Spending data from AmEx shows Gen Z spending is up 40% year-over-year and income inequality appears even more extreme among young people, with a wider range of outcomes than any previous generation.
Michael presents American Express data showing Gen Z spending up 40% year-over-year and notes the visible disparity among young people — some can't afford homes, others make fortunes at 25. Ben adds that coming out of the 2008 crisis everyone was equally broke, whereas now the divide is unprecedented. ✦ AI generated
Michael Batnick · The Compound · 2026-07-29 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 39:10
American Express always breaks this down in terms of the year-over-year growth. So, baby boomers are up 5%. They're not spending that much anymore. Gen X 10% growth. Millennials 14%. Gen Z up 40%. ... Is income inequality even more pronounced for younger people? ... It seems like the have and the have nots are even more pronounced for people 25 and under.
verbatim transcript · starts at 39:10
39:04>> Okay. >> Um anyway, yes, they have. Visa Visa is ripping. So is Mastercard. But I thought this was interesting and I want to ask you a question, Ben. Um where's my doc? I lost my doc. Here it is. So I love how American Express always breaks this down in terms of the year-over-year growth. So, baby boomers are up 5%. They're not spending that much anymore. Gen X 10% growth.
39:27Millennials 14%. Gen Z up 40%. They're now 7% of card spending. Millennials and Gen X are 31 to 36% of the total pie. Baby boomers are 27%. Is income inequality even more pronounced for younger people? You see all these people, all these all these videos, like the younger people at the World Cup, and you see these 20-year-olds spending $60,000, it feels like the have and the have nots are even
39:56more pronounced. Now, I'm not a young person, so I'm just making this up, but it seems like the the the halves and the have nots are even more pronounced for for people 25 and under. >> It does feel like in the 2010s, coming out of the great financial crisis, it felt like everyone was at the same playing field. >> Yeah. None of us had money. >> The same level. No one had money. Yeah.
40:11No one was bragging about how rich they got or that makes sense. I wonder too if part of this is just a low base effect of 40% year-over-year where people start out low on their credit cards and they ratchet it up pretty quickly. >> But yes, you're I I do think that it seems like anecdotally at least I don't have the evidence behind this that young people there's never been a wider range
40:31of outcomes where people down here are like, "Oh my gosh, I'm never going to be able to buy a house." And other people are making more money they ever thought possible at 25 or something. And obviously AMX has broken through to this cohort of younger genzers with money. 65% of new accounts were acquired from millennials and Gen Z's. >> Jeez. So they It's cuz they like all the
40:52credit card points and MX has a >> The lounge. >> Not me. >> You're an anti anti- lounge guy. Famous >> lounge. Yes. All right. >> Wait, hold on. In fairness, no offense to Grand Rapids, but do you guys have a lounge? Brand new. We're putting brand new terminals in. They put a brand new lounge in. You have to take long to get there. >> A brand new terminal.
41:13>> Well, they're like extending these brand Yeah, they're like redoing the whole airport and putting new terminals are extending. Hope we get more flights because I'm sick of having all the layovers everywhere. But they put a new uh lounge in. Will I go use it? No. >> Oh, come on. >> No, because I live 10 minutes from the airport. I get up >> All right. All right.
41:30>> And I walk through and I'm not going to wait at the airport forever. All right. Speaking of, I'll go down to this. Visa did this report about the great wealth transfer and we've seen this chart before but Gen X and millennials are ahead of boomers on a per capita wealth basis at the same age. This is real inflation adjusted net worth per capita by age and I this is just it's hard to