Why is Gen Z so Angry

Kind: captions Language: en The OK Boomer Alliance is over. Millennials and Gen Z are turning on each other. Millennials say Gen Z are impossible to work with. >> [music] >> Gen Z dismisses Millennials as Harry Potter obsessed nostalgia addicts with cringe fashion. But the truth of the crisis is far darker than that. The real fight [music] is over who gets to inherit what's left of the middle class. Millennials reached adulthood just as the ladder to a stable life started collapsing and they have spent years trying to climb it anyway. Gen Z inherited an even steeper climb, but unlike the Millennials, many of them don't want to climb the ladder. They want to tear it down. Doesn't matter whether you know more Millennials or Gen Z, you're probably hearing the exact same thing. The job market is brutal. No one seems to be hiring and when they are, the pay, the hours, the requirements make the job barely worth taking. It's become normal to send out hundreds of applications and never hear a word back. Sometimes people spend 30 minutes filling out an application only to get an AI-generated rejection before they've even closed the tab. The average Millennial has seen wages stagnate leading to less buying power than their parents had at the same age. Promotions are scarce and many are doing the work of two people. But ask whether they think about quitting and the answer is usually, "No way." Right now, the job market feels like a giant game of musical chairs. The music stopped years ago and anyone who found a seat is not standing up unless they absolutely have to. The problem is there are new players joining all the time. Millennials aren't staying in the same jobs because they love them. They're staying because they're afraid to leave. This isn't just a Millennials versus Gen Z story. Baby Boomers are retiring later than any generation before them and staying healthier while they do it. That means more Boomers and Gen X are holding on to senior roles leaving the Millennials stuck in entry and mid-level positions instead of climbing the ladder. The result is some entry-level jobs are being filled by people pushing 40. [music] That leaves nothing for Gen Z. It wasn't long ago people were calling the Millennials kids, [music] but they're slouching toward middle age now and the oldest Gen Z are approaching 30 and finding very few opportunities for them. They're the last car in line of a multi-generational pileup getting frustrated at the traffic with no way of even seeing the source of the delay. Meanwhile, Millennials are in line in front of them trying to ignore the rearview mirror so they can concentrate on their job. But a closer look at Millennials reveals a much scarier picture. For older generations, the American dream was wealth and comfort. For Millennials, it's just a steady paycheck with some basic stability. Millennials have become associated with hustle culture with many of them working longer and picking up side gigs in their off hours. And that's the advice their parents gave them. If you work hard, people will see that and you'll be rewarded for your effort. The only way to lasting success is striving [music] for it. So then why do the Millennials feel so stuck in place? It turns out the answer goes back well over a decade. For many, 2008 felt like the dawn of a new era. The oldest Millennials were around 27 years old, out of college and rising in the workforce. It had been 7 years since the 9/11 attacks shook the country, the first crisis of many Millennials' lives, and the future looked bright. While the country was at war, there was no draft and the majority of Millennials were untouched by the conflict. And then the bottom fell out. A massive economic shock hit Wall Street and then hit everyone else. The crisis was primarily caused by a subprime mortgage collapse, but the resulting shockwaves took out several major banks and sent the Dow freefalling. A full-scale depression was avoided by government bailouts, but an estimated [music] 8.7 million jobs were lost between 2008 and 2010, the worst years of what would come to be known as the Great Recession. Businesses went under and many of those jobs would never come back. For the Millennials, it was a body blow. Suddenly, the economy of promise that [music] Millennials grew up in simply no longer existed. Many saw all the progress they had made in the job field collapse, leaving them to start from scratch. Few companies had the money to hire during this period. Those who graduated during this period saw no opening signs one after another. And of course, [music] the bills never stopped coming. For many, it led to arrested development as they had parents who were willing to let them stay at home or come back while they got on their feet again. For others, there was only one choice, hustle. Millennials didn't have the luxury [music] of picking and choosing when it came to jobs during this period. Many MBAs found themselves selling couches or mixing Starbucks in their hometown. As the tech market recovered and apps and gig work became the future, some started driving for Uber or making deliveries part-time to supplement their income. They scraped by in most cases, but it left them little time to concentrate on career progress. >> [music] >> They remained stuck in place, making enough to get by, but not enough to step up All the while, Gen Z was looking on. You talk to the average Gen Z member, they'll have no shortage of complaints about Millennials. One big one is that they're stuck in place, endlessly cos playing the '90s and talking about the good old days. They still dress like they're in high school and they talk about their favorite nostalgia movies and TV. But digging below the surface, that might just be projection. Gen Z is looking at Millennials hustling for everything and using nostalgia to cope. And they're asking why they don't even have that. It's not that Gen Z are annoyed that Millennials work hard, they're annoyed that they work hard for nothing. Millennials are stuck in neutral, failing to attain the success of the generations before them. Rather than taking over the big guns, they're sitting on the bottom rung, making sure no one else can climb up. When Gen Z looks at this dynamic, they have one big question. What are we doing this for anyway? For Millennials, the math is daunting. For Gen Z, it looks impossible. Wages are staying the same while the cost of everything keeps going up. If there is one thing millennials and Gen Z still have in common, it's that they don't want to hear from Gen X and the boomers about how easy everything used to be. Grandpa will talk about how he walked up to factory the day after high school, got a job with a handshake, held it for 47 years, and bought a house and raised a family on one income. To the younger generations, that might as well just be science fiction. Back in 1985, the average family had four main expenses: housing, healthcare, transportation, and food. Education might be an additional expense if private school or college is involved. Being able to cover those and have money left over was called the cost of thriving. On average during the mid-1980s, it took the average person 40 weeks to earn enough money to cover them. The remaining 3 months of income could go into savings for emergencies or be spent on luxuries like vacations. Today, it's a very different picture. The cost of all those things has risen precipitously, with groceries being the most noticeable on a day-to-day basis. But wages haven't kept pace. [music] That means as of 2025, the cost of thriving index indicates that the median male worker will still have to work 65 weeks in order to hit the same metric. The average worker simply can't meet this metric anymore, which has led to a huge increase in dual income households and people cutting back on basic expenses. [music] Yet, the costs keep going up. Imagine running a marathon. You're getting more and more tired, and you feel like you're almost there, but as you get closer to the finish line, it moves another 100 yards away. You get demoralized pretty quickly. Millennials are used to it though. At the last count, 42% of millennials have side hustles to support their income. The numbers are fairly similar for Gen Z, with an estimated 45 to 46% having supplemental [music] gigs. The single income family is gone, and increasingly the 9-to-5 is going with it. Working used to buy a life, but now we're lucky if it buys a week, and it still might not be enough. Millennials have been hit by three economic crises in a row, with Gen Z sharing the third and the biggest, the COVID-19 pandemic. >> [music] >> The shutdowns caused massive job losses, dwarfing even the Great Recession, with an estimated 22 million jobs being lost in 2020 alone. Things have improved since, [music] but many of those jobs are never coming back, and inflation hasn't slowed down even a little. Cumulative inflation has topped [music] 20% since 2020, making it feel impossible to ever catch up. There is only one clear path to success these days. It's not how much you make, it is what you own. But who owns it? For most people, the events of 2020 are the dividing line between before and after. Millennials were struggling to find their footing after 2008, but many [music] had found some stability. The economy did recalibrate, and some were even able to buy homes. And those millennials who owned property before 2020 have hit the financial lottery. Home prices have seen a nearly 50% increase in the 6 years that followed, giving those millennials one of the few truly [music] stable sources of wealth in the modern day. After all, not having to pay rent is one [music] of the biggest money savers around. Everyone else is struggling to survive. The numbers don't look entirely awful for Gen Z. They've actually got a slightly higher rate of home ownership than millennials have, 26.3% [music] to 24%, but Gen Z has a much higher debt-to-income ratio, with the average Gen Z consumer debt coming in at over $34,000. The houses that Gen Z are buying are often described as survival bunkers, offering them little room to spread out or raise a family. But they are the lucky ones. It's a common refrain that we have more houses than there are homeless people, >> [music] >> but the problem with that is many of those homes aren't where people want to live. The Great Recession and COVID caused a lot of people to lose everything, and the bank often took possession of their houses. Many of those vacant houses are heavily rural with many falling into disrepair. The more vacant houses in an area, the more likely the area is to be economically depressed. [music] That means there's no chance for someone who moves there to take advantage of cheap real [music] estate to start a career. For Gen Z, that often means that there is only one choice. The hubs of American commerce are in the big cities and that's where most young people go to try to find their fortune. But getting a home in a city these days is a Herculean task. Buying a property in the city center of New York or Los Angeles will cost seven figures in most cases, >> [music] >> which means that the suburbs benefit as well. The increased demand has seen sales prices rise dramatically in places like Long Island. The average Gen Z in a city will be renting >> [music] >> and those rates have been going up, too. The average rent in NYC is around $3,700 a month, which means it's likely an apartment that'll eat up the majority of a Gen Z resident's income. It's turning into a tale [music] of the haves and the have-nots. Millennials who bought when the time was right struck it rich. They have access to the one thing everyone is striving for, the potential for generational wealth. Meanwhile, everyone else is either spending everything they have to buy a less desirable property or remaining stuck in the vicious cycle of paying rent, never able to save enough to get out of it. Gen Z is looking up the ladder at the lucky millennials getting more and more resentful, but they don't quite realize that a lot of millennials are stuck in their wealth. Is [music] it any wonder then that they're starting to think the game is just rigged? >> [music] >> When it comes to work, Gen Z has a reputation problem. Employers are firing them at higher rates than millennials. The biggest complaints are a weaker work ethic, less willingness to go beyond their job description, and little interest in climbing the corporate ladder or buying into workplace culture. Meanwhile, millennials are consistently rated as the easiest generation to work with. They bridge the gap between traditional by-the-book employees and younger tech-savvy workers. Gen Z, on the other hand, is consistently ranked at the bottom. It's not that Gen Z is failing at adulting, it's that they [music] have given up on trying to compete in what they feel is a game rigged against them. They are far more likely to leave on the dot as soon as their shift is over, refuse requests to pick up [music] shifts, come in on a day off, or even split their focus with a job and a side hustle. In fact, 50% of them say they're actively not trying to get promoted because the middle management roles that are offered seem like a big increase in stress for a small increase in pay. They're not failing, [music] they're opting out. And the reason is the cautionary tale of the millennials. Millennials have embraced hustle culture like no other generation. That's what happens when you get knocked down repeatedly. You do what it takes to get back up there. For all the boomers that like to talk about younger generations not knowing the value of a dollar or an honest day's work, millennials know it all too well. Many had to rebuild themselves after both the 2008 recession and the COVID-19 collapse, and they [music] did it by stretching themselves thin. Between a full-time job and side hustles, it's not unheard of for millennials to work 60-hour weeks in some cases. That would be worth the sacrifice if they were getting rich. Gen Z doesn't look at the millennial hustle culture and work ethic with admiration. They look at it with horror. They see it as the ultimate validation of their perspective that the system just isn't worth it anymore. What's worse than working your life away? >> [music] >> Doing it for little reward long-term. They see the millennials just up ahead of them hustling for a dollar and still winding up in the same place. So, could it be any worse if they just opted out entirely? They're not just slacking off, they're rejecting the whole dynamic of the economy that every previous generation was raised with. This isn't just a workplace trend, it's an alarm bell for the whole system we live in. If this were only happening at work, people wouldn't be nearly as concerned, [music] but it isn't. Gen Z is losing faith in almost every major institution around them. We're already living through a period of record low trust in institutions that previous generations relied on, from Congress to the Supreme Court. But among Gen Z, that distrust runs even deeper. Just 14% of young adults believe Congress or big business is actually looking out for them. It seems like there's a lot of division between the generations, but in reality, Gen Z and Millennials are both in the same boat and it's sinking. Gen Z looks at Millennials and they see the more successful generation in front of them. Millennials see the ambitious, radicalized younger generation coming up fast behind them. But both generations are suffering. They just don't realize it. Combined, they hold only 11% of the total US wealth [music] as of 2026. That puts them well behind the curve with the baby boomers holding a massively outsized influence on the economy and culture. Gen X is quietly reaping the benefits of the stability they saw in their working years and they're generally happy the angry generation seemed to forget about them. Millennials and Gen Z are fighting over the scraps while the older generations have the rest in the vault >> [music] >> and they have locked the door. This isn't new either. In 1990, the boomers held approximately 21% of the total wealth, more than double what the Millennials hold now. The system [music] worked for them and they took full advantage, but now they're holding on to all of that wealth with little interest in sharing it. Many Millennials were banking on an inheritance from their parents only to see their parents sell the house [music] and embark on a cruise-filled retirement. And if that vault is locked, then who is going to hold the key when only the younger generations are left? There is one force no-one can resist and it is the passage of time. Eventually, the boomers will pass off into history, albeit at a much older age than the previous [music] generations thanks to the improvements in elder care and the treatment of diseases. Then it'll be Gen X's turn to look at retirement, leaving the Millennials as the dominant generation in the workplace. But by that time, what'll be left? Right now, Millennials and Gen Z are pitted against each other in the same way two beggars are pitted against each other when a man eating a whole turkey throws him a bone. But beneath the fighting, there's a much bigger crisis brewing. The basic math of working today no longer supports a traditional middle-class lifestyle, no matter whether you're 25 or 40. Both generations have been pulled into the same vicious cycle with one feeling like they can [music] beat it and the other believing that it's better to not play at all. There's only one way the vicious cycle ends. Yes, Millennials haven't gotten over the '90s yet, and they may be naive about the systems they're still trying to win at. Gen Z has a lack of work ethic and spends all their time on screens. But those cosmetic differences aside, both generations have a lot in common. Both came of age in an era where the American age of prosperity seemed to be on the wane. Both saw the systems they were supposed to believe in let them down. Both saw the world march on without them. And what scares the power brokers the most is they're starting to realize it. There's only one way this war ends. When Gen Z and Millennials both realize they're not fighting over the lion's share of the pie, they're fighting over what's left, and [music] that's not enough for either group. So, increasingly Gen Z is reaching out to their older counterparts and saying, "The system isn't working for us, and it doesn't look like it's working for you, either." There is one resource that can't be hoarded. The young. Every [music] industry needs a new generation eventually, and if the Millennials join Gen Z in quiet quitting, no one knows what comes next. Want to know more about how the Boomers conquered the American dream? Check out You Need to Be Mad Now for all the scary details, or watch The US Economy Is About to Break to be warned about the next crisis that could be around the corner.