How Millennials and Generation Z are responding to rising costs, structural debt, and declining trust in the institutions that once defined upward mobility
From the Craig Bushon Show Media Team
There’s something happening right now in this country that I don’t think is being fully understood, and more importantly, it’s not being taken seriously by the people who should be paying attention. Millennials and Generation Z are not just growing in numbers, they’re becoming the dominant economic and political force in America. But they’re stepping into that role without the same belief system that previous generations had about how this country works, and that changes everything. This isn’t just cultural, this is structural.
For a long time, the deal in America was pretty simple. You work hard, you build something, you stay consistent, and over time you get stability. Maybe that meant a home, maybe it meant retirement, maybe it meant something you could pass down. But that whole model depended on trust. Trust that if you put in the effort, the system would meet you halfway. A lot of people don’t believe that anymore, and when that belief starts to break down, everything tied to it starts to shift.
This is also a generation that came of age through the financial crisis, a pandemic, and now rising costs across the board, so their expectations have been shaped more by instability than consistency.
Just look at homeownership. Nationwide, it sits around 65 to 66 percent, but when you look at people under 35, it drops into the high 30 percent range. Even Millennials in their mid-30s are only in the mid-50s, and that’s still behind where previous generations were at the same stage of life, where numbers were often in the low 60s. That’s lower than where it used to be for those same age groups. To put some real numbers behind it, back in the early 2000s, before the housing crisis, about 45 percent of Americans aged 25 to 34 owned a home. Today, that number is still sitting in the high 30 percent range.
And this isn’t because younger people suddenly decided they don’t want to own homes. It’s because of what they’re dealing with, home prices that have outpaced income, higher interest rates, and limited inventory. Most still want to buy, they just can’t get there yet. And when that gets delayed, everything else gets delayed with it, marriage, family, long-term stability, wealth building.
This isn’t about choice. It’s about what people can afford, whether they can get approved, and whether their income even makes it possible. In a lot of cases, wages simply haven’t kept up with the cost of housing, education, and everyday living, and that gap is where a lot of this pressure is coming from.
And there’s another shift underneath all of this that doesn’t get talked about enough. Wealth in this country has moved more toward owning assets than just earning income. And for a lot of younger Americans, getting into those assets—homes, investments, anything that builds real wealth—is the hardest part.
And when you look at education, it gets even more complicated. We’re sitting on roughly 1.8 to 1.9 trillion dollars in student loan debt, and over time that burden has shifted heavily onto borrowers and indirectly onto taxpayers, while institutions get paid upfront. There’s very little accountability tied to whether that degree actually leads to income that can support the debt. At the same time, around 40 percent or more of recent college graduates are working in jobs that don’t even require the degree they paid for. So you’ve got people paying premium prices for education but not getting a matching return in the workforce, and that gap is where frustration really starts to build.
You can see how this plays out in real life. About one third of Americans between 18 and 34 are living at home with their parents, and for those 25 to 34, it’s around 18 percent. That used to be closer to 12 percent. This isn’t just a cultural shift, it’s economic. High rent, debt payments, and slower wage growth make independent living harder to sustain. So people delay moving out, and that delay ripples into everything else. Buying homes gets pushed back, starting families gets pushed back, building wealth gets pushed back, and when you zoom out, that slows down the entire system.
But this isn’t just about money, there’s a mindset shift happening too. Older generations were influenced by what they had to protect and what they had to gain, but that only works if people believe the system delivers something worth protecting. A growing number of younger Americans don’t see it that way.
That doesn’t mean they’ve given up. Most still want the same things—ownership, stability, a future they can build. The difference is they don’t see a clear path to get there.
And when that belief breaks down, behavior changes.
You’re also seeing it in trust. Trust in government, media, corporations, even institutions like higher education has dropped with younger generations. Religious participation, especially within Christianity, has declined as well, and regardless of where someone stands on that, those institutions used to provide structure, community, and shared values. As those connections weaken, people feel more disconnected.
So when you step back and look at the full picture, you’ve got a large and growing group of people dealing with higher costs, heavier debt, delayed milestones, weaker institutional ties, and a lot more uncertainty about the future. That’s not a phase, that’s a condition.
And if this gap keeps widening, the pressure doesn’t just stay economic, it starts to reshape how people vote, how they work, and how they engage with the country as a whole.
And the real risk here isn’t just political change, it’s miscalculation. If leadership, whether political, corporate, or cultural, keeps operating like nothing has changed, they’re going to keep missing what’s actually happening. Because the assumptions they’re relying on no longer match reality.
And at the same time, writing this off as laziness or lack of motivation completely misses the point. People respond to incentives. When the incentives change, behavior follows.
This is where the conversation needs to shift. This isn’t about blaming a generation, it’s about fixing alignment. If the path to stability becomes harder to reach, people are going to adjust how they engage with the system, that’s expected.
So the question becomes what do you fix. Housing supply has to increase so people can actually afford to buy. Education needs to be more closely tied to real-world outcomes so debt lines up with earning potential. We need to reduce over-reliance on credentials and focus more on skills and productivity. And we have to deal with the bigger fiscal picture, because younger generations are looking at national debt and long-term obligations and realizing they’re going to carry that burden.
At the end of the day, younger Americans aren’t stepping back without a reason. They’re reacting to what they see. When effort doesn’t clearly lead to stability, people adjust how they participate.
Bottom line
The data supports what we’re seeing, and the behavior lines up with the incentives. The path forward isn’t about rhetoric, it’s about making real adjustments that restore alignment between effort and outcome. Because a system that adapts can steady itself, but a system that doesn’t will continue to lose the very people it depends on.
Disclaimer:
This article reflects the views and analysis of the Craig Bushon Show Media Team and is intended for informational and commentary purposes only. While data points referenced are based on publicly available sources and general economic trends, they are presented in a summarized and interpretive format. This content should not be construed as financial, legal, or professional advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with qualified professionals before making decisions based on any information presented.
