Gen X follows the Baby Boomers Some put Gen X starting at 1963.
The first Gen Xers are turning 50 this year. Please stop lumping “Gen X” with the Millenials.
The kids I know in their teens, 20s and even 30s want nothing much more than their I-Phones and a small car!!
I know a 24 year old ‘kid’ who has already received two promotions and is making 60k/year now.. Bottom line? GET A DEGREE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE and learn computer programming as many languages as possible (and work hard)!!!
Add in all the borrowing Bammy is doing for their “benefit” and you’ll see they are indentured servants to the State.
The problem with this country is that there are generations of Americans who are jealous or disdainful of other generations of Americans. Reading articles from somewhere called the Urban Institute doesn’t help things where they exhaustively examine wealth between groups of older Americans born in slightly different closely spaced year groups and then complain because we somehow lost to Obama, or whoever they want to blame.
Topping it off, they completely neglect intelligent examination of things like sacrifice for children, homes, stability, and country and concentrate on “how WE - Xer, millenial, et al got SCREWED! because their effing degree ain’t worth anything.....”
Not worth listening to.
Kids may be ignorant and lazy, or at least noteworthy than previous generations, but things really have changed.
When my dad graduated from engineering school in the 50s, he told.me he could have bought two houses, “but what would I have done with the other one?”
When I graduated engineering school in ‘84, I couldn’t afford a condo.
Things are even worse for this generation.
My survival plan for my family, is to have my kids skip college or commute to a cheapo one, then work while living at home. They will pay for their food and rent, but hopefully they will be able to put some money away before they get married.
No more debt. The end is near. The clan is back.
Not only are Generation X and Y’ers screwed - so are the Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers will depend on these people to pay their Social Security, if they don’t have the money, then the Gov’t won’t have it either.
Also, expect more generational class-warfare. Poorer Gen Y’ers are going to be looking at Boomers relative wealth, and encouraged by the Left, will ask why these old codgers have so much more they do. As Obama said - wealth is good if you spread it around. Bring on the death panels!
Finally - what the Urban Institutes policy recommendations? MORE Gov’t programs for “wealth creation” among Gen X’ers and Y’ers. Good luck with that.
One area that Gen X folks are lucky is housing. We were able to buy a home in Annapolis MD for about 300K LESS than what we would have paid in 2007-8. Gen X has a lot of positives financially.
I guess in 1983 I was saving money because I didn’t have cable, cell phone or internet. Add up the cost of those and you can see the savings. The more you are able to save when you are young the less you will need to save when you are old.
I dunno... My 25 yr old son has a finance degree and a crappy bank job, making less money than I started out making 32 years ago....
And yet?
He has MORE MONEY saved in the bank than I had until I was 40 years old.
Living with me has really cut his expenses.. :-(
My parents were hired by the State of California before all the racial and gender quotas, put up with the nonsense for 30 years, and are now drawing pensions and benefits that are bankrupting the state.
Gen X and Gen Y don’t have the same socialist fantasy world job opportunities available, and get to foot the bill for the generations who did.
Typically, young people of most generations don't start saving money until 10, 20, or 30 years after they leave school. All that lost time is lost compound interest (which equals wealth accumulation).
Everybody is poor in their 20s, don't worry about it. But don't fall into self-pity, or drop out of the job market.
Time IS on your side, if you cut back on the partying and "big boy toys" before you've let half of your life slip away.
But nobody should engage in inter-generational bashing about this issue. That just pushes people apart, and doesn't lead to solutions.
Parents need to assist their kids, and in turn when the parents get older, the kids need to assist the parents.
We plan to help our kids buy their first house....I want to maximize the overall wealth of the family, and the less money they have to pay out in rents that result reducing overall family wealth, the better....Then they can save that money in their 20s, and help us, when we are old, and they should be financially well off. That’s the way it should work. Families look out for each other...And it is no coincidence that when the government broke families apart, it increase the Federal leviathan exponentially.
My parents had video games, internet, deregulated air travel, smart phones, a huge variety of ethnic foods (cheeses, sushi, Chinese, Indian), hd movies in the home, recorded shows, reliable cars, air conditioning, etc. and I have less?
Wealth accumulation is mostly the equity in one’s primary residence and capital gains on equity investments. Most of the difference in these charts can probably be explained by two phenomena. The first is when the individual go into the stock market via mutual funds and IRAs/401ks, and when they first bought a house.
The earlier one got into the stock market, the less impact the crashes of 2001 and 2008 had. The earlier on bought a house, the less impact the housing bubble had.
Similarly, spending habits of 20-30 year olds by generation would be useful.
Another valuable measure would be to look at the range and median salaries for various jobs and degree levels over time.