Millennials are indeed richer than their grandparents, which is the comparison you're making here. But not their parents.

But GDP per capita is not a good statistic to be making this argument with, mostly because it is a mean rather than a median. Since 1971, much of those gains have gone to the the top 1%, and essentially all of those gains have gone to the top 20%.

"But GDP per capita is not a good statistic to be making this argument with, mostly because it is a mean rather than a median. Since 1971, much of those gains have gone to the the top 1%, and essentially all of those gains have gone to the top 20%."

That was also my point and GDP is the perfect statistic in my opinion.

...and one of the major complaints about things is that GDP growth has entirely decoupled from wage growth meaning that Top X% intervals each reap more most of the GDP gains. Not to mention that when most think of a "middle class job" they think of getting paid $60k to $120K which (outside of being decidedly upper middle class) means that there must be a huge chunk getting below $46k.

> Obviously, millennials have to be richer than their fathers or, at least, than their grandparents.

Only if the GDP per capita is allocated uniformly. Who makes more, a 25 year old working at Starbucks or a 55 year old white collar worker?

Sure, but if you take all the workers in consideration, things don't look so good neither.

"For most U.S. workers, real wages — that is, after inflation is taken into account — have been flat or even falling for decades, regardless of whether the economy has been adding or subtracting jobs."

from: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor...

GDP per capita is only the average right ? Because nowadays with the income inequality, I would consider looking at medians to be more accurate. And millennials are not the only generation currently alive so even a median would not help here.

GDP is not personal income or wealth, so I'm not sure what your point is.

But GDP would be a good measure of how rich a society is.

It's contextually worthless.