For a Lot of Millennial Men, the American Dream Is Dead

The economic prospects of those without college degrees, particularly men, are grim

Photo: Carlina Teteris/Getty Images

Depending on what you read, millennials are either lazy and entitled moochers who can’t move out of their parents’ basements, or they’re victims of the most severe and protracted economic slowdown since the Great Depression.

A comprehensive new report from Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality suggests it’s the latter narrative we should be paying attention to. The report reviewed the state of the millennials, covering topics as varied as student debt, employment, income, and social mobility. In general, it presented a mixed outlook: While some millennials — in particular, those with college degrees — are doing okay, for others — namely those without an advanced education — it seems the American dream has become a distant memory.

Certainly, millennials can lay quite a bit of blame on the recession. Researchers have found that generations who enter the labor force during recessions often pay a long-term price for that timing. Labor market disadvantages tend to build on each other — that disappointing first job, taken perhaps in desperation in the depths of a recession, makes it harder to get a great second job, and so on and so on. “Anytime…