Gen Z Alongside Millennials Prefer Socialism Than Capitalism

Latest public opinion polling shows that a rising majority of Gen Z, those born between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s as well as growing up in the 2000s and the 2010s, prefer socialism over capitalism. According to a recent Axios/SurveyMonkey online poll, 61% of surveyed Americans aged between 18 years old and 24 years old have a positive reaction to the word “socialism” than 58% having a positive reaction to the word “capitalism”.

Also, millennials, those born between the 1980s and the early 1990s as well as growing up in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, have a positive view of the leftist ideology as 58% of surveyed Americans between the ages of 25 years old and 34 years old have a positive reaction to the word “socialism” than 51% have a positive reaction to the word “capitalism”.  Older generations such as Gen X, those born between the 1960s and 1970s, Baby Boomers, those born between the 1940s and 1950s, and the Silent Generation, those born between the 1920s and the 1930s, have higher positive reaction rates towards capitalism than socialism compared to their living younger counterparts.

When broken down by race and ethnicity, Black and Hispanic participants in the poll gave socialism a positive reaction by more than 50% compared to 32% of White participants who gave socialism a positive reaction. The online poll surveyed 2,777 U.S. adults nationwide between January 16th and January 18th, 2019.

Socialism is steadily on the rise in the United States since the 2016 presidential campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and the 2018 election of New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who became the the youngest woman ever to serve in the Congress, as well as Detroit area Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women and first Palestinian American woman elected to the Congress. Organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, which Cortez and Tlaib are members, has been increasing in size with more than 50,000 members.