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.
this article may be intended as a way to get more government handouts, like paying off even more of their student loan debts. Woe is me - send me more money.
I am no fan of Obama, but I’ve got more perspective than you.
I also was around for the Obama admin and don’t recognize the depth of horrors that you describe.
I am sorry you were so unemployable (with a graduate degree!), but glad you’re back on track now.
While trying to top it as a put-upon Gen Xer!
hmm maybe just maybe its not that I and millions of other Americans magically became “unemployable” during the Obama years and somehow magically became employable again after the Obama years.
Perhaps it was just that Obama and his dumbass policies sucked and throttled the US economy.
And no I did not claim to be “put upon”. I was simply pointing out to the millenial writer of this article that that generation is neither the first nor the only generation to not get conditions as good as the Boomer generation got. Rather than blaming them for being fortunate, they’d be better served by trying to work through it and not being so bitter toward their parents’ generation.
ping bttt
You are right - they way DH and I did things was very much like our parents and grandparents. My mom was not this way, but my grandmother was frugal and always gardened and canned. I learned so much from her and my MIL. I learned how to handle money from my dad and my husband from his dad.
But I think many have gotten away from that - maybe it has something to do with the breakdown of the family unit. I don’t know.
But your position is ridiculous.
How many Boomers were drafted and went off to horrible years of war, only to return disabled — or not to return at all?
Certainly they weren’t feeling “poor” if they were graduate students.
And again, they typically started real work one to two decades before your average Xer did.
It’s definitely an opinion since none of us have a crystal ball 🙂. DH and I disagree on this. He thinks every generation has had their trials, but things won’t get as bad as the Great Depression. I think it could be worse for the youngest generations because so few of them know how to grow food, preserve, budget, sew clothes, raise livestock, DIY projects, work with their hands or tools, etc. IMO, those kinds of skills got people through the depression.
Major truth! I am a boomer and will admit that you are right. I really miss the 1980s which extended into 1995, *until* Windows 95 and the internet got geared up. The 1980s music and culture was the best in so many ways. No gay marriage and zero trans BS. Obviously.
Windows 95 was huge advance in popular use of computers. People lined up on opening day, outside computer stores. Win 95 needed only 8-16-32megabytes of memory.
Yes tuition and houses were very cheap compared to today
____”The deal your parents’ generation got was the best ever.”____
True but American factories were humming and we ran a trade surplus. Key is that we were a producer nation, not *just* a consumer nation. We manufactured what we used.
That, affluenza and the intentional redirection of us toward a debt economy, among other factors, I suppose.
What’s ridiculous about my position.
Measure house prices vs average salary in 1970 vs now. How many years of salary did it take to afford a house then vs now? It was a lot less then.
Measure tuition costs then and measure them now. Notice how they’ve grown way faster than inflation?
What was the average annual rate of return on equities from 1980 until 2000? What’s it been since then? Notice how it was way better in that earlier time period?
These were all very beneficial to Boomers. It helped them accumulate wealth earlier/faster than subsequent generations.
There was a draft until the mid 70s and many Boomers were indeed drafted (though many got deferments and were able to avoid the draft).
You say the typical Boomer started work a decade or more before the average Xer did. I’ll need to see evidence to support that claim.
Hard Times make Good Men
Good Men make Good Times
Good Times make Weak Men
Weak Men make Hard Times <- You are Here!
BTW, I remember the 1980s and I tend to agree with you. The country was much healthier and happier. We had a sense of humor. Political Correctness did not really start until the early 90s.
I don’t understand why a lot of Millenials want to blame Boomers because things aren’t as good for them today....as if this was some kind of evil plot by the whole generation to screw them over. Just as I don’t understand why some Boomers take the obvious facts that economic conditions really were a lot better for them as some kind of affront....as if you were saying they never had to work hard or never had to struggle for anything. No. Nobody with a brain thinks that. But by numerous objective measures, yes, things were a lot better for them. If you were 25 or 30 in 1980, you had a better path to buying a home and building up money and you probably weren’t saddled with high student loan debts. That’s all. Of course you still had to work and not be stupid with money.
That’s the spirit!
Really, though, as Thoreau said, most men do live lives of quiet desperation.
Gee, that sounds awfully familiar.
However, my youngest is one of the best financial managers I have met. She does have a good paying job, but she is very savvy with money and is saving a tremendous amount to buy her much desired house.
She has learned what she needs and wants and the difference between the two.
She did manage to travel a LOT when she was in her college years, but STILL managed to graduate grad school having actually saved money during the process.
It is truly horrifying, and I say that as a woman who lived through an earlier era when my female friends were getting rolled over and destroyed by the divorce courts due to the Second Wave feminism that insisted women could earn just as much and men could take care of infants and children just as well. While this is true in many cases, one size doesn't fit all, and it left many faithful partners in despair and poverty while the cheater went on to build another life with another spouse and subsequent children, while his original family got a pittance.
It also devastated men who bought the early claims of feminism and stayed home with the kids, only to lose them to the wife more financially capable of paying lawyers for years on end to take the kids away.
Both situations of extreme destruction of marriage for the profit of lawyers, therapists and accountants are not helped at all by so-called "no-fault" divorce. I believe "no-fault" should not even be allowed where there are child custody disputes.
For how many years were your life’s goals set back by JFK’s death or by the Cuban missile crisis? Suck it up, Billy Joel.
“When with a combined salary of $100K, a couple in their 20’s cannot afford to have careers, kids, and a house? “
So, he is complaining about $50k a year not being enough. For a full time job, that is roughly $25/hour. I live in a fairly low cost-of-living state, but my non-union employer pays operators on the factory floor between $20-30/hr.
Now if a factory job in a low cost of living area can pay that kind of wage for low skill factory workers, I don’t have much sympathy for Millennials whining about needing 6 figures as a couple. You would think that these underpaid millennials would be beating down the door to get in. But no, we are about 20% understaffed and constantly scrape the bottom of the barrel for people.
I will grant it is not a fun job, and they have frequent mandatory overtime. However, if you are willing to work, someone with no better than a high school education can make $60-75k per year. Also, our parents and grandparents wouldn’t have thought it so bad to have air conditioning and machines to do all the heavy lifting. These fat Millennials constantly complain and whine about the work, they don’t follow directions and barely seem to understand the training. Don’t ask them to do simple math, they will fail every time. 75% of new hires quit or get fired within the first month or less, mostly because they just stop showing up.
I am not a big fan of the Boomer generation. In my parent’s generation I found far more examples of what kind of man NOT to be than positive examples of what to be. The majority are self-centered, greedy wastrels, controlled by their many lusts. On the other hand, they most of them also recognize that to get ahead they had to work, often in uncomfortable conditions. The Millennials have the vices of the boomers but combine it with whiney entitlement and laziness.
The older folk are making more money because computer work doesn’t require physical labor. As our joints ache and we can’t do manual work, we can still program a computer or do data entry and have the experience to do it well.
You are silly.
Median housing size:
https://www.businessinsider.com/houses-median-square-footage-chart-2015-6
And that doesn’t begin to cover the materials and amenities.
College costs? Yeah, up because Joe Taxpayer’s been stuck footing the bill and degrees have similarly been larded up with all sorts of bells and whistles and pathetically lowered standards.
And average returns have pretty much averaged out over time: https://www.macrotrends.net/2526/sp-500-historical-annual-returns
Do you even have any idea what they are based on?
And evidence re: work? kids regularly started with paper routes, lawn mowing, babysitting and such as pre-teens, were regular after-school workers in their teens, and if they didn’t have merit scholarships or a benefactor for college, working their way through that as well.
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