REUTERS/ Larry Downing
Many young people feel distraught at the state of the world, priced out of owning a home or having kids and worried that artificial intelligence will steal their jobs.
They've also weathered a pandemic and are now dealing with historic inflation and the highest interest rates in two decades — when they've had less time than previous generations to build wealth and prepare for those challenges.
Jamie Dimon, the billionaire CEO of America's largest bank, has little sympathy for them. He made that clear during JPMorgan's investor day on Monday, per a transcript provided by AlphaSense.
"I don't feel so bad for Gen Z and millennials," Dimon said, adding that his grandparents were Greek immigrants who arrived in the US with nothing but "a shirt on their back."
"Let's put things in perspective a little bit," the Wall Street titan said. "They're going to be working probably 3.5 days a week. They're going to live to 100. They're not going to have cancer. They're going to be in pretty good shape, provided the world doesn't destroy it all with nuclear weapons, which is the biggest risk in the world."
Dimon added that in the decades ahead, younger generations would inherit trillions of dollars and benefit from mammoth investments in healthcare, education, and other areas.
Research suggests 25-year-olds are outearning the past six generations at that age, Gen Zers own homes at higher rates than millennials and Gen Xers — and they're set to spend a smaller percentage of their incomes between the ages of 22 and 30 on basics like rent and utilities than millennials did.
However, Dimon did bemoan the plight of the bottom 20% of earners in the US.
"They've gotten a raw deal," he said. "They're dying 10 years younger. They have less medical insurance. They drive through crime in their neighborhoods. Their schools are failing those kids. Half the kids don't graduate in inner-city schools and stuff like that. What the hell did we do as a society?"
In his shareholder letter this year, Dimon called out the drastic inequality and its consequences.
"I do believe this is tearing at the social fabric of America and is among the root causes of the fraying of the American dream," he said.
Dimon evidently sees the gap between the rich and poor as a far more pressing problem than the differences between the old and the young, who have plenty to celebrate in his book.
