This is Why the Millennial Stereotypes Aren’t Fair

One of the favorite people groups to criticize these days are Millennials. A lot of Milllenial stereotypes get thrown around these days. What’s your favorite? Entitled? Lazy? Hate to work? Sitting in their parent’s basement eating their nachos and binging on Netflix (I have to admit, that’s a pretty good one).

Here’s the truth. Before I started Money with a Purpose, I bought into a lot of those stereotypes.

Here’s the thing. I’m a Boomer. For you Millennials reading this not familiar with the term, that means I’m old. Like probably grandparents old for most of you. For those at the higher end ages for Millennials, I could be your parents, assuming they had you when they were in their thirties.

Technically, the Boomer birth years go from 1946 – 1964. Supposedly, 10,000 of us enter retirement every day. That’s mind-boggling to me. But hey. As a Boomer, lots of things these days are mind-boggling.

Millennial stereotypes

You know what I’m talking about when I say Millennial stereotypes, right? They’re lazy,  living in mom and dad’s basement binging on Netflix and won’t get a job. Maybe you’ve heard another version of it, but you catch my drift.

Last year, I wrote what could be called a Mea Culpa to Millennials. And I still believe what I said when I wrote that post.

So, that’s what we’re going to do for the next few minutes. The more I’ve come to know Millennials, the more respect I gain. There are, however, many things that drive me crazy about some of them. I’m sure they would say the same thing about my Boomer friends and me.

They’ve been respectful when they disagree. I’ve tried to do the same.

I want to take a moment to thank Tim, author of Life for the Better and a Millennial, for his service to our country. Tim started his military career in the Air National Guard. He is currently active duty in the Air Force. There are a lot of other things Tim could have done with his life. He chose to serve our country in the Air Force.

THANK YOU!

With that, let’s get started.

Millennials are…

I was Googling for information on Millennials when preparing for this post. I ran across an interesting article on Medium. The title of the article is, The 14 Most Destructive Millennial Myths Debunked by Data. The beginning of the article shows an image of a Time Magazine cover from May 2013. The cover title says, “The Me Me Me Generation. Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.”  Surprisingly, the author, Joel Stein closes with – And they’ll save us.

Talk about a headline that grabs you.

When I got to the article, I saw an image showing the results of a Google search that begins with, “Millennials are.” Check out the results from the image below.

It’s not a very complimentary result, is it (lazy, stupid, the worst, entitled)? That was two years ago in 2017.

Below is the same search term today.

Some new terms appear. The majority are still not very complimentary. Are they accurate? Are they fair?

Millennials by the numbers

Here’s an excerpt from my Mea Culpa article that offers the stats on Millennials vs. Boomers.

A Pew Research study shows that as of 2016, the latest date with population estimates, there were 71 million Millennials  (age 20-35 in 2016).

Compare that to the 74 million Boomers (age 52-70 in 2016).

Pew projects that Millennials will outnumber Boomers in 2019. They say the Boomer population will decline to 72 million while Millennials will rise to 73 million. With the current US population in 2017 of 325.7 million, Millennials make up 23 percent of the population. They are a growing force.

And let me get this out of the way up front. The US Census Bureau says that over a third (34% to be accurate) of Millennials still live with their parents. And that’s what we hear most on the news and from Boomers. But that leaves two thirds (66%) who don’t live with their parents and are, presumably, on their own.

Like most things in the media, good news rarely makes the headlines.

Tackling some of the myths

Let’s take some of the “Millennials are” list and add a couple of other popular stereotypes.

Entitled

Let’s start by agreeing not to lump Millennials or any other group into one homogenous group. The Pew Study puts that to view to rest. Some show signs of being entitled. The Millennials I’ve come to know display just the opposite signs.

They worked hard to get an education. Rather than the “entitled” free education from wealthy parents, most of the Millennials I know come out of college with large amounts of student loan debt. According to an article published by Bentley University, Millennial’s student debt makes up 69% of the debt on their balance sheet.

They graduate from college already carrying the burden of having hefty student loan payment. Many of them look for ways to refinance or renegotiate loan terms or pursue a loan forgiveness program. The average debt for college graduates is close to $40,000. If you’re a law or medical school graduate, it is not unusual to see $200,000 – $300,000 in student loans on the balance sheet. That’s a heck of a way to enter the workforce.

The Millennials I know work harder than most to reduce and eliminate this student loan debt. They aren’t walking away from it via bankruptcy. They aren’t looking for ways out. Instead, they’re putting together budgets that allow them to pay down their debt much quicker than the payment schedules require.

I’ve been impressed when I read stories about how many eliminate sizable student loan debt in as little as three to five years or less.

Lazy

See the previous paragraph. To expand on it, the Millennials I’ve come to know are bloggers; mostly personal finance bloggers like me. Some do blogging full time. Most have full-time jobs and do their blogging on the side. They use their blogs and other kinds of side jobs (side hustles) to generate extra income.

Running a blog is no joke. If a publishing schedule includes two or more articles a week, blogging can take as much time as a full-time job. Some generate revenue by selling instructional courses on everything from budgeting to investing or starting a blog.

Many bloggers are real estate investors. They buy single family homes, duplexes, and even multi-unit commercial properties. Most of them self-manage these properties, though some hire professional property managers. Add them up. That’s a full-time job, running a blog, and outside investment activities.

Far from being lazy, these bloggers burn the candle at both ends.

Idiots

I’m not sure where this one comes from. If Millennials are idiots, they’re well-educated idiots. At the very least, the Millennials I know have an undergraduate degree. Most have advanced degrees. Things like MBAs, Masters in Marketing, Masters in Finance, and advanced degrees in computer science and engineering. Many pursue degrees in the STEM fields. Not all, but many of the Millennials who graduate chose areas of education where there are greater opportunities for jobs.

Riley, at the blog Young and Invested, got an agricultural undergrad degree and an MBA. He went on to become a CPA. The efforts landed him a great job as an analyst at a prestigious energy company.

Todd, at the Invested Wallet, went to college to study computer science with a minor in communications. Though he never got a job in graphic design, he became interested in digital marketing. He currently works remotely as director of marketing for a startup company.

Camilo Maldanado, along with his brother blogs over at the Finance Twins, got his business undergrad degree from The Wharton School at Pennsylvania U and MBA from Harvard. What makes Camilo’s story even better is that he started life in poverty. In essence, he went from poverty to a Harvard MBA.

These are just a few of the numerous stories of the Millennial bloggers I consider friends. I could name at least a dozen more.

FIRE community

We hear a lot about the FIRE community. FIRE stands for financial independence/retire early. The FIRE community is a group of bloggers who, as the acronym suggests, pursue economic freedom to retire early.

Early retirement for this group means something completely different than most of us. They are a tiny but growing subset of the adult working population. For that matter, they are a small subset of the Millennials.

Tim, who I mentioned earlier, wrote a great article titled Why the Financial Independence Community Matters. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to take a few minutes and check it out.

Disagreement

I’ve had my issues with members of the FIRE community. I’ve written a few articles that have ruffled some feathers. However, the differences I have with them don’t outweigh the good they bring to personal finance. No one can argue with the three principles of the FIRE community.

• Spend less than you earn
• Save and invest the difference
• Reduce or eliminate debt.

Those principles are universal to successfully managing our finances.

The challenge I have with some is the closed-mindedness to views that differ from their own. Some are rigid in their opinions and disconnected from the reality of many in the working population who don’t make six-figure incomes, live in high cost of living areas, raise families, and find it hard to save.

Rethinking stereotypes

If you’re reading this post and have any of these stereotypical views toward Millennials, I hope I’ve given you evidence that many Millennials don’t fit into these boxes. I admit. Before I got to know the Millennials I’ve described, I was guilty of the stereotypes myself. The internet is full of stories telling the same, tired narrative.

The way out of these preconceived, often inaccurate views, is to get to know some Millennials. Are they quirky? Yup. Take a look at your peers. Who isn’t quirky. Do many still live with their parents and fit into some of the descriptions ascribed to them? Yup. According to the Pew research, that percentage is 34%. Simple math tells us that means the majority (66%) don’t live with their parents.

Final thoughts

One of my favorite motivational speakers was the late Zig Ziglar. I had the privilege of meeting him in the early days of my working life. He talked about the weathermen and women’s way of describing the weather. They would say something like, “there’s a 30% chance of rain today.”  His response to that was, “why don’t the dirty dogs tell us there’s a 70% chance of sunshine for crying out loud!” 

I agree. It’s easy to find negatives almost anywhere today. There are just as many, if not more, positives. How about we all try to focus more on the good things about people and be forgiving for the bad. We all have both, don’t we? Rather than accepting views of others we read or hear, how about finding out for ourselves.

Doing that has changed my views of Millennials for the better. If I do that with other areas in which I have biases or stereotypical views, I can potentially change my views there as well. It makes me a better person. It makes me a better person to others.

How about you? Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone to meet people, not like you? Are you ready to listen to their experience? 

 

This post was originally published on Money with a Purpose and is republished here with permission.