This is a summary from ChatGPT. Source summarized: What Killed Youth Optimism?

Youth, long the demographic of relentless optimism, is now more pessimistic than older generations, according to the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey. Despite measurable gains in wealth, younger Americans are facing a crushing mix of debt, unaffordable housing, and job-market instability that makes their cynicism feel rational.

• Youth consumer sentiment has fallen below that of older generations, a reversal of historic trends.
• Student debt is back to all-time highs, far sooner than predicted, as loan repayments resumed.
• Youth unemployment is 10.5%, nearly doubling since 2023, with AI-driven job displacement looming.
• Housing prices and mortgage rates are historically punishing, locking young people out of ownership.
• Median homebuyer age is now 56, reflecting younger generations’ inability to buy.
• High credit standards post-Dodd-Frank make first-time mortgages difficult without near-perfect credit.
• Future fiscal burdens loom, with large budget deficits likely to fall on younger taxpayers.
• Perception of “bad timing” for buying homes compounds generational frustration.

The piece argues that young Americans’ pessimism stems less from fragility or “doomscrolling” and more from rational evaluation of the future. Even though many have managed to build some wealth, the sense of forward-looking risk dominates: they see ballooning federal deficits that they will be expected to pay down, rising student debt loads, and the possibility of AI-driven labor disruption drastically altering career trajectories. The youth unemployment spike to 10.5% underscores that this anxiety is grounded in current, not hypothetical, realities.

Housing represents the second pillar of malaise. While older Americans overwhelmingly own homes purchased at far lower prices and rates, today’s young adults face a market where median buyers are now 56 years old. Mortgage rates remain high even as the Fed hints at cuts, which could perversely push home prices higher without improving affordability. Combine that with post-financial-crisis lending standards, and the barrier to entry feels insurmountable. For young people, homeownership has transformed from a rite of passage into a distant aspiration.

Culturally, this shift in optimism signals a break with decades of economic expectation-setting. The narrative of progress—graduation, job, home, family—has been disrupted by structural forces that feel outside individual control. Whether the pessimism itself triggers behavioral shifts, such as delayed family formation or increased political volatility, remains an open question, but the mood itself is clear: the optimism gap has closed, and young adults are, for the first time in modern surveys, the most disillusioned cohort in America.

• 🤖What Killed Youth Optimism? - A detailed look at why young Americans are now more pessimistic than their elders, citing debt, housing, and job market pressures as rational drivers of gloom.

Summarized by ChatGPT on Sep 22, 2025 at 7:07 AM.