Posted on 08/15/2016 11:06:57 AM PDT by Lorianne
Millennials are not some vast unsolvable mystery. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau (PDF), they earn $2,000 less than their parents did at a comparable age, they are more likely to live in poverty, and they are more likely to live at home.
But Baby Boomers and Gen Xers still seem to find it hard to believe that basic economic math can explain much of the younger generation’s behavior.
After several news outlets, including The Daily Beast, reported that rates of millennial sexual inactivity in early adulthood are surprisingly high, armchair social theorists came out in force to blame it on everything but the fact that nearly one-third of young adults are still living at home.
One right-wing college news website found a way to attribute the finding to millennials’ desire for “safe spaces.”
Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speculated on Twitter that it was an example of the “porn paradox,” whatever that means. Others attributed it, predictably, to the effects of technology or increased anxiety. A Rutgers biological anthropologist even suggested that millennials might be too “motivated” and “ambitious” to even bother with sex.
The most likely explanation—which was mentioned in the study itself—is that parents’ basements do not make great boom boom rooms. But who needs Occam’s razor when you’re publicly opining about the behavior of an entire generation? Lower wages sending 22-year-olds back home after college isn’t nearly as sexy as complaining about porn or political correctness.
The truth is that lower wages and poverty can account for so many of the things that older generations find so mystifying about millennials.
For example, millennials drive less than their parent’s generation—and until recently, at least—were relatively uninterested in buying cars. As The Atlantic reported in 2012, this crisis prompted automakers to appoint “youth emissaries” and come up with new car colors like “techno pink” and “denim.”
But trying to make cars cooler doesn’t change the fact that, as CityLab found, there’s a significant gap in vehicle miles traveled between millenials who make over $30,000 a year and those who make less. Simply put: Cars cost money and millennials have less of it.
Millennials have also been shamed for how much they spend eating out instead of say, saving for retirement. “Millennials Are Spending an Embarrassing Amount on Brunch and Takeaway Pizza,” Vice recently declared.
It’s easy to chalk that generational difference up to some sort of narcissistic short-sightedness but the truth is probably a lot closer to fatalism: When millennials can’t save for retirement anyway, why not spring for some bottomless mimosas instead of enrolling in a 401(k)?
SNIP
Isn’t it great that we’re getting more like Europe?
Not only are they poor, they have no jobs, six figures in student debt, and will be put at the back of the line in favor of illegals and colored “youths” in the ghetto.
Highly educated, unemployed, disenchanted youngsters is a recipe for social revolution. Be prepared.
Smoke dope, hate to work, and have no ambition to raise and support a family.
They’re losers.
Fairly spot on. It’s tough for a guy to get laid when he’s a poor, unemployed loser in mom’s basement playing video games all day long. He’s pretty much squarely at the bottom of most women’s desireability list!
I love responses like this. Are you a baby boomer? Because if you are, you enjoyed one of the most socialist periods in American history. I bet you visit the doctor five times a week on your medicare. You might want to thank a millennial for paying your social security, medicare, etc.
Save for retirement?
Who would lie to these kids like that? There is no retirement for them. They will work until they are dust.
No reason a state school should be 24 thousand a year. No reason at all. That’s what red state indianas tuition is. Sorry but kids today have it horrible except with technology. Everything else sucks!
1. Real productive jobs have disappeared, leaving them career choices of waiter or busboy;
2. Obamacare;
3. Large student debt for non-marketable degrees.
My son is a millenial; he graduated college in 2011. He and his wife have decent jobs. I would say comparable to if not a little better paying than Mrs. henkster & I had at the same age. My daugther in law had significant college debt, because she had to finance her way through college. He had a little bit. Next week all of the debt will be paid off. They lived on one income and paid debt with the other. Next up, saving for down payment on a house.
It can be done, but it takes planning and discipline.
Smoke dope, hate to work, and have no ambition to raise and support a family.
They’re losers.”
I’m 83. That’s EXACTLY what we said about hippie Boomers in the 60s,
.
The real problem is with marginal people of all types; those whose abilities or motivations enable them to just “get by.” They’re going to be automated and minimum-waged right out of the marketplace.
Right, that’s what we do all day. You finally broke the code. Now we all have to get in the workforce and leave mom’s basement.
Again, baby boomers are the most worthless generation in our history. Much of the social unrest and worthless economy we are dealing with is the fault of boomers just worrying about making as much money as possible and obsessing over their socialism (social security, medicare, cheap college tuition subsidized by the state, etc.).
If they do have a job, it’s a low skills one without benefits. If it did have benefits, they’d job hop before the benefits kick in.
But they’re rich in government benefits and debt...
At least they can look forward to plenty of job openings in the next several years with baby boomers retiring & dying off.
Their entire universe is defined by a monitor screen and a keyboard. They count their friends by how many people, that they have never met face-to-face, "like" them.
Would they do it if it weren't required by law? I don't think so.
They deserve pity not praise.
The pro-regressive, new world disorder, stretegery is working.
Of course they’re poor, they’re just starting out. It took a lot of years and hard work before I finally figured out that the key to success is leeching off your government and your children. They’ll figure it all out in time.
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