The idea that Zoomers are "utterly screwed" in material terms is total nonsense and I wish people would stop repeating it. Housing is a bit more expensive than previous generations. Many other necessities — food, clothing, most manufactured goods are cheaper than ever.

I think the perception that Zoomers are "utterly screwed" is a combination of (1) opinion being shaped by people who live in the places with the most dysfunctional housing markets (2) extreme negativity bias of social media algorithms (3) nobody has much incentive to push back.

This post is now three years out of date but it's still basically correct. You can plausibly argue young people are a bit worse off than their parents but they are not "screwed."

@NadimHossain 100 years ago, a young person from Atlanta who didn't feel like he could make enough to raise a family might move to a booming city like Chicago or Detroit in search of economic opportunity.

@NadimHossain Today the equivalent might be moving from San Francisco to Houston in search of lower housing costs. And some people do this, but not as much as in the past, which suggests to me that the need is less extreme.