By Erica Quinn
Many millennials struggle to achieve and maintain subsistence-level income. This has resulted in some unfortunate assumptions regarding work ethic and competency. These widely accepted assumptions may be true of certain individuals, as they would about certain individuals in any generation, but overall, the data simply doesn’t support the stereotypes.
Millennials now comprise the largest percentage of the workforce of any generation. In spite of this, the median degree-holding millennial salary compares almost directly with the salary of a non-degree-holder in 1980, accounting for inflation. This means that the average millennial starts their professional life with significantly higher student loan debt, in exchange for a wage far lower than that of their educated Gen-X or Baby Boomer counterparts.