Now, the Research Foundation is warning that a post-Brexit downturn could depress millennials` wages even further.
The finding comes just days after new Prime Minister Theresa May warned of a "growing divide between a more prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation".
While some of this pay squeeze is down to millennials entering the job market as the recession hit, the report found that generational pay progress actually stopped before the 2007/08 financial crash.
If the future pay of millennials follows the path of generation X, it would reduce their lifetime earnings to around £825,000 - making them the first ever generation to earn less than their predecessors over the course of their working lives.
And even if their wages followed a more optimistic path and improved rapidly like their baby boomer parents, their lifetime earnings would be around £890,000.
This would be just 7% more than generation X and a third of the size of the pay progress that generation X are set to enjoy over the baby boomers.
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