Many believe children will do worse financially than parents, poll finds

The coronavirus pandemic has made parents pessimistic about their children’s future, according to a Pew Research survey.

More than two-thirds (68%) of those polled in the United States said they believed today’s children would be worse off financially as adults than their parents, up from 60% in 2019. Alone 32% think children will be better off.

The global survey was conducted between February 1 and May 26 among 18,850 adults in 17 advanced economies. The United States ranks sixth for pessimism about children’s financial futures, tied with Canada and behind Japan, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium.

Regarding the current economic situation, 71% of Americans think it is bad, compared to 29% who think it is good.

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Children of the pandemic have faced a double whammy of virtual learning and an economic recession. When schools closed, classrooms went online. As a result, they suffered a significant learning loss, which results in reduced income for life, studies have shown.

The economic fallout from the crisis has also hit households across the country, leaving millions of Americans unemployed. Although the recession only lasted two months – from February 2020 to April 2020, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recovery has been patchy.

Employment rates of high-wage workers are picking up while employment rates of low-wage workers are not, said David Grusky, professor of sociology at Stanford University.

“While the pandemic safety net has corrected some of the resulting inequalities, these divergent employment trends make it clear that there are still two Americas, a wealthy America that thrives and a struggling America that is ready to fight. even more, ”said Grusky, director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

“This is a very disturbing warning sign for the future.”

Certainly, even before the pandemic, children were financially behind their parents’ generation.

Over the past few decades, there has been a rapid deterioration of the “American Dream,” which has long been understood as a commitment that every generation should do better than the one that came before it, Grusky said.

Several studies confirm this. For example, a report by the non-partisan think tank New America found that millennials earn 20% less than baby boomers at the same stage of their lives.

“Today’s young American adults are on a much lower wealth accumulation trajectory than their predecessors,” the newspaper said. “Dramatically so. “