“I’m sick and tired of living during unprecedented times!” So goes the common millennial complaint.
Millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, are the largest generation in America today, numbering nearly 75 million people. We comprise 22% of the population and 36% of the workforce, the biggest share for any generation. We have record educational attainment, with nearly 40% of millennials achieving a bachelor’s degree or higher. And yet we are still far unhappier than prior generations.
We suffer from depression and anxiety at substantially higher rates. And some of us feel like our lives are meaningfully worse than those of our forebears. Many descend into nihilism, doomscrolling social media and posting about living through the most turbulent period in modern history. Others spend their time worried about the future, whether in the form of climate anxiety, fears of a nuclear war, or predictions of incipient fascism or communism.
But is this doomerism warranted? Do millennials really have it worse off than our predecessors? And if not, why do so many genuinely believe this?
Despite the nostalgia, millennials have had it about as good as any generation in historical terms. Let’s start with health and welfare. Since 1900, the average American has gained 31 years of life expectancy. Since 1950, life expectancy has increased around 11 years. And this isn’t just from massively improved infant mortality statistics. Over a 100-year period, life expectancy at ages 65 and 85 rose almost 50%. Babies can survive past infancy, despite being born as early as 21 weeks’ gestation.
At the same time, people are far healthier and die far less often from preventable or treatable illness. Diseases or disorders that would have been a death sentence a few decades ago have turned manageable. The pace of medical and pharmaceutical innovation has been rapid and progress great. Modern medicine has largely eradicated illnesses that have plagued humanity for eons. In 1924, 16-year-old Calvin Coolidge Jr., the son of the sitting president, got a blister playing tennis. He died. Today, a simple doctor’s visit and an inexpensive course of antibiotics would solve his ailment. And this is just a taste of the profound improvements in our lives and health.
In terms of our material wealth, overall prosperity, and ability to afford some of the most important things in life, we are similarly well off. One of the biggest millennial gripes is our relative wealth compared with prior generations at the same age, but this is simply not true at all. Compared with baby boomers in the same age cohort, millennials had 60% higher net worth in inflation-adjusted terms. We do even better when compared with Gen X. And the goods and services that millennials can buy with that wealth are better and cheaper than ever before. Homes are substantially larger than in previous eras, growing over 40% in the past half-century, while household sizes have gotten smaller. Those dwellings come with far greater amenities, from climate control to time-saving household appliances. Builders make homes more safely and efficiently, reducing energy costs and saving lives.
Transportation is also better, more accessible, and far cheaper than in the past. The average household currently owns just over 1.8 automobiles as compared with 1.16 in 1969, and those vehicles have gotten safer, larger, more fuel-efficient, and more durable. Air travel has experienced an even greater change, going from a luxury for the rich to something completely normal and accessible to the masses. There are fewer layovers, a greater variety of destinations, and far cheaper airfare — dropping almost 40% in real dollars since 1995 and much more compared with the 1960s. Communication costs have declined to essentially zero, while communication technologies have vastly improved, becoming nigh-ubiquitous. It has never been easier to connect with family, friends, and like-minded people around the world.
Fewer people are dying of war, starvation, and disease than ever. Prior generations lived through world wars, existential nuclear conflicts, pandemics, terrorist atrocities, (actual) genocides, and more. The economic ups and downs of the past 40 years are not nearly as bad as prior crashes in 1929 or the late 1800s. Today’s elevated gas prices are nothing compared with the oil shock of the 1970s. Deaths from climate events have declined markedly. Even our politics — a constant theme of millennial angst — is not all that crazy or violent; political assassinations were more prevalent in previous decades, domestic terrorism was worse, urban rioting spread further, and foreign interference and internecine vitriol matched modern trends. Technological and cultural change are similarly precedented, with drastic alterations occurring regularly since the 1850s.
Overall, things are extraordinarily good across most domains of life. So why do millennials feel so aggrieved? A large part of it may come down to the peculiarities of our formative years.
People’s understanding of normalcy is often anchored in the experiences and environment of childhood. For millennials, that was the 1990s, an era that felt like a temporary break from history. America had won the Cold War, it was the undisputed superpower, the economy was growing, technology was advancing, and Americans seemed at ease. In retrospect, that entire decade was unusually positive for the United States, representing a bizarre calm in between storms. For millennials, that era has unconsciously shaped how we feel about life ever since. When the abnormally good is your normal, regular problems seem world-ending. When we see a rarely precedented pause from history as ordinary, the inevitable return of said history feels like a gut punch.
This does not mean millennials should stop trying to improve our lot, but that we should be optimistic about the world we live in, while recognizing that it, like everything this side of heaven, is imperfect. America, despite its problems, remains on a positive trajectory. Building a better world for our children relies on maintaining this trend, not upending it. Burning the system down in a fit of uninformed pique and faux nostalgia would be disastrous for our future. We do not need to be better than an idealized, utopian past. We just need to be better than the actual past. And that we are.
Millennials should stop the doomerism and get to work fortifying a system that is under attack from all sides. The challenges we face are not meaningfully worse than those our ancestors overcame, but we cannot conquer our own if we descend into nihilistic hopelessness and perpetual victimhood. The country we live in is a great one. Let’s recognize that fact and make sure it stays that way.
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Mike Coté is a writer, podcaster, and historian focused on geopolitics, economics, great power conflict, war, and diplomacy. He writes for various outlets, blogs regularly at Rational Policy, hosts the weekly Rational Policy Podcast, and is on X @ratlpolicy.
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