Millennials make an average of $2,000 less than their parents made in 1980, according to a new report released by the Census Bureau.
Titled "Young Adults, Then and Now," the report compared the life of 18 to 34-year-olds living in 1980 to those living in 2013, and found that, adjusted for inflation, young adults today are on average making $2,000 less than those in 1980.
In 1980, median income for full-time workers 18 to 34 was about $36,000. The new Census figures from 2009 through 2013 show the same age group only making between $33,000 and $34,000, The Atlantic reported.
Nearly every state on the East Coast, aside from Georgia and Florida, saw an increase in earnings for young workers compared to 1980. The only other states in the country to see a gain were South Dakota and Hawaii.
The three states with the highest median income in 1980 - Michigan, Wyoming and Alaska - happened to be the three states with the most severe 33-year decline in income.
Once industrial hubs like Detroit and Flint, Michigan, have been significantly affected by an exodus of manufacturing jobs.
The states with the largest positive percent change in median income were Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts.
It's somewhat contradictory that millennials are both more educated and more impoverished than their parents, The Atlantic notes, adding that "surely, some of this is a matter of timing," but "the deeper explanation might be structural."
Young adults who were the first in their family to graduate college are likely to actually be earning more than those in 1980, while young adults without college degrees are feeling the impact of increasingly advanced technology, globalization, and slower than normal wage growth.
"It's also worth pointing out," wrote The Atlantic, "that the United States has absorbed millions of immigrants over the past 30 years, often from poorer Latin and South American countries. (The Census notes that the share of ethnic minorities has doubled over the last 33 years.) It's possible that, even as these young families have raised their own living standards by moving to the U.S. and contributed to a growth economy, their below-average wages, when lumped into the aggregate, make it look like native-born families' wage growth is worse than it really is."
