Opinion: The shutdown of SVB is more of the same for Millennials

Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
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The shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank has a lot of Americans understandably worried. Chaos and tension are palpable. The Biden administration is scrambling to stabilize the banking sector and many populist voters are chafing at the idea of what they fear could be another bailout, while some conservatives are bizarrely blaming the breakdown on “wokeism” because the bank’s entire board wasn’t White and male. And then there are Millennials like me, stressed but somewhat resigned as we conclude: This again.

While “Millennial” is often treated as shorthand for “young,” the oldest of my generation are in our 40s, and our lives are not nearly as stable as we would hope. That’s in part because of a series of crises that have disrupted our earning and wealth-building power. The financial crash of 2008 happened just as many of us were entering our working years, and as the first in, we were often the first out.

The rest of our adult lives have looked like this: instability, job losses, recovery, reversal. While many of us managed to reenter the labor force after losing jobs, our earnings have taken permanent hits. We lost a larger proportion of our earnings from the Great Recession than any other adult generation, and by entering the workforce at a time of cut wages and more competition, we were set up for a lifetime of lower earnings and less savings.

As we entered our 20s and 30s, housing prices skyrocketed, putting home ownership largely out of reach. At the same time, jobs were increasingly concentrated in large cities – the places where housing costs, including rent, were highest. As many of us poured huge chunks of our take-home pay into our monthly rental costs and our astronomical student loan payments, there wasn’t much left over to save for a down payment.

With interest rates now high, the promise of home ownership feels even further away for many Millennials. We remain far behind Boomers, Gen Xers, and even members of the Silent Generation when it comes to home ownership in…