{"id":790602,"date":"2026-07-29T04:03:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/790602\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T04:03:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:03:25","slug":"why-baby-boomers-and-gen-z-have-different-economic-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/790602\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Baby Boomers and Gen Z have different economic concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few months, Baby Boomers\u2019 confidence in the economy has continued its slow march downward, while Gen Z\u2019s has stayed elevated. That\u2019s according to the most recent consumer confidence data<\/a> from The Conference Board.<\/p>\n

The main driver of this trend: 20-year-olds and 70-year-olds are just worried about different things. <\/p>\n

The more pessimistic groups are \u201cvery concerned about what’s happening with healthcare<\/a>. And they’re also very concerned with things like retirement, or, if they are retired, how well are their benefits going to be doing,\u201d said Tom Arnold, who teaches finance at the University of Richmond. <\/p>\n

He said young people worry about labor and credit, or their ability to make and spend money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only time that the younger generation really, really gets pessimistic is if there aren’t any jobs. But unemployment’s at a relative low<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The job market and credit environment aren\u2019t all that worrisome right now, while healthcare costs keep rising<\/a>. Hence, the sentiment gap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The gap is also especially wide in The Conference Board survey because it focuses on the labor market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put a lot of weight on the questions which are about wages or expected wage growth, things like that,\u201d said Camelia Kuhnen, who teaches household finance and labor at the University of North Carolina. So younger workers appear especially optimistic in this survey, because they see higher wage growth year-to-year than older people, Kuhnen said.<\/p>\n

The confidence gap between younger and older generations isn\u2019t new, and it\u2019s not unique to times when the labor market is strong. No matter how rough the economy gets, younger people have what economists call the long-term hedge.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of that optimism can also come from, \u2018I’m young, I can build up these skills, I can succeed in this economy.\u2019 And you can get optimism in that sense,\u201d said Tyler Schipper, who teaches data analytics and economics at the University of St. Thomas.<\/p>\n

If the economy is bad, a 20-year-old has time to adapt to major market disruptions. Today, that includes the introduction of artificial intelligence<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also feel more likely that their employers are going to invest in them,\u201d Schipper said.<\/p>\n

That long-term hedge also cushions worry even when the economy looks bad. Because the younger you are, the more working years you have left for the economy to turn around.<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few months, Baby Boomers\u2019 confidence in the economy has continued its slow march downward, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[19603,28,18087,101,153,336089,70751],"class_list":["post-790602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-baby-boomers","tag-business","tag-consumer-sentiment","tag-economy","tag-gen-z","tag-sentiment-gap","tag-wage-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}