Posted on 04/16/2020 5:07:35 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff
Hello, lost generation.
The Millennials entered the workforce during the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Saddled with debt, unable to accumulate wealth, and stuck in low-benefit, dead-end jobs, they never gained the financial security that their parents, grandparents, or even older siblings enjoyed. They are now entering their peak earning years in the midst of an economic cataclysm more severe than the Great Recession, near guaranteeing that they will be the first generation in modern American history to end up poorer than their parents.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I have two millennial daughters. They are both doing well and will continue to do so. Both are conservative and hard working, and so are their friends. The only millennials that will have long term problems and be subject to the doom and gloom that The Atlanic aches are those that are pessimistic and box themselves in as part of some persecuted group.
>>It was easier to do back then. Like I said you could work a summer and fall quarter and pay for an entire years tuition. My state school is now 27k per year.<<
Gorca few, maybe. For most no.
Do not confuse your andcdotes for trends nor evidence.
“Sounds like Obamacare. Who’d they vote for?”
Not Obamacare but a normal employer paid plan. Those figures are normal today. Very few employers pay for dependent coverage and now most do not pay 100% of single only coverage
My wife and I pay $1900 month for a $8000 deductible each plan
“College towns used to be cheap places to live; now, they’re not. Why?”
Foreigners. Some schools are predominately rich foreign students.
“Do not confuse your andcdotes for trends nor evidence.”
It’s not anecdotal. That is how it was for much of the population. Trailer Park Badass said this below:
30-40 years ago I paid $1000 a semester to go to UGA. I could earn enough bartending, and bar managing, to pay that, my rent and food, and have a good bit left over.”
>>It was easier to do back then. Like I said you could work a summer and fall quarter and pay for an entire years tuition. My state school is now 27k per year.<<
My undergrad semester room, board and tuition was $770 in mid/late 50’s as an undergrad and gas was 25 cents/gallon. I understand inflation but the colleges/universities now are nothing but a bunch of gonefs. Obama taking over student loans is the criminal.
That’s horrific. Whatever drove those premiums and deductibles up so much? Shyster insurance companies or government?
“Like me, you grew up with cushy jobs, health benefits, pension plans etc”
Bullshit. I left the Corps and dropped right back into the teeth of the Carter years. Inflation at 10%, prime rates above that, gas prices doubling overnight.
I’ve known nothing but 401k plans except for a very brief stint working for County government. The health plans we had, and I emphasize had, were 80/20 and that was back when it was cheap. The last employer health plan we had cost is $1,400 a month for a family of 3.
We are where we are today, which ain’t ShangrifriggingLa btw, by being prudent with our money, prepping for the inevitable hard times, and busting our asses working 10-12 hour days for the last 25 years.
So spare me.
L
Physicians, engineers, programmers, chemists, geneticists, teachers, lawyers, historians, city planners, etc... all need higher education.
If everyone is a welder or plumber, wages would be near minimum wage due to supply and demand (Which affects wages).
There needs to be a balance between trade careers and useful academics. Globalism and advance tech is creating this service economy were a lot of areas are diluted which is one reason why t”Political Correctness” began becoming an industry in the 1970s. What Adorno and Marcuse spawned in the 1950s and 1960s in academia ultimately became a cottage industry led by their academic spawn (Which the government, our representatives we elect, many Republicans by the way, sponsored).
I am fine, at least I am self aware and not a selfish economic illerterate like yourself.
Are we not suppose to be proper stewards for the next generation?
Funny how we mock all the millenials when we live like Snowflakes....the new normal. Sound familiar? That was how Obama told use to give up all hope!
It’s an odd thing, no doubt. It’s a little unsettling to me. My whole life, I always made a point of meeting and trying to know a little bit about the people around me and all walks of life. It’s just weird to see this… Evasiveness or Nervousness in people. In the past, if you met people like that moving in next to you, you would be inclined to think some pretty negative thoughts about those people. No, you’re supposed to accept it as some kind of trait that should be respected. It kind of stinks of that moral relativism in a weird way.
“Anyone can be successful in college, and no one should be condemned to declasse jobs like electrician, plumber, machinist, etc.”
Are you serious? Are skilled trades like those, “declasse,” which I guess is a French word meaning `dead end & low paying’, like a Starbucks barista? Ask any liberal arts grad what their degree is worth.
Technical schools turn out future well-paid welders, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and machinists. Some trades require working through apprentice, journeyman, and master, but the payoff is a good paying job.
Wonder what the college debt burden is like for technical grads?
We had it different.
I got into IT a decade before the personal computer revolution. We were still programming for the mainframe in PL/1, COBOL, JCL, ISAM, VSAM, IMS, tapes, and mass storage drives. Those jobs needed college degrees because the science was still being invented.
In the 1990s, the personal computer advanced enough to replace the mainframe, and distributed computing became the norm. PowerBuilder, Composer, Visual Basic, DB2, SQL. Everyone became a coder, and processing was pushed to the desktop with client-server architectures. Mainframes were decommissioned, and entire remote support companies disappeared.
In the 2000s, the nature of work changed. With the advent of companies like SAP, all the programs that needed coding had been coded. Companies that had their own internally-developed general ledger, procurement, HR, inventory, sales, etc., systems, all moved to a common ERP platform. Colleges moved away from teaching 3GL and 4GL programming and started teaching SAP configuration.
Now, internal IT is being outsourced to "off prem" cloud services, software as a service, platform as a service, corporate datacenters are being sold to cloud providers and the computing leased back to the corporations.
It wasn't "easy" for us, just different challenges for different times. It's possible that the choices that millennials made were not informed by the life challenges that we had to face, or the stories of the life challenges that our parents and grandparents passed onto us.
-PJ
As if the plunge off the demographic cliff wasn’t already going fast enough.
I’m a machinist. You didn’t understand what I wrote.
lucky you I started work in 79 and had no free car, no insurance, no disability, no pension plan. I have a clue, I went to work every day and did not bitch about how tough it was. Now retired at 62 after working and paying for my own car and insurance for 40 years, mortgage and kids university.
Glad you had it easy.
Any kids today that had half a brain would go to trade school, the trades make GREAT MONEY, and you don’t come out of school with the national debt on your shoulders!! Also very easy to start your own business people in the trades are in very high demand!!
EXCELLENT post!
Give them hope. Tell them to get out there and do things!
One of the local restaurants decided not to let their 28 employees go. Instead they began to sell vegetables, toilet paper,wine and beer and meals to go. All 28 have stayed employed.
If that kid with no fingers and no toes can make himself into an NFL star player then all the millennials can be winners, not victims.
Have the kids figure out what they can do to be part of the solution.
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