The central thesis of this article that is stated ad-nausium is that “Look! Millennials have a higher standard of living, they must have it easier.” This is no different than when some talking heads on Fox News tried to belittle Gen X’s financial hardships by citing the fact that almost all homes now have refrigerators. If you define worse and better in ways that people don’t actually mean then of course your thesis is proved and you get a snappy title.

Higher consumption doesn’t mean higher disposable income, it means higher consumption. I consume a lot more and have more “disposable income” because I cannot afford things like children, a house, a nice car, that would make my income non-disposable.

You will realize the gains that older people have now when you’re older is a huge maybe.

The author is taking the wrong thing away from Bulmol’s Cost Disease. The split between goods becoming much much cheaper and services much much more expensive (remember that increased consumption thing? I can afford very nice acrylic nails but not the labor for someone else to install them) is that when you need services the bill hits like a truck and cost of living tracks mostly goods not services.

Houses being bigger is meaningless when the location is what you’re paying for. If you don’t have the choice to pay less for less it doesn’t make any difference that you’re now “getting more.”