Posted on 10/22/2022 4:35:57 AM PDT by FLT-bird
The data says millennials don't lack work ethic, but they'll never be able to afford what other generations take for granted. The popular millennial copypasta goes something like this:
First experience with serious job hunting comes on the heels of the 2008 financial crisis Can't take advantage of correction in home prices because too young to have made any money, and wage growth stagnates anyway Homes rocket to new highs, no chance of catching up now by just working a 9-5 like your parents Late 20s/early 30s, try investing as it's your last chance to make it Get obliterated again by a global pandemic and an actual war in Europe Hold the course, keep buying, you're smarter than that! Get obliterated again by massive inflation which leads to a gigantic stock market dump wiping out years of gains in weeks with no end in sight Oh yeah, and you were dumb enough to buy crypto on top of it all But it's not just a meme. Millennials (those born between 1980 and the mid-90s) earn less than their parents did at similar points in their lives – less even than pensioners – and their outlook is bleak.
A quarter of a century ago, young adults earned more than national averages – allowing them to have a fulfilling career, buy a house, and start a family – all by the age of 30. Now, in at least seven countries, this same age group is earning at least 20% below that of all other age demographics.
"It is likely to be the first time in industrialized history, save for periods of war or natural disaster, that the incomes of young adults have fallen so far when compared with the rest of society," reports The Guardian.
And it's not just isolated to the United States, this rings true across the globe. The UK, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Australia – all major economies, major hubs of hungry, talented, creative young adults who simply do not have the means to live their best lives.
It's not a coincidence that governments and NGOs have started to push for something called tiny house living, which normalizes living in small boxes.
Unison's 2019 Affordability Report calculated how long it would take a potential homebuyer to save for a 20% down payment across the country's top metros, and found that it would take 14 years under absolute ideal conditions.
Pulling data from the LIS: Cross-National Data Center, the largest database of international income levels worldwide, The Guardian found that not only are millennials poorer than retired folks, prosperity has plummeted drastically for all millennials across the board, worldwide, and prospects for a recovery look bleak.
This data provides concrete statistical opposition to the oft-heard misplaced accusation that the millennial generation is lazy, lacking work ethic, and expecting rewards in exchange for zero hard work.
No, we are not “hitting our milestones” later because we are entitled children with sloth tendencies, we are hitting them later (or not at all) because they are essentially impossible to hit, financially speaking. We are a cursed generation.
How are we expected to save up for a house when 75-year-olds make more money than us? When with a combined salary of $100K, a couple in their 20’s cannot afford to have careers, kids, and a house? Most importantly, how are we expected to live up to the American Dream when we simply can’t afford it any longer?
The fact that this is not simply an American issue should speak volumes. It is far easier (albeit nonsensical) to blame the "character" of an entire generation than consider the fact that previous gens have totally fucked us over.
For the first time in recorded history, the younger are making less money than the oldest. If we don't do something drastic about it, we could, also for the first time in recorded history, see an age-based revolution.
Bingo! There are tons of things people waste money on now that they count as necessities we used to count as luxuries. Think about all of the entertainment subscriptions today that nobody would have thought about paying for. Buying bottled water instead of drinking from the faucet. We used to drive cars forever even if they looked old and weathered -- we weren't afraid of someone seeing us in it (I'm proud of my oldest daughter and youngest son following our example on that). Those of us who became of age to buy a home during a housing boom rented for a while until prices came down. Yes, buying when home prices are low often means higher interest rates, but high interest rates can be refinanced years later when rates go down -- unlike high mortgage balances. Then there's career planning vs college planning. Many of us who went to college back then did so after first doing career planning and seeing if college is even necessary for our choice career, or which colleges are good for it but cheap.
My daughter is a millennial. She is married. He is an IT professional. She is an NP. They have a dog a keep and a “nice” car. They are buying the home they live in. They are happy useful and productive
They chose wisely in terms of college majors and how to live their lives.
Not all millennials did so
Plus they work hard Enjoy their time off. And save money out of every pay check
I’m so very proud of her
Eh, the “Great Recession” wasn’t really worse than the stagflation and recessions of the 70s, or, for new workers, the recession of the early 80s.
It happened in the context of higher standards of living than generations had experienced previously, so the dip didn’t go down so far. And, of course, there was the massive market bounce-back opportunity, if stock returns are what you claim to have missed out on.
I think of Gen X as the beginning of what was only intensified with Millennials and Zoomers. You were the start of the pampered, lifestyle accessories that children have become. Millennials and Gen Z were largely born to the comfortable, who had smaller families than previously, and so showered with more expensive housing, toys, meals, vacations, clothes, etc., etc., from the start.
You were the beginning of the “Great Inversion” whereby you lived in relative luxury that your parents or their forebears worked for, rather than largely starting out with limited means, starting families early, and only affording luxuries from midlife on.
So it feels like you’re deprived, but it has been, to date, the opposite.
Of course, this is as much a generalization as any of this generational pratter and things aren’t looking too good going forward for any of us!
Took for granted?? My parents both served during WWII. My dad was shot up on Guadalcanal. It was unknown if he would recover enough to be able to work again
My parents grew up during the depression and the Dust Bowl. They took nothing for granted
Losers sit around and complain. Winners go home with the prom queen.
My stepson has saved his 20% down on his own with no help from us and is house shopping right now. He’s 24.
He works his tail off, makes smart decisions, doesn’t waste money, doesn’t give a crap what other people think about that, and has his sights set on the future.
I guess that’s not as much fun as sitting around drinking an $8 latte and complaining about not being able to afford anything on a fruity $1500 laptop. Kinda looks like work to actually do something productive, I know. The prom queen says hi.
Boomers also started out working as preteens and were often experienced managers by the time they were 20. They married early (and eventually often!), but pretty much any young adult today that followed that work and marriage pattern and would be be happy with a post-war, starter home in an unglamourous, working class suburb could indeed have a home, spouse and young family by 30 today.
E.g., “hitting the bricks” and calling for a job is still viable if you’re likewise willing to do unglamourous work for a small business or in a factory.
My kids were born between 1988 and 1998. All have own homes. 2 earn more than we did at their ages. One starting own business. And the mentally ill one brings home a supporting paycheck every week. All homeschooled
The reason they were called “slackers” has to do with their overall work ethic.
Too many of them think it doesn’t matter if you show up to work on time, if they even felt like showing up at all. Doesn’t matter what impact that has on the other employees or the manager. And when they do, they spend much time on their phones and act put out that they have to interrupt their phone time to do their jobs.
Younger people overall, are the most entitlement minded generation that has ever existed, and that robs people of motivation to work.
And, disclaimer here, yes, I do know that is not all of them, there are exceptions, but not enough to overcome the earned perception the rest of them have fostered.
Kids these days think they are entitled by right to have in their 20’s and 30’s what their parents worked for and didn’t have until their 50’s and 60’s.
It escapes their attention that when their parents were in their 20’s and 30’s, they didn’t have all those nice things either.
This is my hope, provided that the millennials accurately diagnose the problem. If they did, they'd vote for real entitlement reform. They'd vote for tax reduction, which also means reducing the size and scope of government. And a lot else:
For families with children, the crisis in public education is a critical problem, one that drives many into private schooling (effective a "private school tax"), into very expensive neighborhoods that still have decent public schools, or into brutal commutes in the search for a school district that still at least pretends to prioritize education over political indoctrination and social engineering. If millennials grok the problem, they'd vote for full school choice with a voucher equaling a full pro-rata share of the local school district's expenditures per pupil. In DC, that's now over $30,000 per student, in one of the worst public school systems in the country (with a scattering of bright spots).
For millennials in major metro areas, the cost of housing is a killer. Simply moving further out ceases to become an attractive option when the outer ring suburban commutes are already two hours. Cities need to do the necessary to reclaim older, close-in neighborhoods from the druggies and thugs. And it means addressing the schools.
Oh ... and the millennials might figure out that controlling the border would be a good idea.
Unfortunately, much of the millennial generation has been raised as fully-indoctrinated lefty NPCs. A lot of them think "socialism," which they understand as someone else being forced to give them money, is the answer.
There is no such thing these days.
The cost of living is overtime.
This means zero personal fulfillment if you compromised your talents and dreams to make ends meet in a ho-hum job, if you’re lucky to even find one.
Get off work so drained you’re a soulless zombie who can barely string two words together.
Estranged from family and home, maybe you’ve even learned to let go of expecting hot baths and a good night sleep.
You’ve been separated from and learned to let go of a lot.
Forget video games, recreation, personal projects, friendships, romances or being a good parent.
You’ve got no spirit left to pay attention to anything.
... But still we grind on...
You know what?
For all of us who keep plowing on anyway, all this has made us tougher than our parents.
“Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you have the freedom to do as you wish. You’ll be broken apart by unimaginable pain and sorrow that as a simple child you can’t even fathom. That’s exactly why you must become strong so that even when you encounter overwhelming pain and grief you can have the strength to overcome it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruQsv709MA0
For the love of life
There’s a trade-off.
We could lose it all
But we’ll go down fighting.
For the love of life
We’ll defeat this.
They may tear us down
But we’ll go down fighting
Won’t we?
It escapes their attention that when their parents were in
their 20’s and 30’s, they didn’t have all those nice things
either.
***********
I agree and looking thru history I think you’ll find the
same going back thru history in one form or another.
Neither does getting a new iPhone every other year.
Five iPhones every decade is too many. I decided to limit myself to only four per decade. Living responsibly.
You described my husband and I exactly. We were born mid 60s. We worked as teens, rented (sometimes in sketchy areas), always bought used cars with good gas mileage. Hubby and I both worked and paid for college ourselves, but still had to work 2-3 jobs (he worked nights at racetrack, I tutored at night) to make ends meet throughout our 20s. We met and married in our early 30s and bought our first house at 34. We had one car for many years. We bought our first “new” car at 55. We shopped at consignment shops and clipped coupons. We ate out very rarely. We tightened our belts even more when I stayed home to raise the boys.
We are comfortable now, but it took a lot of hard work and frugality. Our boys see what we have now, but don’t see the path we took to get here. Our oldest gets it - after some years of goofing around, he works hard and is able to buy the things he needs. His fiancé is frugal and together they are putting away savings. He didn’t go to college, he learned a trade and has worked hard and moved up in his company. But he was willing to do work no one else wants to do which makes him very valuable to his company. They hope to buy a home by 30.
My youngest is already frugal at 20, he really hates to spend his money so he does not go out much, drive, buy clothes,etc. he does buy himself a new phone every year. But if his computer breaks, he buys a part to fix it. He’s been limping it along for 4 years now. He wants to move out but even with 3 friends going in with him, they cannot find an affordable apartment in the worst part of town. I think that generation is going to be hit a LOT harder than millennials. He and his friends (who all happen to be conservative) are very anxious about the future - they feel that the damage done to this country is insurmountable. They don’t want to get married for the foreseeable future for the same reason. They are really the ones inheriting a huge mess. It will make what previous generations went through look like child’s play, in my opinion.
No it’s them and loser article writers like this. Maybe start to get a clue, stop being so entitled and self worshiping, respect the sacrifice of those who came before without the wealth and opportunities they have.
“Yes. But nobody will escape unscathed from what’s coming.“
Yep. So far thru all of the economic ups and downs between 1976 and today I’ve coasted with nary a scratch. I doubt that will continue…I REALLY doubt that that will continue for the reasons to which you have alluded.
I’m doing better than ever. I noticed starting about 3 years ago how much easier it was to jobs I could not get before, started regularly making more money etc and noticed that simultaneously, a lot of Boomers were retiring....ie it was no coincidence. I’ve read about the same happening all over. Times are good right now.
That said, I am WAY behind from the Great Recession when I got utterly and completely crushed. I have a long long way to go to make up for that.
If Millenials are expecting us Gen Xers to retire early, they’ve got another thing coming. I plan to hang around extra long to make up for the prime earning years that were carved out of my career due to the Great Recession.
My kids know we didn’t get the house of our dreams until we were in our mid 50’s. They know we didn’t have fancy things or take trips except once a year to see family. They know I cooked most of our meals. They know we were frugal with our money and lived on a tight budget.
Yet, they still want designer labels (which they didn’t have often growing up). We didn’t have the latest of anything. I bought second hand clothes for play clothes. We put money aside little by little. We paid our bills on time.
It still surprises me when I see their lifestyles now. Only the youngest is frugal. When my kids complain that they can’t afford to buy a house, I tell them to stop taking so many vacations, stop eating out, don’t drive fancy cars, and for goodness sakes, do your own manicures. Massages? I never had one till I was 60 and it was a gift from them. I don’t need them. It was nice but nothing I need to do very often. I think once in my life suffices as plenty.
They tell me life is about the experiences. Perhaps true, but don’t razz me when you can’t afford to buy a house and have no savings.
The Great Recession last longer than any previous recession since the Great Depression. The job market did not really recover and wages did not really start going up until 2015-2016. I don’t care what the government/Obama administration claims, that’s when the Great Recession really ended. 2007 (yes it started then in the job market because companies could see what was coming and stopped hiring) until 2015-2016.
As for small families and being given all kinds of luxuries in their 20s etc....I was the last of 6. I did not have a car until 23. I had no money in my 20s because I went to grad school. We did get an atari back around 1980 but that was nothing compared to all the stuff available by the 90s/00s.
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