James Johnson is co-founder of JL Partners. He was the Senior Opinion Research and Strategy Adviser to Theresa May as Prime Minister, 2016-2019.
In the UK, young people have never had it so bad – at least in terms of their wealth. That was the conclusion of a Resolution Foundation report last year that found the proportion of people born between 1991-1995 who own a home is lower than any preceding post-war generation.
At 32, I was one of them until I moved to the US. It may have been a good choice. Compared to their British counterparts, millennial wealth was $45,000 higher in 2022 than what you’d expect based on previous generations.
That has been driven by a booming economy, and huge asset gains in home and vehicle ownership amongst this group. While Brits are foregoing ownership, younger Americans are snapping up houses and cars.
If younger people are not the lost generation of America, who is? There is growing evidence that this unfortunate claim belongs to people between the ages of 45 and 54.
This ‘late Gen X’ is the age group in real trouble. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal last week, using Federal Reserve data, put the issue up in lights.
Caught out by the shift from private pensions to self-funded plans, their savings are poor. The average account balance in retirement plans for this age group – some of whom will retire in just ten years – is only $60,000. They have the highest credit card debt of any other generation. They do own houses, but on wealth they are doing worse than the baby boomers were by a margin of seven per cent.
The fact that jumps out most: they are the only age group that experienced a drop in median wealth between 2007 and 2022. While millennials were booming, middle-aged America was waning.
And it is not just on financials where there is cause for concern. Evidence shows that mortality rates amongst white American 45-54-year-olds, falling in the UK and many other Western countries, have bucked the trend and flatlined – or even increased – since 2000.
Powered by drugs, almost all the increase in deaths in this group are amongst those who did not graduate from high school. Much has been spoken about recently of JD Vance’s upbringing, and the poverty he described growing up in a white working-class area in the 1990s. This data shows it has got a lot worse since.
That unheard generation’s voice finally broke through in 2016, with the election of Donald Trump. It is set to make another loud noise this year: the group remains one of the most pro-Trump in the nation. According to the latest polling of likely voters by JL Partners, more than half (52 per cent) of Gen Xers plan to vote for Donald Trump in November compared to just 36 per cent for Harris.
In fact, it is the only age group in which Trump leads. He is level-pegging with Harris amongst 30-49-year-olds and over-65s, while he is 16 points behind with 18-29 year olds.
The aftermath of the pandemic has lifted many people in America up. Black unemployment is at record lows. Economic growth was so substantial that a third of the pay gap between the lowest and highest earners that had accumulated over the last three decades was unwound in just three years. And compared to their British counterparts, millennials are on an upward swing.
But 45-54-year-olds are the exception. Since Trump’s last run at the White House, this group has grown angrier, unhealthier, and poorer. If he takes the presidency again in just over two months’ time, they will be why.