PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK STEINMETZ FOR TIME
“We did what we’re supposed to
do—but we’re just so cost- burdened.”
“It’s the most money I’ve ever made,
but I still can’t afford to buy a home.”
“I’ve put down roots here. I don’t
want to be forced out.”
Many mentioned resentment to-
ward their parents or older colleagues
who don’t understand why this younger
generation don’t bear the hallmarks of
the middle class, like a single- family
home or paid-off college debt. “Boom-
ers could literally work the minimum-
wage job, they could experience life—
go to national parks or have children
and own homes. That’s just not possi-
ble for us,” says Julie Ann Nitsch, a gov-
ernment worker in Austin who, when
the home she rents goes up for sale in
May, will no longer be able to live in the
county she serves.
They have a point. Homeowner-
ship has become more elusive for
each successive generation as real es-
tate prices have outpaced inflation.
More than 70% of people ages 35 to 44
owned a home in 1980, according to
the Urban Institute, but by 2018, fewer
than 60% of people in that age group
had bought a place to live. The soar-
ing value of owner- occupied housing,
which reached $29.3 trillion by the end
of 2019, has created a divide, enriching
the older Americans who own homes
and shutting out the younger ones who
can’t afford to break into the market.
Millennials and younger generations
came of age in the worst recession in de-
cades, entered a job market where their
wages grew sluggishly, and then weath-
ered another recession at the beginning
of the pandemic. Through it all, costscontinued to rise. Median household
income has grown just 9% since 2001,
but college tuition and fees are up 64%
over the same time period, while out-
of- pocket health care costs have nearly
doubled. Just half of all children born in
the 1980s have grown up to earn more
than their parents, as opposed to more
than 90% of children in the 1940s. Both
millennials and Generation X have a
lower net worth and more debt when
they reach age 40 than boomers did at
that age, according to Bloomberg.
Their worries matter for the larger
American economy. As Joe Biden said
in 2019, “When the middle class does
well, everybody does very, very well.
The wealthy do very well and the poor
have some light, a chance. They look at
it like, ‘Maybe me—there may be a way.’ ”
If the middle class is feeling left
out of one of the strongest economies
in decades, when the unemployment△
Amanda Greene and Jeff Swope
outside their rental in Canton, Ga.