Gen Z Wages Are Beating Millennials at the Same Age

Gen Z Wages are outpacing what millennials earned at the same age, and the margin is not close. Zety's Early-Career Labor Market Report, built on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, compares full-time workers ages twenty to twenty-four across two eras: millennials working from 2005 through 2008, and Gen Z workers active from 2021 through 2024. The headline number is pay. Inflation-adjusted median weekly earnings averaged about $756 for Gen Z, compared with $674 for millennials, a gap of roughly 12.3 percent, according to the report. For a generation often described as falling behind, that is a striking lead, and it held across the four years studied.

The catch is that fewer Gen Z adults are in the workforce at all. The report puts average labor force participation for Gen Z at 71.1 percent, versus 74.5 percent for millennials at the same age, and the employment-population ratio at 65.8 percent against 67.9 percent. The takeaway is uneven: a smaller share of the generation is working or looking for work, but Gen Z Wages for full-time workers beat the millennial record on pay. Zety's team limited the comparison to the working or actively job-hunting population in both periods, so the gap is not an artifact of who was counted. The participation shortfall is real, but it does not erase the pay advantage for those who land full-time roles, which is where the Gen Z Wages comparison is sharpest.

The lazy label does not match the data

The lazy label does not match the data

The unemployment figures add weight to the Gen Z Wages story. The jobless rate averaged 7.5 percent for Gen Z across the study period, compared with 8.9 percent for millennials, according to the report. Newsweek's "Generation Gain" coverage of the findings this month notes that the numbers complicate the familiar complaints about entitlement and poor work ethic. Michael Ryan, a finance expert quoted by Newsweek, argued that older workers tend to remember the long hours of their youth while forgetting the complaining they did at twenty-two, which makes the generational scolding feel a little hollow.

Others say the shift is about attitude as much as economics. Experts quoted in coverage of the report argue that many young workers question whether the old bargain of "work hard, keep your head down and eventually you'll be rewarded" still makes sense, and that skepticism may push them to negotiate harder and move sooner. None of this means every young worker feels the Gen Z Wages advantage, and the report's own participation numbers show plenty of twenty-somethings sitting out. But when unemployment runs low, the workers who ask for more tend to get it, and that is what the data shows happening. It also helps explain why the Gen Z Wages conversation has shifted from mocking the generation's work ethic to asking what employers must offer to keep them.

Why millennials fell behind

Why millennials fell behind

That backdrop helps explain the Gen Z Wages lead. Millennials entered the workforce as the 2008 financial crisis shredded hiring and froze raises, and years of weak wage growth followed through the next decade. The Resolution Foundation, a British think tank, found that millennials are the first generation since the 1950s to miss out on higher disposable incomes. With Gen Z now several years into working life, the organization's senior economist Charlie McCurdy says they have enjoyed "a mini pay rebound." The British findings line up with the American ones: the cohort that started work in the lean years lost ground, and the one that followed is clawing some of it back.

The report is not the last word. Zety is a commercial resume builder, and the study covers only American workers in their early twenties, so the averages hide big gaps by race, region, and education. The Gen Z Wages edge could narrow as the cohort ages and as labor markets cool. Still, the pattern is worth sitting with. A smaller share of Gen Z is working, but those who are working earn more than their millennial counterparts did, and they are finding jobs faster. For the generation accused of not wanting to work, the evidence points the other way: they are working, and right now the market is paying them for it.