On Monday, a TikTok video exhibiting a startling decline within the common revenue of younger school graduates because the Eighties went viral. Within the video, a younger girl compares the supposed common salaries of current school grads in 1982 and 2022. She claims that “the typical school grad in 2022 is making $55,260,” whereas “in 1982, the typical school grad was making $102,200” in as we speak’s {dollars}. She provides, “This sentiment being held by boomers of, ‘Oh, nicely, they’re simply anticipating an excessive amount of,’ I simply do not suppose they know what numbers they’re speaking about.”
Nevertheless, her claims are merely mistaken. Not solely does the typical school graduate as we speak earn greater than their Eighties counterparts, however they’re additionally graduating into essentially the most sturdy labor market in many years.
It is not clear the place precisely the younger girl sourced her claims about relative school graduate salaries from, although Jeremy Horpedahl, an economics professor on the College of Central Arkansas, instructed on Twitter that it may have come from a 2007 desk printed by the Nationwide Heart for Schooling Statistics.
In accordance with the desk, the typical current school graduate in Might 1981 earned $15,200 per yr—which is simply over $51,000 in 2023 {dollars}. Nevertheless, the video states that the typical current school graduate truly made $33,700 per yr, which she claims quantities to over $100,000 in as we speak’s {dollars}. Her error, it appears, might have come from misreading the desk, which lists $33,700 because the Might 1981 wage for current school graduates when adjusted to 2006 {dollars}.
In actual fact, slightly than discovering themselves a lot poorer than their boomer or Technology X dad and mom, current school graduates appear to be making extra on common than school grads 40 years in the past. In accordance with the Nationwide Heart for Schooling Statistics, the common 25- to 34-year-old with a bachelor’s diploma made $59,600 in 2020. For these proper out of faculty, the Nationwide Affiliation of Faculties and Employers reported that the typical beginning wage of a 2021 school grad was $58,862.
Nevertheless, the video’s speedy unfold signifies greater than the gullibility of the typical Twitter or TikTok consumer. It additionally signifies a pervasive, but unwarranted pessimism in lots of younger individuals who appear to suppose that touchdown a great entry-level job is all however not possible in as we speak’s economic system.
“I feel boomers simply have such a tough time conceptualizing this as a result of they by no means needed to battle for jobs,” the younger girl within the video says. “They had been on the upswing of expertise, they had been on the upswing of massive enterprise, capitalism was booming, after which they take a look at us they usually’re considering…entitled.”
However that description truly matches much better to the present financial scenario than the one in every of 40 years in the past. Not solely is tech innovation booming, nevertheless it’s additionally merely a lot simpler to get a job in 2023 than it was within the early ’80s. In 2023, the unemployment charge is at a 50-year low—3.6 % common in 2022 versus a mean of 9.7 % in 1982. For school graduates, the unemployment charge is even decrease—simply 2.5 % on common in 2022.
Whereas it may be straightforward to get slowed down by messages that the financial actuality for younger folks is bleak, the reality is that, at the very least on the metric of common wage, the world is vibrant for current school graduates—and anybody else on the lookout for a job for that matter.