Anonymous public opinion poll — vote and see results by state.
How would you respond? All voting is anonymous by default.
Somewhat worse: 67% (2 votes)
Much worse: 33% (1 vote)
3 total votes
Whether the next generation will enjoy a higher standard of living than today's adults is one of the most enduring questions in American public life, and recent data suggest deep uncertainty. According to Gallup, the share of Americans who anticipate high-quality lives for themselves in five years fell to 59.2 percent in 2025, the lowest level since measurement began nearly two decades ago. A September 2025 Wall Street Journal-NORC poll found that only 25 percent of Americans believe they have a good chance of improving their standard of living, and nearly 70 percent said it was no longer possible to work hard and get ahead. The Spring 2026 Harvard Youth Poll found young Americans under intense economic pressure, with the cost of living, especially inflation and housing, defining what they see as a crisis. Driving the debate are concrete affordability challenges: the National Association of Home Builders reports that home prices have risen 53 percent since 2019 while median household income has risen only 24 percent, pushing the median age of first-time homebuyers to a record 40 years old.
Those who are optimistic about the next generation's prospects point to historical trends showing that most children born in recent decades ended up earning more, in inflation-adjusted terms, than their parents. Research highlighted by Raj Chetty of Stanford and colleagues through the National Bureau of Economic Research has found that rank-based measures of relative social mobility remained fairly stable over the second half of the twentieth century. Younger Americans themselves show some resilience: an AICPA-Harris Poll found that 50 percent of Gen Z and 52 percent of Millennials felt 2026 would be financially better for them than 2025. On the other side, skeptics cite structural headwinds. The OECD Employment Outlook 2025 warns that without swift policy changes, population aging will significantly slow GDP per capita growth across developed nations. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has found that the United States has relatively low intergenerational mobility compared to other advanced economies, with income differences persisting across multiple generations, particularly for Black families.
The stakes are broad and deeply personal. Housing affordability shapes family formation, wealth-building, and geographic mobility. According to a Redfin analysis, both Gen Z and Millennial homeownership rates trail where their parents were at the same age, even as modest gains appeared in 2025. The Ipsos 2026 Predictions Survey found that globally, two-thirds of respondents expect artificial intelligence will lead to job losses in their country, adding technological disruption to the list of concerns. How policymakers address housing costs, wage growth, education access, and demographic shifts will likely determine whether the next generation's living standards rise, stagnate, or decline. The answer may ultimately depend not on any single trend but on the interaction of economic growth, inequality, and the policy choices societies make in the years ahead.