Who do young people blame most for the economic conditions? Trump and corporate greed: Poll

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Our thanks to Maya Eaglin for gathering all of those interviews. Young Americans, as you heard, are struggling. More than 50 percent of them say the economy is bad, and almost 30 percent say it's downright terrible, according to a recent Generation Lab survey, while almost half of Gen Zers and millennials say they're living paycheck to paycheck. Joining us, co-host of the Prof G Markets podcast, Ed Elson. Ed, so part of the sell on the hustle economy and, you know, getting a job on the side like Uber or DoorDash or, you know, being able to being an influencer or starting your own sub stack was that, you know, you were going to be able to create your own economy, create your own hours, be your own boss. It would be liberating. You wouldn't have to, you know, be in the grind in corporate America, go to a desk job every day or whatever. It seems like the reality of those jobs is that you are actually never off and it is a big grind and not as fulfilling as it was sold to be. [00:00:58] Ed Elson: I think that's exactly right. I mean, it was a nice story in theory, but it papered over some very serious structural issues in the economy, which have made the lives of young people a lot more expensive. I mean, all of the things that those kids in that video said, everything they said is true. I mean, we look at what we're seeing with inflation. It just hit 3.8 percent in April, so we're close to 4 percent year over year. PPI inflation up 6 percent, energy inflation 18 percent, gasoline inflation 28 percent year over year. And they made the point that there are two big issues. There's tariffs, which added nearly a full percentage point to prices, to inflation. And then there was invading Iran and what that did to the Strait of Hormuz and what that resultantly did to gas prices and oil prices, which also added roughly a full percentage point to inflation. So if you wanted to fix these problems, we've talked about this before. You know, a lot of people try to say that there are these issues are too complicated. How do you deal with inflation? You have two easy fixes right here. You get rid of the tariffs and you get rid of Iran. I mean, you get out of Iran is what I should really be saying. And that would fix the problem. That would be a start. But then there are the other structural issues like housing prices and college costs, which we can also get into. But young people are upset and they're worried and for good reason, because the data is telling us exactly that. And also just getting [00:02:21] Speaker 1: a job and being able to keep that job, having a steady paycheck that, you know, comes every two weeks and gives you health care, maybe a 401k that you can pay into with a company match. Last May, this is from May of 2025, the number of people with multiple jobs rose to 8.9 million for the first time since 1994. Look at what young folks say they're blaming for this bad economy. I'll show you some some polling. And this is more recent. 41% say Donald Trump is to blame. 3% say Joe Biden. 9% say congressional Republicans. 3% say congressional Democrats. 31% corporate greed, large companies. I mean, corporate greed and Donald Trump are battling it out here for the top spot. And you do hear that a lot from young people. What do they want from corporations? Well, again, the polling is reflecting [00:03:20] Ed Elson: the truth because Donald Trump has been one of the worst things for the affordability crisis, specifically as it relates to young Americans. And we have seen a system that has spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of effort trying to prop up existing asset prices such that the people who already own assets get richer and those who don't own assets yet, i.e. young people, can never figure out a way to build wealth. We see this with housing prices, which are at record highs today. They're seven times average annual income in America. When my parents were my age, it was four times. When my grandparents were my age, it was three times. And you asked Donald Trump, I mean, I thought we all agreed we were going to try to get the price of housing down. Donald Trump was asked about this and he said, actually, no, I want the cost of housing, I want the price of housing to go up because I want to please my voters who already own homes. We see the same thing with college costs, which have skyrocketed. And just look at the way young people live today. A third of us still live with our parents. More than half of us say we don't want to have children. It's very simple, these issues. We don't feel that we have an economic future in this country. And that is a fair assessment because when you look at the data, when you see that the average age of a home buyer is now 50 years old and in 1980, it was 30 years old, you can see that, yes, young people are increasingly shut out of this economy. [00:04:45] Speaker 1: The problems are there waiting for a politician to come in, I guess, beyond Bernie Sanders and say, here's what the solution is and for them to get enough votes to win. Ed Elson, always good to have you. I heard you had a really good night the other night. I'm sorry I missed it. Ed Elson, always good to have you. I did. I did. Thank you, Katie.