This is How Economic Crisis and Precarity Shaped the Millennial Generation

Joe Weisenthal (0:14)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:19)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:21)

Tracy, I always forget, are you a millennial?

Tracy Alloway (0:24)

I knew this was gonna be the first question that you asked me on this episode. I am, I believe, what is known as an elder millennial.

Basically, sort of on the cusp of the millennial generation, depending on where you define it. But if you define it as kids born from the 1980s onwards, I'm definitely there. And if you define it as the children of baby boomers, I'm definitely there. You're an older millennial, right?

Joe Weisenthal (0:55)

I was born in 1980, so I think I missed it by that definition. But here's my question. Did you use Facebook when you were in college?

Tracy Alloway (1:02)

Yes, but only because our college got it early.

Joe Weisenthal (1:07)

To me, that is the, in my view, that is the crucial dividing line between millennial and Gen X, because obviously so much of the modern era is defined by everything with the internet and social media and all that stuff. And I really feel like if you didn't have Facebook yet in college, you're not a millennial, and if you did, you are. And so I guess you are, and I'm not.

Tracy Alloway (1:32)

Look, we can go back and forth on the definitions. I actually like the way you define it because I think the internet has been clearly so crucial to the experience of a lot of millennials and creating your own online identity has been quite important as well. So it makes sense. Yes, okay, I'm a millennial, but I'm an older one.

Joe Weisenthal (1:52)

Yeah, you're still good.

But beyond the internet and beyond the way social media and all that is changing everything, one of the sort of persistent frameworks or tropes or themes that happens when people talk about millennials is the economic situation. And you hear a lot about millennials being late to form families or buy homes or their distrust of the stock market. The millennial generation has sort of came of age, at least the sort of middle to late millennials during a period of labor market precarity. So in addition to everything that we were talking about with Facebook and all that, there really is this sort of very big economic dimension to how we talk about this generation.

Tracy Alloway (2:38)

Right, so many millennials hit the job market precisely at the wrong time, which would have been after the 2008 financial crisis and have sort of had their entire labor market experience defined by that. And of course, you've seen all this tension that's bubbling up between millennials and boomers characterized or crystallized, I should say, in the okay boomer movement that now seems to be a thing.

Joe Weisenthal (3:04)

You know what I think is lame, though, how millennials want to side with Gen Z. It's like, come on, millennials are old, too. It's like, don't pretend you're young anymore.

But all that being said, so let's talk about the millennial economic situation. But before we do, remember a couple weeks ago or like maybe a month ago, we talked to Karen Ho of the University of Minnesota about her anthropological take on Wall Street?

Tracy Alloway (3:31)

Yeah, the anthropologist who worked at a major bank, yep.

Joe Weisenthal (3:35)

Well, I'm excited because today we are speaking to another Karen Ho, the other one.

There's probably several more, but this is the other really prominent one, if you look online. And so we'll, Odd Lots, in a matter of like five episodes, we'll have spoken to two Karen Ho's. But this time, instead of talking about Wall Street, we're going to talk about the economic and investing condition of the millennial generation.

Tracy Alloway (4:00)

Yeah, you wait for one Karen Ho and then two come along all at once.

Joe Weisenthal (4:04)

Yeah, all right.

Without further ado, let's bring in Karen Ho. She is the, she's a freelance writer. She's written a lot about business, cultural things. She's also the editor of the Significant Digits newsletter for FiveThirtyEight. Karen, thank you very much for joining us.

Karen K. Ho (4:21)

Thanks for having me.

Joe Weisenthal (4:22)

You're aware of the other Karen Ho before this, right? Like, how much that?

Karen K. Ho (4:26)

I get a lot of her emails.

And so, I literally have her email address bookmarked.

And I have to remind people constantly, are you asking for, you know, people have told me, they're like, I love your book. And I was like, I'm not that person. And so, it was really funny when Laura, your producer, reached out to me. I was like, are you sure you want to talk to me? Because there's this other Karen Ho that's a big expert on Wall Street. And she's like, yes, yes, I want to talk to you. So, I was really thrilled. And I've been friends with Joe for a couple of years. So, it was a great opportunity to come and chat about something that I, a topic that I hold really near and dear to my heart.