Today’s 30-year-olds are making way less money than their parents did when they were their age, a new study shows.

Economists and sociologists from Stanford, Harvard and the University of California analyzed tax and census data recently and found that 51 percent of 30-year-olds in the US have earned more dough than their mothers and fathers did when they were in their shoes — a far cry from the 92 percent recorded in 1970, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“My parents thought that one thing about America is that their kids could do better than they were able to do,” explained Raj Chetty, a Stanford University economist who took part in the study. “That was important in my parents’ decision to come here.”

While the researchers did not come up with a definitive reason as to why their was such a large drop, Chetty — who emigrated from India at age 9 — claimed one major factor was the issue of wealth and income inequality.

“Wages have stagnated in the middle class,” he told the Journal. “When you’re in that situation, it becomes very hard for children to do better than their parents.”

According to the researchers, the American dream — economically speaking — is to do better than one’s parents did.

But it appears to be more like a nightmare, judging by how far the numbers have been dropping.

In their study, Chetty and his team found that if the income gap remained where it was in 1970, 80 percent of 30-year-olds today would be out-earning their parents.

Now — even with the sustained annual growth of 3.8 percent that President-elect Donald Trump is promising— the number of children who make more money than their parents would only jump to 62 percent from 51 percent, the Journal reports.

“You need to improve the education and the environmental opportunities for kids while they are growing up,” explained Nathaniel Hendren, of the University of California at Berkeley.

According to the study, the number of 30-year-olds who earn less than their parents is highest in the Midwest. Men have reportedly been hit the hardest by the income gap, with just 41 percent of 30-year-olds making more than their fathers at a similar age.

Chetty told the Journal he believes taxing the wealthy more and giving bigger breaks to the middle class would ultimately help get Americans out of the rut — though he doesn’t suggest doing so.

“It’s actually not clear to me that a more progressive tax code is necessarily the solution,” he said. “Many think of the American Dream as ‘earning’ more than their parents, not getting more transfers from the government than their parents.”