Gen Z and millennials, are i feeling like the American Dream that was sold to them is also fictitious.

Chloe Berger
Wed, October 11, 2023

Lourdes Balduque—Getty Images

Part of growing up is realizing that some stories you were told as a kid aren’t real. Fairies typically lose traction by age seven, unicorns turn to fabled legends, and Santa is eventually revealed to be a fraud (apologies to our readers if any of the above is news). But the truth for some things don’t come to light until you’re older—at least for Gen Z and millennials, who are increasingly feeling like the American Dream that was sold to them is also fictitious.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of millennials and 65% of Gen Zers believe they’re “starting further behind financially” than other generations when they were their age, according to a poll of 2,000 adults conducted for USA Today by the Harris Poll. Mostly everyone else agrees; two-thirds of those surveyed thought young adults are facing hardships that other generations didn’t have to tackle. If the American Dream was ever a reality for some, it’s certainly not one that millennials and Gen Z feels they've experienced.

“They're telling us they can't buy into that American Dream the way that their parents and grandparents thought about it—because it's not attainable,” Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema told USA Today, adding that there’s “an entire generation that feels like they're coming of age in sort of this fractured, divisive world.”

The American Dream is baked into the nation’s promise to its citizens. Popularized in the 1930s by historian James Truslow Adams, it's synonymous with the bootstraps myth and idea that the U.S. is a land of equal economic opportunity and mobility. But, as researchers point out, not everyone starts out at an even playing field depending on their race, gender, and class. And in an economy marked by high inflation, rising wealth inequality, and a shrinking middle class, the American Dream is getting harder to come by. It’s largely not the economy millennials’ and Gen Z’s parents had to deal with at their age (although boomers did live through the Great Inflation of the 1970s), leaving younger generations to swap the white picket fence for an alternative living style or a rented apartment (which is expensive enough itself).

The older cohorts of both generations graduated into ill-timed recessions—the financial crisis and the more short-lived coronavirus recession, respectively—and many of them are also shouldering massive student debt. Housing, one the hallmarks of the American Dream and building wealth, has become an especially elusive Carmen Sandiego figure for them in an overpriced market. After saving up and gaining some financial ground during the early pandemic, some millennials finally entered the housing market only to find themselves priced out by baby boomers who were able to offer all-cash bids. Finding an affordable house can feel like such a maze that 18% of millennials and 12% of Gen Zers think they’ll never own a house, per RedFin.

The USA Today and Harris poll isn’t the first finding of its kind. Nearly half of Americans reported that maintaining a standard of living these days is more difficult than it was for their parents in one study from last year. Even those who are faring well recognize the plight in an economy where a $100,000 salary doesn’t go as far as it once did. SoFi’s CEO said that a worker making low six figures “really struggles to live the American Dream.” And JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called the dream “frayed,” asserting that the country needs to start paying better wages and addressing the skills gap to ever survive on its last legs.

Under such economic constraints, some young adults find themselves living at home or depending on their parents for financial assistance; many are worried that boomers’ actions will negatively influence their financial future, although a highly anticipated wealth transfer might provide some light at the end of the tunnel. But it might be too late for the American Dream.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Gen Z just saw the worst war in Israel in 50 years break out all over the internet, but they were raised on ‘disturbing images’

Paige Hagy
Tue, October 10, 2023 

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The “disturbing images” warning is one that Gen Z, the first fully digital native cohort, is used to encountering on their lingua franca: social media posts. On Saturday, the Islamic militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, resulting in the worst war the region has seen in 50 years. In three days, more than 1,500 people have died on both sides, and graphic, difficult-to-watch videos have blanketed the internet—from Israeli civilians being captured, tortured, and killed by Hamas militants, to Palestinian civilians screaming in grief, and people on both sides attending to their dead and injured among the rubble.

If Gen Z feels like they’ve seen it all, in some ways, they have. This generation, ages 11 to 26, has already lived through numerous historic events, ranging from a once-per-century pandemic, to the Jan. 6 insurrection—an event unseen for centuries in American politics. Then there’s the first major European ground war since World War II in Ukraine, not to mention market crashes in 2008 and 2020 that recall the Great Depression itself. As the first digitally native generation, Gen Z is experiencing it all through videos, images, and articles online, which is shaping their mental health, workplace attitudes, and financial habits in visible ways.

It’s no wonder, this Gen Z reporter notes, that 46% of young workers ages 18 to 26 say that they are regularly so distraught over what is happening in the news that they are unable to function at work, according to a 2023 Edelman report. By comparison, 38% of millennials, 24% of Gen Xers, and 19% of baby boomers and older generations say the same.

Everything about their behavior communicates that Gen Z is just not okay with it. This ranges from their widespread, hell-bent determination to find purpose in work and pushing their employers to have a social conscience, to a sense of despair over their own and the world’s future finances. They have largely given up on saving money and instead dish out for little “treats” as a way to cope with the larger absurdity of 21st-century life.

Consider the lifetime that was three years ago, as Gen Z emerged into young adulthood, when online videos of the murder of George Floyd shook the country in May 2020, resulting in a summer of violent Black Lives Matter protests and riots. A year later, people watched as armed right-wing extremists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, following the election defeat of former President Donald Trump. Then there are school shootings, which have only increased in frequency since Columbine in 1999, with more students documenting the terror on their phones and sharing it online. One of them was the Parkland shooting of 2018, which tragically created the first spokespeople of the post-millennial generation.
Gen Z’s mental health

Gen Z has the worst reported mental health of any generation—45% of young people report having “excellent” or “very good” mental health, according to a 2018 report by the American Psychological Association.

One of the major sources of Gen Z’s distress, of course, is climate change. Nearly seven in 10 Gen Zers say they experience anxiety when viewing climate change content on social media, according to a 2021 Pew Research report. But they’re not just reading about the detrimental effects of human-caused global warming, they’re living through the consequences themselves.

This summer reached record-breaking temperatures, with July being the hottest month the planet has seen in over 100,000 years. As a result, Arizona experienced a monthlong heat wave with temperatures at or above 110 degrees every day. Deadly fires broke out across the Mediterranean; suffocating smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed New York City and the Northeast for days; and ice melt in the Arctic accelerated.

And extreme heat is likely here to stay—and get worse—unless countries can rapidly reduce their carbon emissions. That’s why Gen Z is more concerned with sustainability than any generation before them. Just look at Greta Thunberg: The 20-year-old has become one of the best-known environmental activists, famously speaking at the United Nations in 2019 with scathing words for world leaders:

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones,” Thunberg said. “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
Gen Z in the workplace

By 2030, Gen Z will account for nearly one-third of the U.S. workforce, but they’re already radically redefining the meaning of work.

Gen Zers want a sense of purpose, so they prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) in the workplace, which encompasses sustainability and environmental impact, education and awareness for social issues, and diverse and inclusive boards and teams.

And it tracks: Roughly two-thirds of Gen Zers say they frequently speak about important societal issues while at work, according to the Edelman report. They’re also influencing their older coworkers when it comes to areas like work-life balance, fair pay, and employers’ involvement on social issues.
Gen Z’s financial stress

But don’t forget, Gen Zers have also lived through a global pandemic that shuttered the world for nearly two years, two recessions, and a mounting student debt crisis, leaving them with little savings but an abundance of financial despair.

Roughly 60% of Gen Zers say they are stressed about money this year more than last year, according to a Bankrate survey from July. It’s no surprise either—85% of Gen Zers say that they couldn’t afford one month’s expenses if they lost their job today.

And since young people are typically affected by inflation the most, as they are the most likely to work part-time or low-paying jobs, this economic climate may have left Gen Z with permanent “psychological scars,” one expert says.

“How can young people build careers or wealth if they don’t have jobs, and prices of goods and services continue to increase?” Dayo Abinusawa, founder of London’s Awa Business School and a former lecturer at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, previously told Fortune.

One Fidelity survey backs this argument: 45% of 18- to 35-year-olds “don't see a point in saving until things return to normal." Some Gen Zers have even adopted the mentality that “money isn’t real” and are justifying spending on items to “treat themselves” amid a bleak reality.
Why it matters

Of course, every generation has lived through era-defining historical events. Millennials remember the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Baby boomers lived through the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. But no other generation has been plugged into the world through the internet from such a young age like Gen Z.

Gen Z is already wielding their power in notable and sometimes comical ways. In June 2020, teenage TikTok users (with the help of K-pop fans) claimed to have sunk a Trump campaign rally by registering for thousands of tickets with no intention of actually attending. And last summer, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a then-19-year-old activist raised over $2 million in abortion funds by trolling Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.

It remains to be seen what they will do when Gen Z comes into decision-making positions in the workplace—perhaps they’ll channel their rage and cynicism effectively as some have already demonstrated—but Abinusawa warned that “a society where the young have little to no hope for the future is not a sustainable one.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com