There’s a quote from Dave Chase that I think about constantly:

“Imagine if a foreign country was causing this kind of collateral damage on our economy. We’d go to war in a second.”

And the generation absorbing the most damage? The one just now entering the workforce, starting families, and trying to build a life in an economy that has quietly rigged the game against them.

If you’re an employer, this crisis isn’t abstract — it shows up every day as the young talent you’re trying to attract and retain. And how you structure benefits decides which side of it you’re on.

The social contract is broken

Scott Galloway laid it bare in his TED talk and essay “War on the Young”: we’ve broken the foundational American promise. Work hard, play by the rules, and you’ll be better off than your parents. For the first time in our nation’s history, that’s no longer true.

Today’s 25-year-olds earn less than their parents and grandparents did at the same age — yet they carry student debt loads that previous generations couldn’t fathom. Housing costs have multiplied far beyond wage growth. And health care? It’s become one of the single largest wealth destroyers for young working Americans.

The numbers paint a damning picture. Americans under 40 now hold just 7% of household wealth, down from 12% in 1989. Meanwhile, those over 70 control 30%, up from 19% over the same period. The federal government spends eight times more per capita on seniors than on children. We cut senior poverty nearly in half while child poverty climbed.

The United States ranks as the 10th happiest country in the world for people over 60. For people under 30? We rank 62nd.

We’ve created a future so unappealing that young people are opting out. In 1993, 60% of Americans aged 30 to 34 had at least one child. Today that number is 27%. They’re not meeting, they’re not mating, and they’re not building the families that power the economy, fund Social Security, and sustain the systems older generations depend on.

This isn’t just a cultural trend. It’s an economic crisis in slow motion.

Health care is the silent engine of this crisis

Here’s what most people miss: health care is the single biggest driver of middle-class economic erosion. Not housing. Not student debt. Health care.

Dave Chase has spent years documenting this reality. Health care is the primary reason 70% of American households have less than $1,000 in savings. Employers are spending more on employees than ever before — the problem isn’t stinginess. The problem is that every incremental dollar, and then some, has been swallowed by a health care system that operates with breathtaking inefficiency.

Health care spending is now the second-largest line item for most employers, right behind payroll. The average cost per employee has ballooned past $22,000 per year. And here’s the part that should make every business leader’s blood boil: at least 10% of that spending is estimated to be outright fraudulent, and another 20% or more is wasteful, duplicative, unnecessary, or even harmful.

Think about what that means. For a company with 100 employees spending $2.2 million a year on health benefits, somewhere between $660,000 and $880,000 is being lit on fire. That’s money that could have gone to wages, retirement contributions, or reinvestment in the business.

Instead, it disappears into a system that young employees are increasingly priced out of using — even when they technically have coverage. High deductibles, surprise bills, opaque pricing, and plan designs that punish utilization mean that many young workers are functionally uninsured despite having an insurance card in their wallet.

The generational wealth transfer no one talks about

Galloway makes the case that America has systematically elevated capital over labor. Since 1974, real median income from labor is up about 40%. The S&P 500? Up over 4,000%. Investment gains are taxed at lower rates than wages. Real estate can appreciate tax-free and be rolled into new investments indefinitely. Every structural incentive in the economy rewards people who already own assets and penalizes people who work for a living.

Health care amplifies this dynamic in ways that are uniquely cruel to young workers.

When premiums rise 7% to 8% annually but wages grow 3 to 4%, the math is simple: health care consumes a larger share of total compensation every year. Young employees who are early in their careers and earning less feel this compression the hardest. Their take-home pay erodes even as their employer technically spends more on them.

The employer-sponsored health insurance system — which covers roughly 150 million Americans — was supposed to be the great equalizer. Instead, it’s become another mechanism for transferring economic value away from the people who can least afford to lose it. Employers pay more. Employees get less. And the only winners are the intermediaries extracting margin at every step of the chain.

Why this is an employer problem

If you’re running a business and thinking “this is a policy issue, not my issue,” consider this:

Your young employees are arriving at work carrying economic stress that previous generations never faced at the same age. They’re managing student debt, navigating a housing market that requires dual incomes just to rent, and staring down a health care system that feels designed to bankrupt them if anything goes wrong. The anxiety isn’t theoretical — it’s affecting their performance, their engagement, and their willingness to stay.

Meanwhile, you’re competing for talent in a market where every employer is offering “competitive benefits” that all look functionally identical: the same carrier networks, the same high-deductible plans, the same wellness programs that nobody uses.

Young workers see through it. They’ve grown up in a world where institutional trust is at historic lows. Only 18% of Americans aged 18 to 34 say they’re “extremely proud” to be American, compared to half of those over 55. They’re skeptical of systems that claim to serve them but consistently don’t. And your benefits package is one of those systems.

The employers who recognize this shift have an extraordinary opportunity. Not just to attract talent, but to be one of the few institutions in a young person’s life that actually delivers on its promises.

What forward-thinking employers are doing

The answer isn’t spending more. We’ve tried that for three decades and the outcomes have only gotten worse. The answer is spending differently.

Redesigning plans around how young people actually use health care. Most young employees need accessible primary care, mental health support, and preventive services — not complex networks optimized for catastrophic events. Direct primary care models, virtual-first care options, and plans that eliminate barriers to basic services address what this population actually needs instead of what carriers want to sell.

Making benefits legible. Young workers don’t trust what they don’t understand. The employer who can explain in plain language what their plan covers, what things actually cost, and how to navigate the system earns loyalty that no ping-pong table or free lunch ever will. Transparency isn’t a nice-to-have. For this generation, it’s the

baseline expectation.

Treating compensation holistically. When health care consumes an ever-growing share of total compensation, you can’t separate “benefits strategy” from “compensation strategy.” Forward-thinking employers are looking at the complete picture — wages, health care, retirement, student loan assistance, mental health resources — and asking how to maximize the value employees actually experience, not just what shows up on a spreadsheet.

Demanding accountability from vendors. The PBM model, the carrier model, the brokerage model — they all exist in their current form because employers haven’t demanded better. Every dollar of waste in your health plan is a dollar that didn’t go to your employees. Young workers may not know the mechanics of spread pricing or

rebate retention, but they feel the consequences in every paycheck and every medical bill.

The stakes are higher than you think

Here’s the part that should keep business leaders up at night: the generation we’re failing right now is the same generation whose labor, taxes, and consumer spending will determine whether the economy functions in 20 years. Their willingness to participate — to work, to build families, to invest in communities — is not guaranteed. It has to be earned.

When young people opt out — when they delay families, avoid homeownership, distrust institutions, and quietly disengage — the consequences cascade through every sector of the economy. Social Security funding deteriorates. Consumer spending contracts. The tax base shrinks. And the health care costs that seniors depend on become unfundable.

Dave Chase was right. If a foreign adversary were inflicting this kind of economic damage on American workers and families, we’d mobilize immediately. But because the damage comes from within — from systems we built and maintain and profit from — we treat it as inevitable.

It’s not inevitable. It’s a choice. And employers, more than any other institution in America, have the power to choose differently.

Every business in America is a health care business now, whether it wants to be or not. The question is whether you’ll manage that reality with the same rigor you bring to everything else — or keep writing checks and hoping someone else fixes it.