Gen Z is facing the worst housing affordability crisis since the Great Depression. On the Peter St Onge Podcast, economist Peter St Onge laid out the stark math: the salary needed to qualify for a mortgage has ballooned to $112,000, while the median income for the generation is only $45,000. The result is a structural wall that has pushed one-third of young adults back into their parents' homes and driven fertility rates to a record low of 1.7 children per woman.
The fallout extends beyond homeownership. St Onge argues that the "college wage premium" has halved since 1960, leaving graduates to carry $40,000 in debt into entry-level jobs that AI is automating.
"Eighty-one percent of Gen Z rates the economy as bad or terrible."
- Peter St Onge, Peter St Onge Podcast
Meanwhile, corporate America is burdened by its own inefficiency. St Onge described the human resources industry as an $88 billion "tapeworm," citing research that shows it contributes to $3 trillion in lost annual output and a one-third drop in productivity. He pointed to Silicon Valley firms like Bolt firing their entire HR departments as a leading indicator, arguing such administrative layers prioritize ideological compliance over performance.
This corporate bloat compounds the generational squeeze, siphoning an estimated $10,000 in lost wages from every American worker. The market, however, has grown indifferent to another traditional pressure point: geopolitics. Despite predictions of $240 oil from the Iran conflict, the S&P 500 is up 8.5% since the war began. St Onge attributes this to a fundamental shift - where tech was 5% of the index in the 1970s, it is now 50%, making the market less sensitive to oil shocks and physical supply chains.
The generational wealth gap isn't just a personal finance issue; it's a threat to social stability. Survival, St Onge argues, will require Gen Z to unlearn the "learned helplessness" of traditional education and reskill for the demands of an AI-dominated, infrastructure-heavy economy.
"Studies show diversity training reduces trust and can lower the share of women and minorities in management."
- Peter St Onge, Peter St Onge Podcast
