It’s hardly news that Americans are not happy with the state of their nation.
asserted
Americans → ’ → nation
Confidence in the country’s direction crashed hard during the Bush years and never recovered.
asserted
Confidence → crash → years
But what’s notable about more recent years is Americans’ increasing dissatisfaction with their personal lives:1
This decline looks pretty mild, but other numbers tell an even starker story.
asserted
numbers → ’ → story
For example, happiness surveys show an increasingly despondent populace:
Suicide has been slowly rising as well.
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Suicide → show → populace
For intellectuals and commentators such as myself, for many policy wonks and academics, and even for many politicians, the question is how to make the American people happier.
asserted
people → make → politicians
And the answers we come up with are usually economic ones — ideas for policies that will improve the material well-being of either the whole populace, or some segment of it.
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that → come → it
On the left, centrists have embraced the Abundance movement, whose main idea is to give Americans more stuff — more housing, electricity, health care, and so on.
asserted
idea → embrace → housing
On the right, Trump’s trade agenda has usually been justified with claims that it will return good manufacturing jobs to the American working class.
uncertain
it → justify → class
Even immigration restriction is usually couched in economic terms — the MAGA people claim that mass deportations will open up jobs for Americans, lower the price of housing, and so on.
uncertain
deportations → couch → housing
The roots of the country’s malaise, too, are often described in economic terms.
asserted
roots → describe → terms
Many people claim that the First China Shock — and the loss of good blue-collar jobs to offshoring more generally — left a disappointed, angry working class in its wake.
uncertain
Shock → claim → wake
Progressives decry corporate landlords that they claim raise the cost of housing, and blame grocery stores’ greed for the rising cost of food.
uncertain
they → decry → food
Practically everyone agrees that inflation was the biggest reason Trump won the 2024 election.
asserted
Trump → agree → election
I’ve spent a lot of time arguing against a lot of these ideas (and in favor of a few of them).
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I → spend → them
But I almost always accept the basic frame that A) many of America’s problems are due to economic malaise, and B) we ought to focus on finding ways to make Americans richer.
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Americans → accept → ways
Partly, this is because I was trained as an economist; I recognize that things like culture wars are also important to Americans, but I don’t have much special expertise in that area.
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I → train → area
But partly, I think I just subscribe to the general tendency of American intellectuals to focus on the material.
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I → think → material
I was thinking of this as I read Jay Caspian Kang’s essay, “Subaru Socialists and the Great Disappointed.”
asserted
I → think → essay
Kang argues that the young, educated, angry voters who currently form the Democrats’ base can be separated into two basic groups: Millennials who are mad about the raw economic deal they received during and after the Great Recession, and Zoomers who are mad about Covid and Palestine.
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who → argue → Covid
Here he describes the first of these groups:
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he → describe → groups
This new voting bloc has two similar but distinct components.
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bloc → have → components
There are what I call the Subaru Socialists: college-educated millennials in their thirties and early forties who earn a somewhat steady income but not what they expected.
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they → be → what
These voters arrived at their politics via the Great Recession, Occupy Wall Street, and the continual escalation of housing prices in urban areas—all of which heightened the contrast between what they were promised when they took on student debt and their current circumstances.
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they → arrive → debt
For a long time, I basically bought the narrative that at least some of the unrest of the 2010s was due to angry Millennials who had gotten screwed by the Great Recession.
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who → buy → Recession
It makes intuitive sense that a generation who were on the losing end of such a vivid demonstration of economic risk would turn toward policies that decrease economic risk — like government health insurance and rent control.
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that → make → insurance
It also makes sense that they’d want student debt forgiveness.
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they → make → forgiveness
But as time has gone on and I’ve seen Millennials do better and better economically, I’ve begun to doubt this narrative.
asserted
I → go → narrative
Corinth and Larrimore (2026) write:
We find that Millennials had a real median household income that was 20% higher than that of the previous generation, a slowdown from the growth rate of the Silent Generation (36%) and Baby Boomers (26%), but similar to that of Generation X (16%).
asserted
that → write → X
The slowdown for younger generations largely resulted from stalled growth in work hours among women…
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slowdown → result → women
Additionally, lifetime income gains for younger generations far outweigh their higher educational costs.
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gains → outweigh → costs
And here’s a chart:
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chart → ’ → ?
It’s not just government redistribution giving Millennials a boost.
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It → ’ → boost
By the time they hit their mid 30s, their market income was well ahead of Gen X or the Boomers (and yes, this is adjusted for the cost of living).
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this → hit → living
They had caught up in wealth, too:
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They → catch → wealth
Now, is it possible that even though Millennials eventually did OK, the disruptions of their 20s created a scarring experience that they’ve never forgotten?
asserted
they → do → that
But it’s also notable that the kind of economic policies lefty Millennials demand — especially universal health insurance — don’t really address the main kinds of risks they experienced in their youth (unemployment and wage declines).
asserted
they → ’ → youth
On the right, it’s notable that the economic policies Trump has unleashed have not helped the people they were supposedly designed to help.
asserted
they → ’ → people
Manufacturing employment has fallen since Trump took office and started putting tariffs on anyone and everyone:
So much for those blue-collar jobs coming back.
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jobs → fall → anyone
Meanwhile, mass deportations and a near-cessation of net immigration to the U.S. have spectacularly failed to raise employment rates for native-born Americans:
asserted
deportations → fail → Americans
It’s possible, of course, that Trump’s supporters think his policies will take a long time to work, or perhaps they simply aren’t very aware of what’s going on in the economy.
asserted
what → ’ → economy
…and 49 more, not listed.
The Aporia
