Author: Jeremy Horpedahl

Average Wealth for Younger Generations Continues To Exceed Past Generations

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Today I am posting an update to the generational wealth chart that I have posted many times in the past. This update brings the data through the 3rd quarter of 2025 for the youngest cohort, which includes both Millennials and a growing part of Gen Z in the data from the Federal Reserve. I am somehow hesitant to post this chart, as it is starting to be data that is less useful as the younger generations age, for two reasons.

The first problem with the data is that the Fed is lumping everyone from ages 18-43 together as one generation. Given that the youngest Millennials were 29 in 2025, we are now including a significant part of Gen Z, which is OK in itself, but it becomes harder to compare with generations that encompass only 16 or 17 years of birth cohorts. Secondly, the data from the Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts is only benchmarked every three years with the Fed’s more detailed Survey of Consumer Finances. Currently only the 2022 version of the survey is available, which is now probably a bit out of date. Based on past updates, it is entirely possible that it is underestimating wealth for the youngest cohort. But I think we will have much more certainty about this data once the 2025 SCF is available and used as a benchmark for the DFA data.

With all of those caveats aside, here is the updated chart:

As I am currently working on a book manuscript using the Survey of Consumer Finances, I will be very excited to finally have the 2025 data available. Until then, this is probably the best intergenerational comparison we can do, and it continues to look very positive for the youngest cohorts. With an average of almost $146,000 of wealth for the combined Millennial/Gen Z cohort, they are well ahead of where Gen X was even in their late 30s, and ahead of Boomers at around age 37 as well. All of this bodes well for young people, despite frequent expressions of pessimism, but we should hold off judgement until the 2025 data is fully updated.

Gasoline Prices Have Increased at Record Rates, but Remain At About Average Levels of Affordability

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In the (so far) short military engagement with Iran, crude oil and gasoline prices have jumped significantly. The three-week change in gasoline prices at the pump for US consumers was 27 percent, the largest three-week increase consumers in the US have ever seen (with data back through the 1990s). The four-week increase is also a record.

Despite this sharp increase, gasoline prices remain near the long-run average in terms of affordability: it takes about 7 minutes of work at the average wage to purchase a gallon of gasoline. To be sure, this is a big jump of where it had been earlier in 2026, at about 5 minutes of labor. Nonetheless, gasoline is still (for now!) more affordable than it was, relative to wages, for almost all of 2022 and 2023.

Since 2021, 80 Percent of Population Growth in the US Has Been from International Migration

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The following chart shows cumulative population growth in the US since 2010, from two sources: the natural population growth (birth minus deaths) and international migration:

In total, the US population has increased by about 30 million people since 2010. Cumulatively, about 55 percent of the growth has been from international migration, but there are two distinct periods within this 15-year timeframe. From 2010 to 2020, about 60 percent of the population growth was from natural population change, both cumulatively and in most of those years. From 2021 forward, 70-90 percent of the growth has been from international migration.

The flip in 2021 happens because both factors changed. First, the natural rate of population growth slowed dramatically, with just 146,000 people added to the population, compared with close to 1 million or more before the COVID pandemic. The decline in population growth is a result of gradually slowing birth rates, but also skyrocketing death rates in 2021-2022: about 3.4 million deaths per year, compared with about 2.8 million pre-pandemic. Second, international migration picked up dramatically, from around half a million people in 2019-2020, to an average of over 2 million per year from 2022-2024.

Note: the years in this data run from July to June, so when it says 2025 in the chart, this means from 7/1/2024 to 6/30/2025. Thus, we don’t yet have a full year of data under Trump. But even with the half year under Trump, which includes 6-7 months under Biden when the border policy was already being reversed, the latest year of data from Census suggests the US still had a net international migration of almost 1.3 million people. That’s half the number from 2024, but still well above pre-pandemic numbers. Keep in mind that these are estimates, subject to change, and estimating changes in the illegal immigrant population is often very difficult to do accurately. But these are probably the best estimates that we have right now.

What does the future hold? Of course, any future projection has to make assumptions about how both the birth rate and immigration rate will change over the coming years. But a recent estimate from CBO suggests that by around 2032-2033 the natural rate of population growth will essentially hit zero, and that by the early 2050s it will be so negative as to completely offset the projected immigration. In other words, total population growth could essentially be zero in the US by 2055 or so. That’s 30 years in the future, so take it with a grain of salt, as any small change in immigration, births, or deaths could throw that projection way off. But it seems like a fairly likely scenario.

The Declining Cost of Adam Smith

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Last week I had the opportunity to see (and touch!) some first edition copies of Adam Smith’s books, including The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

For an economist, of course this was a very cool experience. The books from the Remnant Trust were still in great condition, despite people like me handling these copies from time-to-time. The books were also beautiful editions, which got me thinking: how much did these cost to purchase when originally published?

According to John Rae’s Life of Adam Smith, the original price for The Wealth of Nations was 1 pound, 16 shillings. Average wages per day in England were somewhere around 15 pence per day (1 pence is 1/12 of a shilling), it would take close to 30 days of labor to purchase the book. But that’s assuming you spent all of your wage on books, which of course would have been impossible: a common laborer would have been spending 80-90% of their wages on food, beer, and rent. And that’s assuming no unexpected expenses or sickness. In reality, it might take a common laborer months, years, or maybe his entire life to save up for that book.

Today, of course we can read this book online for free, but what if you want a nice hardcover version? Amazon has several nice hardback versions available for just under $30. These are not quite as beautiful as the 1776 edition, but they would look nice in any library. Given that the average wage in the US today is close to $32, it would take less than one hour of labor to purchase the book. And thankfully the cost of necessities today is much lower than 1776, indeed much lower than 1900, so it would be much easier to set aside that one hour of wages relative to the past, and purchase yourself a little treat like a book written 250 years ago.

Most Married Women with Children Were Working By the Late 1970s

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A recent essay by Jeffrey Tucker asks “Has Life Really Improved in Half a Century?” Specifically, Mr. Tucker is interested in measuring median income of families (he uses household income, but families are clearly what he is interested in).

Tucker grants that real median household income has increased by about 40 percent from 1984 to 2024 (if he had used family income instead, the increase is almost 50 percent). But… he says this is illusory. That’s because it now takes two incomes to achieve that median income, whereas it only took one income in the past:

“Adding another income stream to the household is a 100 percent rise in work expectations but it has yielded only a 20-plus percent rise in material income. The effective pay per hour of work for the household has fallen by 40 to 50 percent!”

(He makes a data error by saying that in 1976 real median household income was $68,000-$70,000, when it was actually $59,000 in 2024 dollars in 1976 — real income didn’t fall from 1976 to 1984!)

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GDP Forecasts for 2025Q4

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UPDATE 2/19/2026: the last GDPNow estimate from the Atlanta Fed is 3.0% and the Kalshi markets are now predicting 2.8%. I would expect this is a slightly better range than the 3.3-3.6% from my post written on 2/18/2026.

In April 2025 I wrote about several different forecasts for GDP growth. At the time the latest GDP quarter available was 2025Q1. We’ve had two more quarters of data since then, plus a highly anticipated report for Q4 coming out this Friday. How have these different predictions done recently? Here is the updated table from that prior post:

When I wrote the post in April 2025, I said that a simple average of the Atlanta Fed and Kalshi forecasts was the best simple predictor of the actual BEA advance figure. Based on the middle quarters of 2025, I think that continued to be true: each of them was the best estimate in one quarter, and perhaps just as importantly the NY Fed and WSJ survey of economists understated GDP growth pretty significantly.

There is still one more Atlanta Fed GDPNow update coming tomorrow before we get the actual BEA data on Friday, but based on where the numbers are now, we should expect Q4 to be around 3.4-3.5% (annualized) growth rate. This would put the total 2025 calendar year growth at around 2.3% — decent, but still below 2024’s 2.8% growth.

2025 Was A Pretty Good Year for the US Economy — But So Was 2024

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While some of the 2025 data is still coming in (such as GDP), we already have much of the core economic data to evaluate the year.

In a recent op-ed, President Trump claimed, “Just over one year ago, we were a ‘DEAD’ country. Now, we are the ‘HOTTEST’ country anywhere in the world!” Of course, every President claims they are doing great things, and Americans are almost exactly evenly divided over whether the economy was better under Biden or Trump — but this mostly just partisanism (Independents are close to evenly split, though).

So what is the truth? I have put together what I think are the best economic indicators to judge how the economy is doing. And what does it tell us? I think the fairest read is that 2025 was a pretty good year, but based on most economic data it was almost identical to 2024.

The only indicator that is clearly better is private-sector job growth in 2024. We might add S&P 500 in 2024 growth too, although some other assets such as gold have performed better in 2025. Inflation in 2025 is a tad lower, but not the massive improvement Trump suggests. This is especially the case for one of his favorite prices, gasoline. Yes, 2025 is a little lower than 2024… just like 2024 was a little lower than 2023.

And what of that greatest of all macroeconomic indicators, GDP? We don’t yet have Q4 data for GDP, which means we don’t have full-year 2025 data yet. But the growth rate of real GDP in 2024 was 2.8%, and betting markets are currently predicting 2.3% for 2025. Betting markets could be wrong! But it seems unlikely it would be much above 2.8% (those same betting markets only think there is a 4% chance it will be over 3.0%).

None of this is to say that the 2024 and 2025 economies are exactly the same. Certainly there is more uncertainty due to the shifting tariff policy, but on the other hand even with that uncertainty the economy is still performing fairly well. And my table above only includes economic outcomes, not any changes to government budgets, nor important social indicators such as crime. These are important too, but my focus in this post is only on the economic data.

It seems that in those surveys about whether the economy is better now or under Biden, it would be useful to offer an “about the same” option. Of course, in 2021-2022 inflation was much worse under Biden — but job growth was much better. A lot of this was baked in from the pandemic, 2020 monetary and fiscal stimulus, etc. Once we were back to a semi-normal economy in 2024, it was a decent year. Not blockbuster, but decent. So was 2025.

The US Homicide Rate in 2025 May Have Been the Lowest Ever

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The following chart merges two data sources to create a long-run series on homicides in the US. Based on early estimates for 2025 from Jeff Asher, the homicide rate may be as low as 4.3 murders per 100,000 population. That would be the lowest since at least 1900, and possibly the lowest US homicide rate ever since the best evidence suggests it was even higher pre-1900. The current record low was 4.4 murders per 100,000, which the US saw in 1955, 1957, and 2014.

The US Has One of the Highest Fertility Rates Among Peer Countries

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Declining fertility rates have been in the news a lot lately, and with good reason. Some countries, such as South Korea, have seen massive declines in fertility rates, and they face huge social problems and population decline resulting from these declining rates. But does the United States face the same problem?

To be clear, fertility rates are down in the US. Using the most common measure, the total fertility rate, births per woman in the US fell from a peak of over 3.5 births at the peak of the Baby Boom in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to around 2 births per woman in the 1990s and 2000s, and fell further to 1.6 births in 2023 (note: it had been around 2 births in the 1930s as well — the Baby Boom was a very real).

But the total fertility rate, or the number of births per woman of child-bearing age (usually 15-49) in a particular year is not a perfect measure. As Saloni Dattani clearly explains, if the timing of births is changing, this can make the TFR temporarily fluctuate. If women on average are delaying births to a later age, the TFR will fall initially even if women end up having the exact same number of children.

An alternative measure suggested by Dattani is the completed cohort fertility rate. This measure looks at the total number of children that women from a particular birth year in a country have throughout their child-bearing years. This rate also shows a decline for the US, but it is much more gradual: for women born in the 1930s (who would eventually become mothers during the Baby Boom), they peaked at about 3.25 births per woman, which declined to right at about 2.0 births in the 1950s (the Baby Boomers themselves), and has gradually risen since then to about 2.20 for women born in the early 1970s.

How does the US completed cohort fertility rate compare with other countries?

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