Education and skyrocketing productivity are often thought of as two of the most reliable ways for a cohort of workers’ compensation to increase, but neither is helping Millennials much. More than that, earnings early in one’s career can greatly influence the arc of earnings later on, which doesn’t bode well for the current generation of young adults.

The report suggests that Millennials don’t just have to accept a middling financial existence. Instead, Duke suggests that changing some policies could help bridge the gap going forward. For instance, Duke suggests that young workers could join unions and engage in collective bargaining, which would help them attain wage increases and more job security in an increasingly employer-friendly market. But a movement like that would face major hurdles. Even as the economy has improved, the percentage of Millennials in the workforce has remained low. They are also the least likely of any generation to belong to a union, and union membership on the whole has been on the decline in the past few decades, across all age groups.

With that in mind, CAP’s report advocates for government intervention, both when it comes to passing laws that would make union formation easier, and when it comes to monetary policy—one proposal being that the Fed keep interest rates low to spur growth and aid groups of workers with still-high unemployment.

There are other changes that might also improve Millennials’ lot. “Paid leave really represents an opportunity to do better,” Duke says. The report suggests that if successful, the current push for more robust leave policies could help Millennial women bridge the gender-wage disparity, which is expected to start growing as more of the generation takes time off for birth, childcare, and caring for ailing relatives. On top of that, more generous leave policies would mean that women could not only take time away from the office without fear of a wage or promotion penalty, but also that men could do the same, creating a more equitable division of labor both at home and and work.

These changes might help boost income, but that still leaves the problem of heavily credentialed young people are spending ever-growing amounts of money to secure degrees that are ever less likely to guarantee them work. “I think people are kind of stuck in a catch-22 where they feel they need to get these skills in order to compete in the 21st century economy, but on the other hand they have to pay more tuition and take on more debt in order to do that,” Duke says.

That means that hope for improving the economic outlook of a group whose careers were sidetracked by the recession is going to be a particularly complex problem—one that they likely won’t be able to solve by themselves.