- Gen Z Needs 2,656 More Work Hours Than Boomers to Buy a Home — Study
Young Americans need nearly 2,700 additional hours of work to afford a typical home compared with Baby Boomers at a similar stage of life four decades ago, highlighting a widening affordability gap across housing, education, transport and childcare in the United States.
Research by BC Game comparing major household expenses in 1985 with prices in 2025 and 2026 found that the cost of several traditional milestones of adulthood has risen considerably faster than wages, forcing Generation Z to devote more working time to expenses that their parents could reach sooner.
The study compared median prices for housing, college, used cars, childcare and weddings, dividing each by the median hourly wage in the relevant period to calculate the number of working hours required to cover the expense.
Housing showed the largest absolute gap. A typical home priced at US$82,800 in 1985 required about 10,350 hours of work at the median hourly wage used in the study. A comparable measure based on a US$403,200 home today requires 13,006 hours, an increase of 2,656 hours.
Measured against a conventional 40-hour working week, that represents about 66 additional weeks of gross earnings.
House prices in the comparison increased almost fivefold while the hourly wage used in the research rose by about 3.8 times, leaving younger workers needing roughly 6.3 years of full-time earnings to equal the purchase price compared with around five years for Boomers.
The finding comes as independent housing data continue to show substantial barriers for younger buyers. The National Association of Realtors said first-time purchasers accounted for a record-low 21% of buyers in its 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, compared with a historical norm of about 40% before the global financial crisis. The median age of a first-time buyer also reached a record 40, compared with the late 20s during the 1980s
Housing affordability has remained difficult in 2026. The median existing-home price reached US$429,100 in August, according to the National Association of Realtors, while elevated mortgage rates continued to weigh on sales.
Education produced the second-largest work-hour gap in the BC Game analysis.
Annual college costs increased from US$5,556 in 1985 to US$39,307 in the latest comparison, meaning the amount of work required rose from 695 hours to 1,268 hours. That adds 573 working hours, equivalent to more than 14 additional full-time working weeks.
The comparison suggests college costs have increased more than sevenfold in nominal terms over four decades.
College expenses, however, vary considerably depending on institution type and whether figures include accommodation and other costs. College Board data show average published tuition and fees for 2025-26 at US$11,950 for in-state students at public four-year institutions and US$45,000 at private nonprofit four-year colleges, while total student budgets range substantially higher once housing and other expenses are included.
Used vehicles ranked third in the BC Game analysis. The study estimates that a used car costing US$2,656 in 1985 required about 332 hours of median-wage work. Its present-day figure of US$26,918 requires 868 hours, adding 536 working hours.
That means the nominal price of the vehicle has increased more than tenfold, compared with the smaller increase in wages used for the analysis.
For younger Americans, the consequence is important because vehicle ownership is often less discretionary than it appears, particularly in areas with limited public transport. Higher purchase prices can therefore affect access to employment as well as household finances.
Childcare produced an even steeper price increase in percentage terms. BC Game’s comparison puts annual childcare at US$1,020 in 1985 against US$17,000 today. At the wages used by the study, the required working time rises from 128 hours to 548 hours an additional 421 hours, or roughly ten-and-a-half full-time working weeks.
Independent estimates differ depending on the type and location of care. Child Care Aware of America calculated the national average annual price of childcare at US$13,184 in 2025, equivalent to about 10% of median income for a married couple with children and 33% for a single parent with children.
The financial pressure is increasingly relevant to decisions around family formation, labour-force participation and household saving. High childcare costs can effectively reduce the financial return from employment for some parents while making it harder for young households to accumulate deposits for housing or other assets.
Weddings recorded the smallest work-hour increase among the five categories but remained substantially more expensive.
BC Game estimates a wedding costing US$7,800 in 1985 would have required 975 hours of work, compared with US$36,000 and 1,161 hours today.
Current external estimates are somewhat lower. The Knot’s latest study of more than 10,000 US couples who married in 2025 put the average wedding cost at about US$34,200, while the median was lower, underscoring how different methodologies can produce different affordability figures.
That methodological distinction also applies more broadly to the BC Game findings.
The research provides a useful measure of affordability by translating nominal prices into hours of median-wage labour, but it does not capture every component of household finances. Mortgage interest rates, taxes, financial aid, household income, geographical variation, down payments and changes in the quality of goods and services can materially alter the real burden faced by individual families.
The wider pattern nevertheless points to a structural change in the economics of reaching traditional milestones.
For younger Americans, the challenge is increasingly not simply whether wages are rising, but whether earnings are growing quickly enough relative to the assets and services that shape long-term financial security.
Housing is the clearest example. Delaying homeownership can delay equity accumulation, while high education, transport and childcare costs simultaneously compete for the savings needed to enter the property market.
The result is an affordability squeeze that can compound across different stages of adult life.
For Generation Z, the economic distance between earning an income and converting that income into a home, education, mobility or family security appears materially wider than it was for many Boomers four decades ago.
