“In America hourly pay growth among 16- to 24-year-olds recently hit 13% year on year, compared with 6% for workers aged 25 to 54. This was the highest ‘young person premium’ since reliable data began (see chart 3). In Britain, where youth pay is measured differently, the average hourly pay of people aged 18-21 rose by an astonishing 15% last year, outstripping pay rises among other age groups by an unusually wide margin. In New Zealand the average hourly pay of people aged 20-24 increased by 10%, compared with an average of 6%.
Strong wage growth boosts family incomes. A new paper by Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, and Jeff Larrimore of the Federal Reserve assesses Americans’ household income by generation, after accounting for taxes, government transfers and inflation. Millennials were somewhat better off than Gen X—those born between 1965 and 1980—when they were the same age. Zoomers, however, are much better off than millennials were at the same age. The typical 25-year-old Gen Z-er has an annual household income of over $40,000, more than 50% above baby-boomers at the same age.”
From The Economist.