Quick Acknowledgement
A quick thank you to all the people I've spoken to over the past two decades - from the Silent Generation all the way to the AutoMons. It has been an absolute pleasure to meet everyone and hear your life story. I share more details on this thanks in the ending part of this post.
Terminology
Echo Boomer/Millennial/Generation Y 1981 - 1995. The term "echo boom" comes from the demographic observation that Echo Boomers are a massive generation in size, while Generation Y is the title because Echo Boomers follow Generation X. I generally tend to use Echo Boomer as the noun, Millennial as the adjective, and Generation Y as the title when talking about Echo Boomers - these individuals are all the same in terms of people born between 1981 and 1995 (you will see that I sometimes include 1980 in my posts). Unfortunately, I do not always do this consistently, so you will sometimes see Millennials as a noun. However, they are all the same.
iGenZ/Generation Z 1996 - 2010. This is the internet generation that follows Echo Boomers. As a generation they only know of a world with the internet. I call this generation iGenZ for this reason (shortened version of Internet Generation Z). I generally tend to use iGenZ as the noun and Generation Z as the title for this generation - these individuals are all the same in terms of people being born between 1996 and 2010. I do not share most of my research publicly on this generation as my predictions with Echo Boomers were extremely successful and I am replicating that success with iGenZ privately. Unlike Echo Boomers, my research with iGenZ has been global, mostly with Asian iGenZ.
AutoMons/Generation Alpha/Generation A 2011 - 2025. I refer to this generation as AutoMons (The Automation Monoculture Generation), as they were born in a world where significant automation will be the norm - 3d printing, artificial intelligence, etc. They also show early signs of shifting toward social monoculture, which is where I get the Mons in AutoMons.
Reminder
When some people start research, they evaluate data that confirms their theories. As they find data that support that support their theories, they add this data to their research. Data that don't confirm their theories? They exclude this. In addition, they don't look at further details that may explain a pattern. What I've found with this group of researchers is that they'll look only at the surface, as long as the surface of the data they find confirms their theories.
As many long time readers know, I do not research with this approach. I look at what the data show, I investigate what else I may need to collect, and I evaluate if there's missing details or nuance in my data. This is key because I don't have a story that I'm trying to tell ahead of time; if a story exists, I'll let the data communicate that story.
Without diving too deep, I started this research approach early in life for a 4th grade science fair project. I measured how long batteries lasted and included the cost per minute. At the time of the contest, I favored one of the batteries personally because of humorous marketing. That favorite battery of mine didn't last the longest, nor was the best cost per minute. But it didn't matter because I learned to put aside my personal view of things and measure as precisely as possible.
I do the same with my analysis of Echo Boomers, iGenZ and other research. Regardless of how I feel about my generation or my children's generation is irrelevant. What the data show about these generations is not.
What does this mean for readers or prospective clients? It means that you may dislike some of what you read, especially if you are the kind of person who cannot put aside your personal view of the world. The more you're like this, the less likely you'll be able to learn anything from my research. This applies to everything too and you don't want to hire me to work on any project - I may conclude something that you don't want to hear. I've concluded many things that I personally don't want to hear or know - but that's precisely the point of research!
Be honest with yourself about who you are. If you want to know what you want to know as most people do, then find information that confirms what you want to believe. My research will never be for you.
Brief Overview of Research Approach
In the past, I've worked for financial institutions (banking and insurance) where I had both face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversations with people. In the case of phone conversations, I spoke with people throughout the world, though mostly in the coastal United States of America. In the case of face-to-face conversations, most of these people lived in the city where I resided with a few people being temporary travelers from other places.
Unlike most research, I avoided tracking or retaining any private information about individuals (name, contact information, etc). For an example, in a conversation with a customer, I would categorize them as an iGenZ, Echo Boomer, Generation Xer, Baby Boomer, Generation Silent or older. I rarely met people who didn't fall into one of those categories. While in some cases, institutions allowed us to vet if we were getting good information, as this was key to being able to sell products, in other cases, we could not. I excluded anyone in the my research who I could not confirm was communicating truth. Every researcher faces the challenge of, "Is this person telling the truth" especially if what's being stated it out of the ordinary.
Later, I started the Millennial Pool. At the time, this involved observing what Millennials posted as assertions publicly versus what they would admit to doing later. In other words, I was comparing what was said versus what was done. This also meant that a significant amount of what people may find on social media was eliminated because most of what is asserted isn't true. (As a research note for yourself, compare the people you know, what they post on social media, and what is true. You'll not only notice a theme over time, you'll observe that some sources would be better than others if you were to use them in a study.) A simple example of this would be a Millennial boasting about "owning a home" and "I bought my first home at 21", but later complaining at the rising cost of rent and how this is going to prevent him from every owning a home. Yes, in a world of people bragging along with posting every detail of their life, these contradictions existed. That "gap" in data was what I found useful in research, not anything people posted.
In the same manner as I advised in The Next Billion Dollar Idea, once I had the conclusions I needed, I kept the conclusions in summaries and eliminated any data. One big point that people missed early on: Echo Boomers and iGenZ may think and do one thing when younger, but this won't always be true as they age. "Data relevancy" will be corrupted if you keep irrelevant data in your data sets.
Finally, I conceded early on that with people, no data set will ever be perfect. The best a researcher can do is make short, medium and long term predictions and evaluate how the short term predictions age. If he's right on the short term predictions, he may have the theme of the data correct, which increases the probability that the long term predictions will be correct.
Millennial Financial Data (As Of 2011)
A brief reminder of the Echo Boomer financial data I had collected up to 2011:
Millennial Income (Media Figures)
Millennial median household income: $58,620
Millennial median individual income: $22,000
Note that my research differed a little for households (the figure was slightly higher). However, I have defaulted to media studies at the time (noted here because there wasn't a statistically significant difference. Also, my major focus didn't start with income, as income can fluctuate and doesn't paint as accurate of a picture in my view than assets and liabilities. As one of my mentors said about business one time: the cashflow of a business for a particular year says very little about the company compared to the assets and liabilities of the same company over time.)
Percent of Echo Boomers Who...
Own their home: 10.4%
Had non-retirement savings: 32.2%
Had retirement savings: 24.5%
Had student loan debt: 32.4%
Had credit card debt: 34.9%
Had other debt (excluding student loans and credit cards): 29.2%
Median (And Mean) Financial Numbers
Non retirement savings: $0.00 (mean $1,679.8)
Retirement savings: $0.00 (mean $1,577.5)
Student loan debt: $0.00 (mean $6,274.7)
Credit card debt: $0.00 (mean $1,400.7)
Other debt (excluding student loans and credit cards): $0.00 (mean $3,425.3)
People frequently confuse median (the exact 50% point of a data set) and mean (heavily influenced by outliers). Thought leaders were often surprised by the student loan numbers from 2011, but I remind people frequently that over half of Echo Boomers did not graduate college. I've also cautioned people (albeit later) on being precise with population definitions - I suggest you watch that video if you want to know more details about defining populations (notice that video covered data that went through 2012).
Millennial Top 5 Financial Goals
Save money (16.9%)
Pay off debt (14.4%)
Buy a home (13.4%)
Go to or continue higher education (12.9%)
Be financially stable (10.9%)
Unlike most polling, I let Echo Boomers tell me any of their financial goals. They could say anything. While I grouped some themes (ie: saving for house as a goal meant that the person's goal was to buy a house). Two of the biggest losers? Anything related to marriage, such as save for a wedding, honeymoon, get married, etc (0.5%) and buy a car (2.5%).
Prediction: Education Bubble and Regret
I predicted that at least 25% of Echo Boomers would regret attending college and cautioned that Echo Boomers' stories about attending college might someday mirror what we heard during the housing bubble. At the time of this prediction, former Generations such as the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers and Generation X had less than 5% of their generational members regret attending college, so I had a lot of people argue that I was predicting a big shift. However, as of my research over the years of 2021 and 2022, 37% of Echo Boomers have told me that they regretted attending college. Let me repeat a point I made which we are now seeing:
The perception of education changes. Echo Boomers were inculcated with "get a degree" messages from everywhere. As Echo Boomers mature and make less money than they expected, they will communicate their disappointment with education to the next generation. Unless Echo Boomers look back on education with rose color glasses, the next generation will hold a different outlook on education than their parents.
In addition to the 37% of Echo Boomers who regret attending college, I found that almost one-third (33%) of Echo Boomers report being underemployed with a degree. Undermployment in this context either means they have a degree and no job or they have a degree but are only finding part time or internship work. On a related point here, the only educational path that is not in an education bubble (still!) is medicine.
Humorous Prediction: The Education Bubble Popped First
I write this tongue-and-cheek: my humorous prediction about the education bubble popping first is true. In addition to a decline in college enrollments, universities are closing in the United States at a pace of one a week. Tattoos are still popular, though one of the fastest growing industries by percent is tattoo removals. The tattoo bubble hasn't popped yet, but it's coming.
Note that I wrote both the original prediction post in jest, as well as this follow-up section. The tattoo industry, like the tattoo removal industry, fascinates me because of how similar both industries are to The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss, even though his work is entirely fiction!
Prediction: Healthcare
In the post Med School Blows Past the Education Bubble I remarked that medical school would blow past most college degrees since medical school was in a shortage and other degrees were not. This has held correct and in fact, medical wages have significantly outpaced other industries. Some doctors are now making more money than CEOs of medium to large sized companies - it's almost insane to see these wages until you realize the shortage in medicine. I also noted in the past that the USA graduates almost as many lawyers as doctors and lawyers keep trying to add complexity to the system, which has only increased costs. Finally, the anti-male sentiment in the USA has caught up with the country. Hard working young men do not enter medical school, nor want to (recall I noted this would the effects of some policies being put in place). American college haved earned the reputation of being "anti-male hate spaces" among young American men. While I don't agree with their sentiment, these institutions have certainly supported policies that have made them less appealing to young men.
Not only did my post age well in terms of how much money doctors make, it aged extremely well when you look at life expectancies of Americans: it's plummeting. Americans are dying faster and their healthcare costs are skyrocketing. I did warn you it was coming! Even the American Medical Association is forced to agree with what I cautioned (and note too that they're even talking about the extreme bureaucracy with examples such as "Physicians today, on average, spend about two hours on paperwork for every one hour we spend with patients").
Compared to Generation X, the Millennial generation has a higher suicide rate for both men and women when evaluating age-by-age comparisons of previous generations. As a generation, the data show that US born Echo Boomers will not outlive their parents.
(The negative sentiment against young men of American colleges has been a mixed bag of suffering and blessings for American parents. American parents who sent their sons to American colleges paid a price - and it wasn't only a high financial price. However, American parents with sons who sent their kids to non-American colleges had the opposite experience. Of the parents who sent their sons overseas for education, they spent 3-5% of what the American college students paid in full - meaning that a $80,000 a 4-year degree program overseas would cost around $4,000. But there was an added benefit: the education was better overall and by graduating in those countries, these young men were able to start their business and work life there.)
Prediction: Millennial Women Will Make More Money
I predicted that Millennial women would make more money than Millennial men and this has held true as of my recent analysis in 2021. Some quick points on how I compared these differences: identical data points were compared (ie: comparing a female sales manager with 10 years of experience, a bachelor's degree and working in the same area as a male sales manager with 10 years of experience and a bachelor's degree), married Echo Boomers were deducted (see below point), and only data points that exist within a single context - for instance, if a Millennial male worked 3 jobs versus a Millennial female who worked 1, that's not the same context.
Summary of 2021 findings:
When comparing non-Married Millennial males and females using ceteris paribus factors, Millennial females make approximately 8% more than Millennial males.
Millennial males are more likely to work multiple jobs, but also more likely to not work at all - the bell curve is very broad when looking at work for Millennial men compared with Millennial females.
Over 32% of Echo Boomers own a home, most of this group is married/coupled Echo Boomers. In 2011, only 11% of Echo Boomers owned a home.
The 15% subset of Millennial males have done what I predicted in private discussions with financial executives. Those of you who attended those presentations should continue the suggestions. I do not and will not share pubicly these predictions, as I am continuing to invest in this area.
As a general point on why married Echo Boomers were excluded (and should be): in many married couples, one person will work more while the other may work either less or not at all "officially" - this latter point being important.
Consider that a married partner who does not work still can add significant value by extending the value of the income of their partner. For an example, a stay-at-home wife may be able to leverage her husband's income by taking advantage of opportunities and sales that people who work regularly cannot take advantage of, such as buying toilet paper cheaply before the shortage in 2020.
It is actually very common for single income households to have a partner who leverages their partner's income; this matters in situations where there is an income tax, as tax authorities cannot take advantage of someone who extends an income by purchasing more value than standard. For this reason, comparing income of married people is unreasonable because we'd also have to evaluate how the other partner is possibly extending that income. That's more difficult to do in research and it outside the scope of my prediction that Millennial women would make more than Millennial men (which they did) when we consider a ceteris paribus context.
Prediction: Millennial Marriage Rate
I predicted that 33-40% of Echo Boomers would never marry. In 2011, only 22% of Echo Boomers had married. As of 2021, only 48% of Echo Boomers were married. Based on 2021's data, I expect that 67-70% of Echo Boomers will marry (higher than initially expected). A big part of this slight upshift is that more Echo Boomers have committed suicide than I expected (and at earlier ages) and their life expectancies are dropping faster than their parents, which will lower the never married population, as never marrieds tend to belong to both of these groups.
As I noted when speaking at events, a low marriage rate would mean the following:
A shortage of housing, as more single Echo Boomers means there's an increased need for housing, apartments, townhomes, etc.
Declining individual productivity. An old idiom goes that society is built on the back of married men. This is true, as married men produce significantly more economic output than every other demographic group. A decline in married men means a decline in productive output. Healthcare is a big industry that's seen an absolute collapse in male labor, especially male labor working extra hours (men are much more likely to work more hours).
Increased and rising crime. Married people commit fewer crimes and are more likely to vote on policies that keep their family safe (anti-criminal policies). In addition, children raised without two parents are statistically more likely to be criminals.
This pattern has not applied to the young men who've left the United States (see next point). Of those men in 2021, over 77% of them are married (vs 48% of US men).
One American mother described it best with her son, "I kept thinking that I had done something wrong with my son because he couldn't get a date in high school. Then he moved to China for college and married a Chinese girl three years later. It was the culture, not how I raised him!"
Observation: Ambitious Young Men Leave the United States
In the past, I observed that approximately 12-18% of young male Echo Boomers had planned to and left the United States. The most well-known example of this is none other than Nomad Capitalist (started by Andrew Henderson), who also ended up turning moving out of the United States into a business. In speaking with both him and others like him early, their biggest customers were young male Echo Boomers.
(I frequently tell thought leaders to read his thoughts about MGTOW, dating and the US versus non-US culture. If you investigate his thoughts and what he's telling young men, then you start to realize what the culture of the United States has been communicating to young men.)
Now, iGenZ has also joined. Ambitious young men in both generations have left. In addition, many business ideas have also exited the United States completely. I'll note here that this isn't only due to the sentiment towards young men, but also an increase in bureaucracy. For instance, I had a business solution for healthcare that would reduce standard healthcare visit costs by 90%.
I initially reached out to US firms about this - people would see a huge reduction in their healthcare costs, plus I worked with a team to think about scaling this solution in other medical disciplines. I was wrong. Our idea would have needed anywhere from $2-5 billion to start because of all the bureaucracy we would have to comply plus competitors would be attacking us from all sides.
The United States had no interest in this solution at all, nor did companies want it. Meanwhile, some companies within countries out of Asia reached out for this solution.
This also attracts young men as well, as we all work for a purpose. Young men want to solve problems. Asia is providing huge opportunities and continues to be a destination that many ambitious young men aim to gain citizenship. I've noticed how the industry helping young men gain citizenship in Asian countries has grown rapidly.
Prediction: The United States Becomes Socialist
While easy to overlook at the time, my prediction that Generation Y's lack of respect for privacy would push them into socialism has aged well. In fact, my exact words were:
As to how this all plays out in the long run, see the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union from history.
In general, socialist societies are built upon the framework mentioned in the post - "value is perceived as a concept determined solely by others." Socialism like it's result (communism) relies on centralization through controlling concepts of value toward the community. Value is determined by the community (others), not the individual. What people consistently miss about capitalism is that both the producer and consumer in a capitalist society determine value as individuals. People often mis-assume that it's only the consumer who does this; they forget that a producers also choose what products they want to create.
Social media has further extended this beyond even what I predicted at the time. Last year, my girlfriend showed me a viral clip of a person on social media violating private property. But that wasn't what she said about the video. She felt enraged by the property owner who had certain values. The person in the video violated the property owner's private property, yet many Echo Boomers and iGenZ (my girlfriend is iGenZ) see this as acceptable. Outside of a few comments, most people viewed the behavior of the video recorder as acceptable, even though he violated the private property of a property owner.
The United States is not a capitalist country. Capitalist countries enforce private property.
People are slowly seeing this now. I find it peculiar (and funny) that these leaders didn't see this developing a decade ago with this generation. This was always inevitable.
Prediction: Products
Electric cars. As I predicted with Tesla, electric cars have been extremely popular with Echo Boomers, especially since Millennial attitudes toward environmentally friendly companies is positive. I expect that this trend will continue and as electric cars become even more affordable, for their use to spread. Echo Boomers have never forgotten the pain they felt at $4 a gallon gas back in 2008 when oil was over $150 West Texas Intermediate. To this day, oil prices have never risen that high even though actual oil resources are declining. The only surprise here is that some of the competitors to Tesla have done poor in their electric car production.
Energy drinks. As I predicted, supplements did well with single male Echo Boomers, especially the more active Echo Boomers. One suggestion I made early given the success with Red Bull was that energy drinks should broaden their appeal to single male Echo Boomers and this has paid off for the ones who followed this. Energy drinks have become a huge market and they've been able to attract many male consumers outside of the fitness industry (Monster Beverage being a great example of one that does this with blue collar male Echo Boomers and Celsius Holdings being a great example of one that does this with white collar male Echo Boomers).
Survivalism takes off in 2024. The survivalist industry has done well since I published that post, though it was very niche. This year, the interest in the industry has absolutely exploded - some of the private startups in the industry are making $1+ million a weekend teaching survivalist skills to the exceptionally wealthy. This isn't only the skills either; the industry has seen an explosion in interest in the actual goods that makeup the industry. This is one of the hottest industries in 2024 that still is flying below the radar.
App Dating. As I've long advised with companies, when appealing to Millennial females, details and the shopping experience matter. The popular dating apps that exploded in popularity followed this advice. The experience felt like shopping for dates and the apps encouraged that users would add key details that single female Echo Boomers wanted to know. Also, I advised some of the companies to track how Millennial females used the apps, such as where they would look and how much time they would spend on certain areas of the app because these are key to improving the shopping experience. While the female Echo Boomers didn't pay as much as the male Echo Boomers, female Echo Boomers were key for dating apps as the male Echo Boomers wouldn't pay for the app if there were no females (gay dating apps being exceptions to this point). Another related appeal to dating apps and why they've been so popular with Echo Boomers is that Echo Boomers prefer self-esteem boosts over money and sex and dating apps provide Echo Boomers with a self-esteem boost, even if they don't act on it.
Acknowledgement
Some specific appreciate to all the people I've interviewed over the years when doing research along with links to the interviews:
Also, thank you to those who I interviewed outside the topic of demographics - Dr. Dan Eisenberg, Dr. Catherine Shanahan, Tom Naughton, Dr. Layne Norton, Christine Cronau, Dr. Lindsey Mathews, and Jessica Setnick.
Other Archived Posts:
Other Research
I continue to speak about Echo Boomers, iGenZ and AutoMons from time-to-time depending on the project.
If you are a researcher or work for a central bank, you can reach out about my Golden Sources research, which is research that I've been doing as a curiosity of mine for near two decades. Recently, this research has allowed me to also test data theories with various AI applications, such as large language models.
A Final Word of Gratitude
Thank you to all the people I've met over the years, as I've done research. The people I've met and interviewed, the people I've worked with on various studies, even the people in the studies themselves. To me there is nothing more exciting than hearing a person's story - it's more of an adventure than traveling to the coolest places. Thank you for sharing your life with me. I have been extremely careful to avoid ever storing identifiable information and looking only at patterns in a big picture sense because fundamentally I respect what you as an individual are willing to share publicly under your name. The biggest takeaway to any research is how people are the greatest work of art.
If you need help with research, you can reach out to my research firm, SqlinSix.
