{"id":305,"date":"2022-09-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/millennials-entitled-good-life\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:59:55","slug":"millennials-entitled-good-life","status":"publish","type":"essays","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/millennials-entitled-good-life\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Millennials \u201cEntitled\u201d to?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cMillennials are entitled to a good life!\u201d claims the entitled millennial, immediately drawing criticism from older readers who fire off short, snarky messages from their Galaxy Tabs. (Shout-out to Jim, an angry man with a Galaxy Tab who told me I\u2019m a \u201cwoman who overcomplicates everything\u201d and \u201ca young person who has no common sense.\u201d I hope he\u2019s well.)<\/p>\n

Before we go any further, let\u2019s clarify one key thing: <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \u201c<\/span>What do we know about each new generation\u2019s lives? Well, if things are working as intended, they\u2019re better than the last.\u00a0\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
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I don\u2019t believe millennials are entitled to a good life simply because they\u2019re part of the \u201cMe, me, me!\u201d generation, as christened<\/span><\/a> by Time Magazine in 2013, which noted that \u201cthe incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that\u2019s now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health.\u201d (Ironically, and perhaps fittingly, the other \u201cMe\u201d generation title was given to none other than the boomers<\/span><\/a>, thanks to the then-newfound pursuit of \u201cself-fulfillment\u201d in the 1970s.)<\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t believe millennials are any more special than those who came before them\u2014just that we\u2019re younger<\/em>, and newer<\/em>. And what do we know about each new generation\u2019s lives? Well, if things are working as intended<\/span><\/a>, they\u2019re better than the last. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Staggering human progress creates some level of expected \u201centitlement\u201d<\/h2>\n

Take the last 200 years, for example: A relatively microscopic blip of time in the span of human history, but an eternity of progress. In the year 1820, a staggering 89%<\/span><\/a> of the world\u2019s population lived in extreme poverty<\/em>. Up until now, at least, life has consistently, relentlessly improved for each passing generation, becoming easier, cushier, and longer. <\/p>\n

Life even 50 years ago<\/em> would be unrecognizable to those born in the 21st century. <\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why it\u2019s so frustratingly, paradoxically confusing why\u2014for the first time ever\u2014the pendulum seems to be swinging in the other direction (but more on that in a moment, and in this Wednesday\u2019s podcast episode). <\/p>\n

The long-lasting tradition of resentfully calling those who come after you \u201clazy and entitled<\/span><\/a>\u201d is not new; it didn\u2019t begin with millennials (after all, the boomers\u2019 grandparents dubbed the boomers<\/em> narcissistic and entitled, too!). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s natural to see those born after you\u2014and benefiting from technological advances that you didn\u2019t<\/em> benefit from\u2014as self-obsessed snowflakes who rode in the back of Mom\u2019s Escalade to kindergarten and definitely didn\u2019t<\/em> have to walk three miles in the snow uphill both ways.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \u201c<\/span>\u2018Progress\u2019 is the generations that come after you living a fuller, easier, less stressful life than you did. It is\u2014at its simplest\u2014forward movement.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
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But isn\u2019t that\u2026what progress is?<\/p>\n

\u201cProgress\u201d is the way the industrial revolution meant the 69%<\/span><\/a> of the American workforce who worked on farms in 1840 could move to cities and pursue other jobs (and, a century and a half later, bless us with the privilege of complaining about how expensive our studio apartment is in a New York City building with an infinity pool and dry sauna). <\/p>\n

\u201cProgress\u201d is the way the information revolution<\/span><\/a> in the 1990s paved the way for many of us to have \u201cfake email jobs,\u201d working from the comfort of said studio apartments or dry saunas or infinity pools. <\/p>\n

\u201cProgress\u201d is the generations that come after you living a fuller, easier, less stressful life than you did. It is\u2014at its simplest\u2014forward movement. <\/p>\n

Fewer people in poverty. More literacy and education. Freedom to vote, get a credit card, and buy property, if you’re a woman. Less worrying about where your next meal will come from, or how you\u2019re going to afford the roof over your head. It\u2019s the freedom to ask questions like, \u201cWhat mark do I want to leave on the world?\u201d or \u201cWho am I, really?\u201d instead of, \u201cDoes that woolly mammoth look too close for comfort to you?\u201d or, \u201cWhy did the potato famine kill all 17 of my cousins?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProgress\u201d is the fact that my grandma would\u2019ve needed my grandpa\u2019s signature to open an investment account in her name and<\/em> paid a broker steep fees to pick individual stocks for her, while I can open my pocket computer and buy a (practically free) bundle of the best companies in America with little more than $20 and an internet connection. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The search for meaning<\/h2>\n

Our ancestors worried about survival.<\/em> We worry about meaning<\/em>. Self-actualization. And while we poke fun at the ephemeral, ethereal worries of young people today (should I put a period or exclamation point at the end of this email?<\/em>), I\u2019d argue this is a good<\/em> thing\u2014and no laughing matter. This is progress incarnate! <\/p>\n

In fact, the economist John Maynard Keynes worried<\/span><\/a> in 1930 about how we\u2019d all fill our time in the future when our working lives would be reduced to a mere 15 hours per week, thanks to vast, rapid economic productivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a while, it looked like Keynes was right: In 1930 the average workweek was 47 hours. By 1970 it had fallen to slightly less than 39. But then something changed. Instead of continuing to decline, the duration of the workweek stayed put; it\u2019s hovered just below 40 hours for nearly five decades,\u201d writes Rebecca J. Rosen for The Atlantic<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \u201c<\/span>It\u2019s hard to ignore the reality that we should be working less than our predecessors and benefiting from advances the same way they did. Instead, our fake email jobs somehow morphed into the opposite.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
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That\u2019s right, people\u2014the most famous economist known to business majors everywhere (aside from Econ Daddy Adam Smith himself)\u2014was concerned that we\u2019d all have too much time on our hands (joke\u2019s on me \u2018n you both, Keynes), presumably because time on our hands leads<\/em> to this type of abstract, grand, existential pondering: wanting our lives to mean something. Wanting our work<\/em> to mean something.<\/p>\n

And in an era mostly devoid of defined benefit plans in retirement (read: goodbye, pension brick road), the ties and loyalty to any one<\/em> company evaporates\u2014and are replaced by a higher search for meaning (and, let\u2019s be real, higher compensation). <\/p>\n

So what do you get when you couple the realization that you should<\/em> be able to pursue a higher calling with befuddling wealth inequality, wage stagnation, and political turmoil? <\/p>\n

Well, for one thing, unhinged TikToks<\/span><\/a>. For another, a shit ton of cognitive dissonance<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to ignore the reality that we should<\/em> be working less than our predecessors and benefiting from advances the same way they did. Instead, our fake email jobs somehow morphed into the opposite, according to Cal Newport<\/span><\/a> in The New Yorker: <\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is asking you to clock in and clock out. They instead demand, in some ill-defined yet urgent sense, that you\u2019re responsive and get things done. This autonomy has allowed modern knowledge work to evolve haphazardly toward an increasingly unsustainable configuration. The issue in this evolution is not how many hours you\u2019re now asked to work but the volume<\/em> of work you\u2019re assigned at any one time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, it\u2019s not plowing the field, but plowing through hundreds of unread emails day after day, month after month, year after year is enough to make anyone want to bash their head into their webcam and call it a day for good\u2014especially when your reward for plowing through said inbox is\u2026still not being able to<\/span><\/a> buy a house or pay off your college debt before you retire<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Going backward<\/h2>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why many millennials in the United States feel collectively anxious<\/span><\/a>: Everything from our homes to our education costs more than it did just a single generation ago. \u201cHome prices have increased 7.6x faster than income since 1965 and 3.1x faster than income since 2008, accounting for inflation,\u201d finds a study from Real Estate Witch<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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