernie Sanders.

If I seem harsh, that is because the GOP is doing one thing that we need to do ASAP, they are looking at and promoting 40 to 50 somethings and even younger. yes, Trump made fun of Marco Rubio, but you know he is prime for 2020, especially if half the stuff that Trump has been accused of actually gets proven. On the Democratic side, who do we have that is not a baby boomer? Yes we have Cory Booker, Kemala Harris. And? And? The fact is, going into 2020, we do not have a group back and really call out to both Gen X and the millennial's. Perhaps the closest one might be Al Franken. I am not saying that whoever we run in 2020 needs to be a Gen X why millennial. Hell, even if they had to put Bernie Sanders on a life-support machine he would still be more functional than Donald Trump. What I am saying is that we need to cultivate a backbench of good clear talent that will be our first step to taking Congress back, and Gov.'s mansion's back, which will not only be the step we need to take the White House back, but to make sure that our party does not yet tied down in gas lighted courtesy of the billionaires paid thugs a.k.a. the Congress.

But I'm afraid that some people will look at this article and be convinced that everything is just fine. If I wanted to seek of vanity platform which I knew would not yield any practical results and which I knew would lose the election every damn time, I would be hanging out with the greens. However I am not, because I know that however noble it is to lose an election for the right reasons (sarcasm) that we are the only people standing between the new barbarians and a more humane world, and if we don't do the hard work, the honest work of listening to people, and making clear actions based on that listening, yes we will be held responsible for what is not done!

Not all baby boomers will live to see global warming begin, or wars based on water resources, or famine or all the nice little futures to come but used to be bad science-fiction. Do keep in mind some of them will, and they will be asked by their children and grandchildren how they managed to leave this type of world to them.

[JenniferJuniper]

41. So they can't vote because

"knowing right from the get-go that you will start at a disadvantage even if you did everything that you were supposed to do."

What?

People of any age who didn't vote own Trump.

[pstokely]

45. boomer politicians don't appeal to them

Obama isn't a boomer, Bernie isn't either, HRC and tRump are, many boomers supported raygun

[crazycatlady]

54. How many millennials are in Congress?

When I checked the ages of Congress (a few years ago) there were more MOC born in the 30s than the 80s. There are even a few from the 20s. And many of the presidential candidates we're discussing for 2020 are already in their 70s or will be then. It is time for the Boomers (and Silents) to step aside and let their children actually have a fighting chance.

My POS Congressman was first elected in 1980 at the age of 29. (Assuming an open seat) today if a 29 yo ran in the same district for the same seat, he or she would have no chance. If 29 yo Joe Biden were running for his Senate seat today, he wouldn't stand a chance.

I'm in my mid 30s. When my parents (boomers) were my age, they had a house, took vacations, had new cars, good jobs that have pensions (extinct for people born in the 80s). Now all of the new houses I see being built are restricted to 55 and over. So it is like another giant fuck you coming from the older generation. If houses were only being built for under 55, there'd be a slew of lawsuits. But it's somehow legal to discriminate against people younger than baby boomers.

I am surrounded by incredibly affluent baby boomers (I used to work at a bank, I saw their account balances) who's attitude is 'I got mine, fuck you." While canvassing, I've heard things like "my kids are grown and gone, I shouldn't have to pay a dime in school taxes." I see the same attitude in my parents quite frequently. It is worse with their friends.

Yet these same boomers are always asking why we won't grow up and buy houses, finance or lease cars, have kids, etc? Well go fuck yourself with a pair of rusty scissors.

The rug has been being pulled away from under us our entire lives. And all you do is bitch about it because god forbid we have our one pleasure (our phones).

[IronLionZion]

46. Several factors affecting homeownership

people move more often now than before. Buying doesn't make sense if one won't live in a city for more than a year or 2.

Young people like to live in cities, which are expensive.

I can't even begin to describe how I feel about having to drive 4 hours each day in 2 large American cities of heavy traffic or how many people think I must be mentally challenged somehow for having done it. Young people like to spend less hours commuting to work each day. I've been told that an intellectually superior person would walk to work.

Young people place increasing important on experiences like travel instead of buying stuff. Home ownership is expensive not only to buy the home but to maintain and repair stuff. I spend way too much money fixing plumbing/electrical problems and appliances. I had to replace my heater this past fall when it died. My air conditioner is going to die soon and electricity bills have been getting out of control.

[Chicago1980]

47. That's because dumbass boomer parents vote against

Their and their childrens own best interests.

Most of these parents and their parents had unions to help with wages and what not, now these people are voting to destroy the very thing that helped them build a comfortable lifestyle.

[hollowdweller]

48. I graduated college 1983. There were NO good jobs.

My wife and I had been a couple since 1980, but we did not want to get married till we both had living wage jobs.

She was working at a garden center and I was working making donuts with 2 college degrees in 1984.

She got a job with the Health Dept that paid a living wage but it took me another year to get a job with Disability doing disability claims before we could get married and start out life together.

We bought an old farm. We were so traumatized by our inability to find jobs we bought a place that we could still afford if one of us was making min wage. So we were 25 then.

We paid it off in 2000 and then we both retired at 55. We don't make a lot of money retired but we have always avoided debt.

You'd think from what I've said so far I'd be pimping working hard and personal responsibility.

However the kids I worked with at the end, at my job. I figured it out using an inflation calculator and the kids now earn 3500 less than I did at the same stage, plus they have one less holiday and the free healthcare at retirement I get was eliminated from later hires. OK then property here is way more expensive than it was when we were young.

So my student debt was minimal. Couple thousand. Property was cheaper. My salary was proportionately more.

I feel sorry for kids today. I do blame the boomers for basically not realizing how we benefitted from an actual society that encouraged moving up and eliminating that for their kids and grandkids. In my old job instance the opposition to more taxes is directly linked to hardworking kids now not earning as much or getting as many benefits as my wife and I did.

Oh and my first job in 1976 I earned min wage, $2.30 an hour, with inflation that would be like 9.55 today. So even kids earning min wage earn way less.

WORK DOES NOT PAY NOW.

[True Dough]

51. Thoughtful post

I'm wondering, in light of what you've written, how you feel about the concept of guaranteed basic income, which some countries are experimenting with?

[shrike]

52. I felt your pain. I was there, too.

Graduated in 1982. People who weren't there had no idea what it was like.

I escaped by becoming self-employed, but also through a bit of luck: my beloved father died and left me some money, and I married a union guy who'll leave me a pension if he goes first. I feel the same way about work as you do. I, too, feel sorry for today's kids.

[Cal Carpenter]

53. Sad to me that statistics and analysis can't even be taken

at face value and discussed with clarity and empathy here. Instead they become a reason to perpetuate cultural generation gap bullshit. It is a fact that, economically, shit is continuing to get worse and this is a systemic reality, not a result of life choices. Many younger people are pretty well fucked and will likely have a harder time than previous generations digging out of the hole and finding some stability or security as they get older and reach middle age. Exceptions and anecdotes don't disprove it. And at the end of the day we are all in this together so 'the old boomers left us with shit' and the 'these kids today have it so easy' is NOT fucking helpful.

Signed,

A Gen Xer (a group which apparently isn't even worth mentioning in the article, although we are quite famously the so-called first generation to have it shittier than our parents.)

[Calista241]

55. I agree, this whole "shit was hard for me too" posts.

Is perhaps why we find ourselves locked out of govt for the foreseeable future.

[Willie Pep]

56. Millennials definitely have their struggles.

But as others here have mentioned, things weren't so great in the 1970s or the 1980s either. I am an older Millennial but I don't think it makes sense to bash Baby Boomers, which is a popular thing for some people in my generation. I know plenty of Boomer parents who are helping out their Millennial children by letting them live at home and save money while they work, for example. Also I notice that there are a lot of Boomers and Gen Xers who lost good jobs in the recession and are stuck in low-wage work due to age discrimination, if they could even find a job at all.

Pitting the generations against each other is a tactic that is pushed by moneyed interests who want people to fight each other instead of taking on the rich and powerful. Class is probably a more important factor here anyway. Of the Millennials I know those who came from upper or upper middle-class households are doing very well while those from middle or working-class households are struggling.