A few years ago, the data on entry-level salaries and workplace expectations painted a pretty optimistic picture for young workers. Steady raises. Advancement on a predictable timeline. Flexibility that would only expand. Some of that held up. A lot of it didn't. Here's where things actually stand now.
Starting Salaries Did Keep Climbing, Just Not Evenly
According to NACE's Winter 2026 Salary Survey, starting salaries for the class of 2026 are up across nearly every major. Computer science leads at $81,535 (up 6.9%), engineering is close behind at $81,198, and business majors are starting around $68,873. Social sciences are the one category moving the other direction, down about 1.7%.
If you want to see how your offer compares by field, NACE's compensation page tracks this every year, so you're not stuck referencing numbers from nearly a decade ago.
The “Stay for 10 Years if the Raises Come” Logic Flipped
Back in 2017, the appeal of staying put for a decade hinged on employers actually delivering steady raises and clear advancement. Workers said they'd take that deal if offered. Fair enough. But the market has since done something nobody predicted: job switching, once a reliable way to jump your salary, no longer pays off the way it used to.
Reporting from Fortune in 2026 found that wage growth for job switchers has dropped from nearly 18% in 2022 to about 8% now, while people who stayed put saw more modest but steadier gains. In this slower-hiring market, "stay for the raises" isn't just a preference anymore; it's closer to the only strategy that's actually working, especially for anyone who isn't already deep into a niche, high-demand field.
Millennials Are Not the Biggest Group of Homebuyers Anymore
This one's a real reversal. Millennials did lead homebuying for a while. They don't now. NAR's 2025 Generational Trends Report shows Baby Boomers back on top at 42% of all buyers, with millennials dropping to 29%, down nine points from the year before. First-time buyers overall fell to a record-low 24% of the market. Higher home prices, higher rates, and older buyers with more cash on hand have pushed a lot of younger buyers out, at least for now.
Flexibility Is Still What People Want, Even if the Studies Have Changed
The instinct behind wanting a flexible schedule hasn't gone anywhere. Hybrid and flexible work remain some of the most requested benefits going into 2026, and the argument that flexibility improves both output and how connected people stay to their jobs after hours has only gotten more data behind it since 2017. If you want current numbers rather than decade-old ones, Archie's 2026 flexible work report is a reasonable place to check where things stand now.
The "75% of the workforce by 2025" claim didn't quite happen, and it was never just about one generation
The original prediction was that millennials alone would make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025. That date has come and gone, and it wasn't really millennials doing that on their own. The more current framing, from Deloitte's 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey and citing Forrester projections, is that Gen Z and millennials combined are expected to make up 74% of the global workforce by 2030. Gen Z alone is already close to 20% of the US workforce and climbing fast. The generational handoff is real; it's just arriving on a longer timeline and with more than one generation driving it.
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