53% of Gen Z Likes Socialism. Their Bank Accounts Say Otherwise.

Fifty-three percent of Gen Z holds a favorable view of socialism, against 45% for capitalism, a June Cato/YouGov survey found. Yet 52% of Gen Z investors moved money meant for investing into sports betting over the past year, and 43% of Gen Z adults plan to start a business, according to Betterment's 2026 Retail Investor Survey and a separate Intuit survey. The Nov. 3 midterms, with the House and Senate both in play, will test which version of this generation shows up.

Two years after Gen Z men broke for President Donald Trump, Democrats hope polling pointing to a "blue wave" holds, with even deep-red Texas appearing within reach. The vote doubles as a stress test of the American Dream through the eyes of its most disillusioned cohort.

What does Gen Z actually mean by socialism?

The answers sound like the old American Dream: a home, a career, a shot at getting rich. Carol Graham, a senior Brookings fellow and University of Maryland professor who has spent two decades measuring hope and despair, says Gen Z is describing "progressive attitudes about everything from diversity and inclusion to safety nets to being able to afford housing."

Graham points to the holes in the classic rags-to-riches story. Horatio Alger's 1868 novel Ragged Dick made a shoeshine boy's rise a national myth. "Even the old famous Horatio Alger story, he had a benefactor," she told Fortune. "And they never talk about that when they tell the story."

After World War II, the GI Bill, federally backed mortgages and lifetime employers played that benefactor. Misael Galdámez, data manager at the Living Wage Institute, said: "The middle class was constructed in the '40s. So if you want a middle class for the 21st century, it's also something that needs to be constructed through policy, through employer investment."

Boston Consulting Group's global chief economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak notes that by strict definition even Sweden and Norway are "capitalist systems" that "choose to divert significant income to soften capitalism's edges." A 2019 Gallup poll found roughly half of young adults viewed socialism positively — but 83% felt good about "free enterprise."

Is homeownership still attainable?

The Living Wage Institute's data shows the share of workers earning enough to support a family fell from 47% to roughly 43% between 2021 and 2025. "Gen Z definitely sees owning a home as less attainable," Galdámez said. People now are "less likely to say in order to be middle class, you need to own a home." Housing costs rank as the top political issue for voters 18 to 34 in a CNBC poll, and Realtor.com counts a national shortage of about 4 million homes.

Carlsson-Szlezak pushes back. Millennials are catching up with Gen X's homeownership rate in their early 40s. Hold home size constant, and affordability "has not fallen nearly as much" as headlines suggest. "I'm not sure when it became a baseline expectation to own a home at age 24," he said. "I don't think it was ever feasible in NYC and never will be."

What happened to the career promise?

MIT labor economist Paul Osterman counts 35% of the American workforce — more than 55 million people — in "disposable" jobs, and traces the erosion to 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 air-traffic controllers. "The desire to get a real job and have a career? That's stable," he said. He expects AI to cut "hiring for entry level jobs and so young people will be more affected than others."

Peter Turchin, the University of Connecticut professor emeritus who founded cliodynamics, argues societies fall into crisis when they produce more credentialed strivers than good seats. The New York Fed found 42% of recent graduates underemployed in June.

Where is the money actually going?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in January that young Americans warm to socialism because they aren't invested in stocks. Gen Z made up 48% of Bank of America customers' online betting activity in July, and bettors got back less than 75 cents on the dollar, Fortune reported. Gen Z was twice as likely as other Americans to call betting an investment.

Graham put the 24-year-old moving retirement money into a sportsbook at "closer to 3 or 4 than 8 or 9" on a 0-to-10 hope scale. "For one, it is not a good choice," she said. Carlsson-Szlezak counters that "you simply couldn't bet and speculate as freely and easily before, whether that's Crypto or Kalshi."

Turchin declined to judge Gen Z's socialist drift. "Trump/MAGA have failed to improve the well-being of common Americans, instead involving [the] USA in a losing war with Iran," he said, adding that counter-elites, maybe the DSA, are more likely to seize that opening in 2028. Beyond that: "we are in a highly unpredictable environment, with highly variable possible outcomes."