For most of the past two centuries, if you asked a young adult in the west whether they had a better standard of living than their parents enjoyed at the same age, you would have been drowned out by a unity of yesses. More money, more things to spend it on, longer and healthier lives to look forward to.

But that has all changed. Today, almost one in four US millennials — the cohort born between 1981 and 1997 — say their lives are materially worse than their parents’ were, a record high for any generation of Americans asked that question.

On the other side of the Atlantic, almost half of the UK population says today’s youth will have a worse life than their parents, up from 13 per cent 20 years ago, according to an Ipsos Mori survey. The malaise is clearly deeply felt, but does it reflect reality? One statistic that is often wheeled out in support of the millennial plight is the wealth deficit. A widely shared chart from the US shows that young adults held only 3 per cent of US household wealth in 2019, while baby boomers owned 21 per cent at roughly the same age.