Generational Gaps in Income and Homeownership

economic well-being of an individual or household. Although the likelihood of receiving a high income or owning a home increases throughout a person’s life, there has been a fair deal of anecdotal evidence suggesting that Millennials and Generation Z (those born after 1980) are already struggling economically compared with their parents’ generations. In this essay, I examine the life-cycle patterns of income and homeownership for different generations. Along the way, I find that comparing the experiences of non-college-educated and college-educated workers helps shed light onto these different generational patterns and how incomes and homeownership are linked. I use data from the American Community Survey (ACS), which the Census Bureau has run annually since 2000 and every 10 years prior to that. Importantly, the ACS has information on income, employment status, homeownership status, and demographics for a representative sample of the population. I focus on individuals whose incomes reflect full-time earnings over an entire year,1 from 1950 through 2021. All incomes are converted to 2019 dollars. I consider someone a homeowner if they own the housing unit they live in and are the head of household or spouse of the head of household. Finally, I categorize people by Generational Gaps in Income and Homeownership