I’m going to presume you know Taylor Swift, the pop superstar with widespread public appeal and a vast fan base, who has influenced not only the music industry, but popular culture, politics, and economics. Her recent $5 billion Eras tour had a fiscal impact greater than 50 countries. The Taylor Swift economy has reached every town in America, measured in national retail sales figures, global inflation, and municipal economic bumps where concerts were held. The Swift microeconomy reaches all corners of the country and cuts across age groups, particularly her Millennial followers.
Millennials were once derided as the generation that spent too much on avocado toast to be able to afford a home. While there was some truth to that, many Millennials were hindered by fundamental economic disadvantages, like stagnant wages and housing affordability that their parents never had to contend with. In fact, Millennials’ homeownership rates have accelerated the last five years, surpassing Baby Boomers to become the largest group of home buyers.
So many Peak Millennials, those born in 1990 and 1991 (two birth years that represent the peak of America’s population) means a lot of competition for housing, jobs, and other resources. (How could these ‘very special’ kids of bulldozer parents be so special if there are millions exactly like them?) While this group has an outsized amount of economic power, the sheer volume of them (almost nine million) makes up a sizable chunk, 13%, of the generation marketers have been trying to woo for more than a decade. Their vacationing and dining habits – remember the experience economy? – have been accused of killing McMansions and formal dress codes while fueling the rise of tiny homes and athleisure.
................................ Millennials have become a majority-homeowner group. The share of millennials owning homes increased to 51.5%, even in expensive metro areas like New York and Los Angeles. Now it’s up to tabletop brands to help furnish those homes.
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Like the Boomers before them, because there are so many of them, whatever they’re buying, a lot of people are buying the same thing. That economic influence, much like Taylor’s, extends well beyond day-to-day consumption. When they went to college in 2009, the enrollment spike was so significant, community colleges, once welcoming to all, turned away applicants. After graduation, they moved for jobs, increasing the population of metro areas, leading to fierce fights for a limited supply of apartments, resulting in a reurbanization boom. Now, at 33 and 34, they’re leaving cities, starting families, and buying houses. Millennials snapped up houses in 2020 and 2021 when the Fed cut interest rates to near-zero.
In recent years, Millennials seem to be finding their economic and financial footing. Wealth holdings for people under the age of 35 have picked up notably, helped along by rising home values and higher stock prices. Our industry needs to take advantage of this direction and help Millennials furnish their homes. After all, Taylor did sing in one of her many relationship songs: “This is our place, we make the rules.” Let’s help them be Fearless filling their Blank Space with Style. (Taylor fans get it!)