Millennial Generation Is "Spoiled"? Oh, Really?? - Millennial Money with Cliff Mason

BIO

Cliff Mason is the author of Millennial Money. He is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich and Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like. Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.

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Oct.24

8:58 AM ET

Friday, 24 Oct 2008

Millennial Generation Is "Spoiled"? Oh, Really??

Posted By:Cliff Mason

Topics:Stock Market

In an article titled "The Trophy Kids Go To Work" in The Wall Street Journal, Ron Alsop really sticks it to my generation in what has to be one of the most vicious inter-generational hit-jobs I've seen in a long time.

We all know the rap about us so-called millennials: we're spoiled, we have entitlement issues, we think we're better than everyone else, we have unrealistic expectations about entering the workforce. Apparently we were coddled too much by our parents and teachers, or at least that's what the baby boomers keep telling me. The piece in the Journal was a classic example of all these stereotypes about my generation without much in the way of good evidence.

For example, to prove that we have a greater sense of entitlement than older workers, Alsop cites this rigorous, clearly academic-standard study: "More than 85% of hiring managers and human-resource executives said they feel that millennials have a stronger sense of entitlement than older workers, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com," he tells us. I can think of a few problems with that question. First of all, hiring managers and human resource executives are all, wait for it, older workers. The people surveyed may be in the field of human resources, but they're also most likely baby boomers or members of generation X. So in essence, they're being asked: who has a stronger sense of entitlement, you or them? There's a clear generational bias here.

Alsop, calling our sense of entitlement "an ingrained trait" further claims, "although members of other generations were considered somewhat spoiled in their youth, millennials feel an unusually strong sense of entitlement." I'm calling BS. If anything, older workers feel a greater sense of entitlement, telling young people like us to patiently pay our dues and wait our turn, and implicitly saying merit doesn't matter nearly as much as time served, the number of years you've worked in a given industry. The difference is that other older workers think that sense of entitlement is justified.

We're all human beings. I don't know anyone, young or old, who doesn't have some kind of entitlement issue. Alsop continues, "some research studies indicate that the millennial generation's great expectations stem from feelings of superiority." Again, everybody, young or old, thinks they're better than everyone else deep down in the darkest corners of their mind. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone, of any generation, who doesn't feel like they deserve more than they're getting.

I'm going to regard every single claim that my generation is more entitled than previous generations as a total canard until I see some good data comparing our attitudes to the attitudes of baby boomers and generation-Xers when they were in their 20s. I was a social science guy in college, and I give Alsop some credit for citing more than just a handful of interviews to make his case, which is the standard journalistic approach to trend pieces, but there's nothing in his article that comes close to being dispositive. Maybe he has the real proof in his book, but somehow I doubt it.

And at the end of the day the millennial generation is better educated, more adept at using technology, and much more media savvy than generation X or the baby boomers. Maybe we feel superior because we actually are?

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