While the millenial generation may be better educated than their baby boomer parents, analysis of Federal Reserve data conducted by YoungInvincibles.org paints a bleak financial picture for today's young adults, and reveals that millenials earn 20 percent less than their parents did at the same stage of life.
The results of the study were made public on Friday by Young Invincibles, a national non-partisan organization founded in 2009 that represents the interests of the millenial generation and works to engage young adults on issues ranging from healthcare to higher education.
Baby boomers had a higher net worth
According to their analysis, which compared Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 in 2013 (the latest year for which data was available) to the same age group in 1989, millenials have a median household income of $40,581, which is approximately 20 percent less than their baby boomer parents. They also have a 56 percent lower net worth than their parents, a lower rate of home ownership, and a significantly higher amount of student debt.
White millenials are the hardest hit
The Young Invincibles analysis also revealed that white millenials have seen their income plummet the most relative to their parents. While income for black millenials has fallen 1.4 percent relative to baby boomers during the same stage in life, white millenials have seen their median income disintegrate by more than 21 percent.
However, the opposite is true for Latino millenials, who are now earning nearly 29 percent more than their parents were during the same stage in life.
Additionally, home ownership rates for millenials dropped from 46 percent in 1989 to 43 percent in 2013.
This decline in home ownership and income -- paired with an increase in debt -- occurred in spite of an ever-increasing number of millenials with college degrees. The proportion of millenials with college degrees has skyrocketed from 23.2 percent in 1990 to 35.6 percent in 2015, according to a report published earlier this month by the Brookings Institution.
