Recent data reveals that Gen Z is confronting a broken 'starter economy' where starter home prices have risen 87% in seven years, new cars cost an average of $49,000, and hiring for workers 25 and younger has dropped over 45% since 2019. Surveys show over 70% of Gen Z and millennials are stuck in 'survival spending' with wealth feeling unattainable, only 32% believing the American Dream is still possible, and the median first-time homebuyer age reaching a record 40. This is not mere complaint but a structural failure: high rents and mortgage rates have suppressed 1.82 million Gen Z and millennial households that would have formed under prior conditions, trapping young adults in delayed independence and intergenerational financial dependence. These economic barriers connect directly to a broader collapse in mental health. Economists have documented the global disappearance of the traditional midlife despair curve; since around 2013, despair has risen sharply among those under 25—especially young women—reversing long-standing patterns so that despair now declines with age rather than peaking in middle age. Neuroscientists link this 'epidemic of despair'—driven by inequality, economic uncertainty, social fragmentation, and isolation exacerbated by technology—to declining fertility rates worldwide. Young people facing stagnant wages, impossible housing, and diminished prospects are opting out of family formation, viewing long-term commitments like children as incompatible with lives marked by hopelessness. Connections often missed include how post-pandemic and asset-inflation policies disproportionately benefited older asset holders while pricing out the young, eroding the social contract that once promised upward mobility. This generational despair is already manifesting in global unrest: Gen Z-led protests have erupted across multiple countries including Kenya, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Morocco, and Madagascar, fueled by corruption, youth unemployment, soaring living costs, and perceived elite capture. These movements, often organized via social media, have toppled governments and signal deeper volatility ahead. Without restoring pathways to housing, savings, and independence, society risks entrenched nihilism, sustained sub-replacement fertility, and escalating collective action from a generation with little stake in the status quo.