Young Okies conform to US income trends
O ver beers and brats at Fassler Hall, a group of millennials gather to catch up with each other and perhaps meet a new friend or two.
On this Monday night, the air is cool, the view from Midtown to downtown is clear, and the mood isfree of the angst so often projected onto America’s largest living generation.
“My dad wears a hat with my picture on it,” says Carrie Kerner, a 31-year-old aircraft maintenance officer in the Air Force. “It’s terribly embarrassing.”
She swipes at pictures on her phone, then blows up a photograph of her father donning a green trucker cap with her face emblazoned on the front. Why wouldn’t he be proud? Earning about $60,000 a year, with no debt and enough savings to pay cash for her car, his daughter has financially surpassed where he was ather age.
“Life is great,” Kerner says. “It’s what you make of it.”
It’s a bright sentiment cast into the gloomy stew of research that shows millennials are worse off than their parents and grandparents were at an age when careers used to be defined, families formed and other signposts of adulthood appeared on the horizon, even if faintly.
Only half of American millennials earn more household income at age 30 than their parents did at the same age, says a group of researchers from Stanford University, Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley.
In a December report titled “The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940,” the researchers say absolute income mobility — defined as the fraction of children who earn more than their parents did at age 30 — has fallen from 90 percent of those born in 1940, to 50 percent of children born in the 1980s.
Adjusted for inflation, income mobility has fallen in all 50 states and across the entire income distribution, with families in the middle class hit hardest. Industrial states in the Midwest, such as Michigan and Illinois, have seen the steepest declines.
Researchers attribute the long fall to two factors — lower GDP growth rates and inequality in
the distribution of growth.
“It wasn’t related to any particular administration,” says Robert Fluegge, a predoctoral research fellow at Stanford, in a phone interview. “This is something that has been a consistent decline since 1940. More of the growth is going to fewer and fewer people as time goes on.”
Oklahoma numbers are similar to national trends. In the Sooner State, roughly 51 percent of children born in 1980 earn more than their parents at the same age. That’s compared to about 65 percent among those born in 1960, and about 94 percent for those born in 1940.
“It’s not the worst, compared to other states, but I think it’s really clear that even those kinds of numbers one wouldn’t want to see,” Fluegge says.
A variety of factors can contribute to the decline in income mobility, such as changing technology and the types of jobs available, housing opportunities, the health of children and the neighborhoods in which they grow up, and whether education is innovative and keeps pace with the evolving economy.
“You would think that if the economy is growing in real terms, that people should be beating their parents,” Fluegge says. “We probably won’t get much below 50 percent, unless the economy slows or stagnates. It’s hard to say whether the chance of beating one’s parents will remain constant or increase in the future. A lot of that will depend on forces out of our control.”
Putting in work
There should be a warning alarm for millennials to take cover when a new study on them is released. Their net wealth is half that of young baby boomers at the same age, according to a January report by advocacy group Young Invincibles. Rising college tuition and deeper student debt are major factors, the report says.
In its analysis of Federal Reserve data on 25 to 34-year-olds in 1989, compared with those at the same age in 2013, Young Invincibles found that millennial workers earn $10,000 less, which marks a 20 percent decline. In 1989, the youngest baby boomers earned $50,910. Today, young adult workers earn $40,581, the report says.
That staple of American success — doing better than one’s parents did — hangs on some millennials like a heavy yoke of expectation. “At times, yeah,” says Nate Meyer, between sips of a dark beer at Fassler Hall. “Neither one had an education at my age.”
Wearing an Iron Maiden band T-shirt, the 27-yearold extreme weather buff moved from Sacramento to Norman to earn a meteorology degree from the University of Oklahoma. As the conversation bounces among millennials from Oklahoma and out of state, Meyer says he earns about $35,000 a year at a product distribution center while seeking work in his chosen field. He’s considering a career in the military.
“I’m comfortable, but I also know I could be doing better,” Meyer says.
He’s working, which is more than some people he knows at his age. Meyer says a lot of millennials graduate college, but won’t take jobs outside their field of study.
“You just gotta put in the work and take advantage of the opportunities,” he says.
Baby boomers and bystanders
Unlike their elders, some millennials don’t place expiration dates on phases of life. For them, one’s 20s are a stroll through enriching experiences, not a sprint toward middle management. As the beer flows at Fassler Hall, Kerner, the aircraft maintenance officer, says millennials are “just living their lives,” and are not concerned with “having a house you have to pay off for years.”
That’s part choice and part circumstance, says a University of Oklahoma professor. Stephanie Burge, associate professor of sociology, says millennials have transitioned into adulthood during an American moment that offers fewer economic opportunities than the past. The Great Recession sucked money from baby boomer retirement accounts, which meant they couldn’t afford to exit the job force at the pace of previous generations. Housing wealth also collapsed, which exacerbated the problem, Burge says. The result is older people working longer, which leaves fewer spots in a tight job market, she says.
“What’s wrong with millennials is not millennials,” Burge says. “What’s wrong is they have a lack of opportunity. They are bystanders of this economy. We see unprecedented rates of college attendance and enrollment, but there have to be positions for these students when they leave.”
The answer millennials often hear? Get your graduate degree. That means commencement ceremonies in their late 20s and early 30s.
“You’re talking about age norms, when people think they should have to do things,” Burge says. “Norms imply that if you violate them, something bad will happen to you. Age norms are starting to become more heterogeneous, and they’re having less and less consequences if you violate them. No one’s going to look at you and say you’re 25 years old, you haven’t gotten married, you haven’t gotten a house, you haven’t gotten a child. What’s wrong with you? No one’s going to say those things. There’s a lengthening now of the transition into adulthood.”
Millennials and memes
The millennial gathering at Fassler Hall is organized by Veronica Fennell, who connects local people online through Meetup.com. The group has about 1,100 members listed. About 75 percent are from out of state and came to Oklahoma City because of job opportunities, Fennell says.
Fennell, 27, earned her English degree from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. After graduation she worked a handful of jobs. Now, she’s a driver for ride-hailing company Lyft, and also is an ambassador and driver mentor for the company.
Fennell loves her work, and bringing people together seems to come naturally, especially when she helps Oklahoma newcomers connect with each other. In having met so many of her generation, Fennell says anxiety over the future, including whether Social Security will exist when they reach old age, is common among millennials. So too is a heardit-all-before attitude about work.
A common internet meme shared among millennials: “Of course I don’t have a (expletive) job yet. Nobody in your generation will retire.”
Much of the frustration comes from being told that education is the cure-all.
“I definitely don’t think that most of my generation is where we thought we would be,” Fennell says. “Our parents all told us to go to college. We all have college debt and didn’t get the jobs we thought we’d get. When I was 16, I thought I’d have three kids by now, a house and a career. That’s not where I’m at.”
For others, the American Dream isn’t so haunting. And dreaming is for those who sleep. Kerner, the Air Force officer,wants to live.
“I think millennials value their youth, their time and their freedom,” she says.