Jeremy’s chart has become an entire Newsweek article https://www.newsweek.com/millennials-gen-z-wealthier-previous-generation-same-stage-1863904
P.C. January 26, 2024 / 4:21 pm
philclark56 January 29, 2024 / 1:53 pm
Your method of analysis concludes that the average Millennial/GenZ American has a net net worth of ~$118k at age 30. Removing Real Estate, that figure drops to an average of ~$86k, as noted on your supplementary chart. This would imply that a.) Real Estate is only accounting for ~$32k of the average Millennial/GenZ American’s net worth at the median age of 30, and b.) that the $86,000 is held in a mix of cash and securities. According to other reporting (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/28/americans-median-net-worth-by-age.html) the median net worth for Americans under 35y.o. (let alone a median age of 30) is less than half of that $86,000 figure–and that *includes* real estate–and is approximately one-third of the $118k sum. Ergo, your “average wealth” figure does not seem to be remotely correlated to the actual median American Millennial/GenZ circumstance, and instead seems incredibly skewed by the disproportionate allocation of wealth among the Millennial billionaire class. This, coupled with the generational “% of all American wealth” figures that I mentioned in my first comment suggest findings that are not consistent with the tone of your writing.
It would be much more interesting if you did this analysis and stripped out real estate holdings, which are accounting for the vast majority of increases between 2019-2024, and are skewing the data disproportionally toward those who have turned 30 in that range (born Oct 1989 – Dec 1993). Using the chart you linked to, as a matter of %, Gen X held 5.72% of U.S. wealth in Q1 2002, when their mean age was 30, and Millennials held 3.56% of U.S. wealth in Q1 2019, when the mean age of a true Millennial (born 1981-1996) was 30 (and the oldest Gen Z kid was only 21).