It’s no secret that Gen Z often gets flack for being “lazy.” From the Gen Z CEO who defends working from bed to the TikTok trends of quiet quitting and "lazy girl jobs," Gen Z has developed a reputation for applying minimal effort. And their elders are taking notice, like when Sister Act star Whoopi Goldberg chastised young people for not wanting to “bust their behinds” like her generation had to.
So when the 54-year-old comedian Rick Mercer joined in on the dogpiling and openly started criticizing younger workers, it was the last straw for one Gen Zer who pointed out the double standard of older generations.
In response to Mercer making fun of young people complaining about the 40-hour workweek, 27-year-old Robbie Scott hit back that baby boomers don’t know what it’s like working hard only to “get nothing in return”—and it’s resonated with over 2 million TikTokers.
“We need to stop expecting the same damn people who bought a four-bedroom home and a brand-new Cadillac convertible off of a $30,000-a-year salary to understand what it's like to be working 40-plus hours a week with a master's degree and still not being able to afford a 400-square-foot studio apartment in bumf-ck Iowa,” Scott scoffed in the viral video.
Gen Z vs. millennial work ethic
Though Gen Z and millennials are often equated as the youngsters in the office, millennials are now well into their 30s and 40s and have gained some credibility in the workplace. A poll from Resume Genius found that millennials are the most popular job candidates, with 45% of hiring managers expecting to hire members of the generation.
Even Gen Z managers who have risen the ranks cited their own generation as the most difficult to work with. But Gen Z may have more reason to be disillusioned than the generations that came before.
Gen Z is angry—here’s why
The reason Gen Z are “getting angry and entitled and whiny,” Scott says, isn't because they’re any less willing to work than previous generations, but because they’ve got nothing to show for it.
“What's sh-tty is, we're holding up our end of the deal," Scott said. "We're staying in school. We're going to college. We've been working since we were 15, 16 years old...doing everything that y'all told us to do so that we can what? Still be living in our parents' homes in our late twenties?"
He has a point.
Millennials are the most educated generation in history, with Gen Z closely following behind. Yet their financial prospects and chances of getting hired are significantly dimmer than those of Gen X graduates.
And the job market is particularly brutal right now. About 20% of job seekers have been looking for 10 to 12 months or longer with no luck, according to a recent report.
To make matters worse, after racking up thousands in student debt, they’re now being told by executives that their degree holds little value and that in 90% of cases they could have gotten a job without one.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that 24% of Americans with student loan debt say it’s their biggest financial regret, according to a survey from personal finance site Bankrate.
To top that off, once young people do manage to hold down a job they are finding that their salary doesn’t quite stretch like it did for their parents.
To afford the median-priced home of $433,100, Americans need an annual income of roughly $166,600. However, the median household earns just $78,538, according to the U.S. Census, and entry-level positions pay around half of that.
To put that into context, house prices have increased more than twice as fast as income has since the turn of the millennium—and it’s forcing young workers today to hold down not one, but three or more jobs to keep up with the rising cost of living.
“I know people in their mid-thirties who have been working for 20 years,” Scott echoed. “That’s like 70% of their waking life they have been working and they still cannot afford to purchase their first home.”
“Millennials and Gen Z are working more than any other generation ever has,” he added. “We are also making considerably and disproportionately much less than any other generation has.”
'They sold us a lie'
Given the clear disparity between the prospects of graduates today versus the generations before them, Scott's viral video struck a chord with young people who felt like they were encouraged to chase an unattainable dream.
"I will forever regret going to college," one user commented. "They sold us a lie."
"My first job at 16 paid $7.25 an hour. 10 years later I have a bachelor's degree and am making $14 an hour," another echoed.
Even a Gen X viewer agreed that workers today have it tougher than ever before: "I'm 44 and [I'll] tell you—we are NOT working the same 40 hrs as we did when I was 25. We're doing the work of 2–3 people now."
Meanwhile, another person put the blame on young people for going to college, saying, "yall go get these stupid degrees that don't get good paying jobs then cry about its everyone's fault."
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on Jan. 26, 2024.
More on Gen Z:
- Half of wealthy Gen Zers and millennials admit to ‘digital shoplifting,’ rationalizing it with inflation and influencer hacks
- Gen Z really are the hardest to work with—even managers of their own generation say they’re difficult. Instead bosses plan to hire more of their millennial counterparts
- Bosses are firing Gen Z grads just months after hiring them—here’s what they say needs to change
