Student loan growth is arguably a decent proxy. Entire generations coming out of school with negative wealth is a pretty new thing.

Does this amount to a systemic transfer of wealth from young to old (OP's complaint?)?

Student loan growth correlates to the (seemingly unbounded) rise of college costs, along with the willingness of the Government to back loans for them?

I'd argue that college costs are rising specifically because it's so easy for students to get loans because of Government intervention. :(

Also to be considered is that it used to be the case that entire generations did not go to college (in fact we're only at 30% of folks now...).

One still has a generation who were educated on subsidised education now reducing those subsidies, per capita, to the next. The former then expects the latter to work to fund their Social Security, Medicare and pensions as opposed to working to redistribute those hand-outs over the broader population. (Not taking a stance. Simply eliding a policy theme. My bet is SS, Medicare and pensions will be dismantled within a few cycles to fund a UBI and universal healthcare, with total pay-outs to seniors going down to pay for broader pay-outs across the population.)

There has been no reduction of education spending on a per-capita basis (or any other form of measurement).

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1970_202...

It has grown at an amazing rate (as have Medicare/pensions etc).

Half of the income of the middle 20% of retired folks (those making less than $65K) comes from the government subsidies you'd like to cut. The 2nd 20% gets 2/3rds their income from the government and the bottom gets practically all of it. Cuts here will materially impact the poorest elderly.

Citations: https://usafacts.org/reports/annual/2018

My personal TL;DR is that we've been throwing money at all these problems and they are still so far from being solved :( Actually throwing money around seems to make things much worse.

People are taking a NIMBY style stance (cut those programs I don't use and give me/people like me the difference -- definitely don't cut my programs) that is not going to achieve anything but further animosity and grief :(

"There has been no reduction of education spending on a per-capita basis (or any other form of measurement)."

You have the per student basis? And how much of this so-called "education spending" goes to things which have nothing to do with the students (such as research only loosely affiliated with a university - e.g. through its medical school)?

You mention NIMBYism. I would regard that as the principal vector of wealth transfer.

Nimbyism is only a regional factor.

I think we agree this is a national conversation.

Local themes can manifest at scale. Many large cities are affected by generational NIMBYism. That collects to produce a macroeconomic effect.

But the data doesn't show that there's a bunch of rich old folks mooching on the labor of everyone else.

Basically the median elderly person has enough money to pay off the median house and then nothing else. After a lifetime of work isn't this acceptable?

Secondary source: http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/time-to-bury-pew-report...

On mobile otherwise I would link in the primary data.