The Money-Printing That Made Millennials Wealthy Can Bankrupt Them Too

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal cited new survey data to document a dramatic turnaround in the financial outlook of the millennial generation. The improvement, as with the reason millennials’ professional lives began with such a rocky start, has much to do with actions taken by the data compiler: the Federal Reserve.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see an association between Fed policies and their effects on Americans’ financial lives. It provides yet another data point reinforcing that the Federal Reserve should move as far away as possible from the money-printing policies that have defined the last two decades of monetary and economic policy.

Wealth Measures Growing

An analysis by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank found that, adjusted for inflation, median net worth more than doubled for millennials born in the 1980s, and more than quadrupled for those born in the 1990s, from 2019 through 2022. (Median net worth refers to the 50th percentile of wealth and therefore minimizes the distortionary effects of a few people who have achieved extremely high net worth.)

The St. Louis Fed also found that millennials and older members of Generation Z had on average a 25 percent higher net worth than those in Generation X or the Baby Boom generation around the same age.

Overall, a Federal Reserve analysis concluded that the total wealth of millennials and older Gen Z members had more than tripled from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2024, growing from $4.5 trillion to $14.2 trillion. The reason for the growth in net worth seems obvious, with the lion’s share coming from real-estate appreciation.

Boom-and-Bust Cycles

On one hand, the on-paper improvement in millennials’ finances tends to even out the horrific start many had to their professional and financial lives

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