Another thing, OP asked about older folks vs being in your 20s. Things changed with the 2008 financial crisis. Suddenly jobs that had traditionally gone to teens and got them into the workforce were taken over by adults, like delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, and working in fast food. College education has become so ubiquitous that, since the early 2000s, it no longer makes someone competitive in the workforce. From 2008, folks in their 20s-40s moved back into their parents' homes in droves. Now folks can't get even get out.
I'm 48. We didn't have NEETs when I was walking to school uphill both ways barefoot in the snow. I had a weekend Pennysaver paper route from age 9 to 12. I had a weekend job at a park meet in junior high. At 14 and 15, I worked summers at my church's day care. I worked in grocery stores, retail, and fast food a couple years in high school, and then lucked into part-time office jobs starting at 17. I worked office jobs full-time and went to college part-time for eight years before I got my undergrad at 29. I was able to move out of my parents' home at 19, was briefly married at 22 and he already had a house, and at 24 I had my own one-bedroom apartment.
In the 80s and 90s there were challenges for young adults entering the workforce, but there were infinitely more opportunities than there are now, and a bachelor's degree gave a leg up, a master's degree even more so, and not having completed higher education earlier definitely hurt my earning potential. By the late 90s, a bachelor's degree was required to be a receptionist, when I had been doing that at 17-21, so all my years of admin work plus a BA kept me stuck in higher levels of admin work, sales was the only other avenue for advancement and I didn't want to rely on commissions for my income. It also hurt me that I couldn't intern because I didn't have time, I was already self-supporting. I didn't complete either grad program, but I went to grad school to get to a higher level and have more interesting work. Then my disability showed up at 44, and other shitty and increasingly insurmountable things. But for a while, starting around 35, and especially at 40-44, life was pretty damn good. Those last four years, I was happy and really had hope.
I wouldn't want to be a millennial. From where I sit, things look bleak for Gen Y and especially for millennials. I cannot blame them at all for calling bullshit when someone says it will get better.