The Stressed Millennials- Screwed by Obama, the Unions and Generation Fed

Townhall.com ^ | February 24, 2013 | Mike Shedlock

[Kaslin]

Those looking for a reason for sluggish housing, weak retail sales, and low family formations rates, need only look at the plight of millennials (those aged 18-33).

Many millennials have no job, high student debt with no way to pay the debt off, and few job opportunities beyond part-time employment in food services or retail.

Millennials are the ones who Obama targeted to pay for Obamacare. Indeed, the forced inclusion of youth (who will overpay for health care) is supposedly what made Obamacare "affordable".

Yet, even with the screw job on youth, the "Affordable Health Care Act" is so unaffordable that Companies Opt of Obamacare, Not Even Labor Unions Want It.

Speaking of labor unions, the odds millennials get the same benefit packages going forward that public unions receive today are roughly zero percent. Nonetheless, expect tax rates on millennials to rise so that ungracious, unappreciative boomers get ridiculous benefits they do not deserve and did not earn.

The Stressed Generation

Is it any wonder a study of of Stress in America by the American Psychological Association shows millennials to be the most stressed generation.

Both Millennials and Gen Xers report an average stress level of 5.4 on a 10-point scale where 1 is “little or no stress” and 10 is “a great deal of stress,” far higher than Boomers’ average stress level of 4.7 and Matures’ average stress level of 3.7.



The four generations are defined as following: Millennials (18- to 33-year-olds), Gen Xers (34- to 47-year-olds), Boomers (48- to 66-year-olds) and Matures (67 years and older).

Thirty-nine percent of Millennials say their stress has increased in the last year, compared to 36 percent of Gen Xers, 33 percent of Boomers and 29 percent of Matures.

More than 52 percent of Millennials report having lain awake at night in the past month due to stress, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers, 37 percent of Boomers and 25 percent of Matures.

Additionally, 44 percent of both Millennials and Gen Xers report experiencing irritability or anger due to stress, compared to 36 percent of Boomers and 15 percent of Matures.

America's Most Stressed Generation

The Huffington Post comments on the above study in Millennials Come of Age as America's Most Stressed Generation

Not surprisingly, work is one of the biggest causes of stress, with 76 percent of Millennials reporting it as a significant stressor, compared to 62 percent of Boomers and 39 percent of Matures. "Many of these young people have come out of college or graduate school with horrendous student debt into a job market where there are not very many jobs," said Katherine Nordal of the APA. "This has put their life plans, probably, on hiatus."

The job numbers are indeed grim. According to Generation Opportunity, the unemployment rate for Millennials rose to 13.1 percent in January, up nearly 2 points from December. Among young African-Americans, it's a whopping 22.1 percent. And if you count those 18-29 year-olds who have given up and dropped out of the labor force, the overall youth unemployment rate stands at 16.2 percent.

And even for the lucky ones who are working, the picture remains bleak. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 2000 and 2011 wages adjusted for inflation fell by over 11 percent for young high school grads and by 5.4 percent for young college grads. It doesn't help that, as a study by the Center for College Affordability found, 48 percent of working college grads are in jobs that don't require a college degree and 38 percent are in jobs that don't require a high school diploma. The report concluded that from 2010 to 2020, while 19 million college grads will be hitting the job market, the economy will add fewer than 7 million jobs requiring a college degree. That's a pretty serious -- and stress-producing -- gap.

And any of those heavily indebted, heavily stressed-out Millennials listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech would not have gotten much stress relief. He did acknowledge the increasingly untenable cost of higher education -- "Today, skyrocketing costs price too many young people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt" -- and declared that he would "ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid."

Not Promising at All

In regards to Obama's plans for education, Arianna Huffington misses the mark completely.

She says "Obama's push for colleges and universities to increase enrollment and the number of degrees they grant is a great goal." She also says changes to the higher education act "sounds promising if it ever happens".

Affordable education won't happen under Obama because neither Obama nor Huffington address the fundamental problems.

Fundamental Reasons College Costs Soared

• Guaranteed student loans
• Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy
• Untenable wage and benefit structures of teachers and administrators
• Too much push for everyone to go to college whether they are suited or not
• Federal grants and other costly programs designed to make college affordable but do the opposite
• Outright lies and fraud by for-profit schools that lure students into believing they can become a chef or a Java programmer
• Lack of enough accredited online universities
• No competition in general

The millennials were screwed by all of the above. They were also screwed by Fed policies that punish savers to the benefit of the already wealthy.

Millennials became debt slaves in the process, to the benefit of the banks, the school administrators, and the teacher's unions.

Stressed by that? You bet. Screwed is more like it.

For an explanation of how millennials were screwed by the Fed, please see ...

1. Reader Asks Me to Prove "Inflation Benefits the Wealthy" (At the Expense of Everyone Else).
2. House Subcommittee on Economic Growth Demands Answers From Bernanke on Fed's Exit Strategy; Fed Must Reply by March 5

 
Screwed Generation

The Daily Beast asks Are Millennials the Screwed Generation?

How has this generation been screwed? Let’s count the ways, starting with the economy. No generation has suffered more from the Great Recession than the young. Median net worth of people under 35, according to the U.S. Census, fell 37 percent between 2005 and 2010; those over 65 took only a 13 percent hit.

The wealth gap today between younger and older Americans now stands as the widest on record. The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older is $170,494, 42 percent higher than in 1984, while the median net worth for younger-age households is $3,662, down 68 percent from a quarter century ago, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

Quick prospects for improvement are dismal for the younger generation. One key reason: their indebted parents are not leaving their jobs, forcing younger people to put careers on hold. Since 2008 the percentage of the workforce under 25 has dropped 13.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while that of people over 55 has risen by 7.6 percent.

The screwed generation also enters adulthood loaded down by a mountain of boomer- and senior-incurred debt—debt that spirals ever more out of control. The public debt constitutes a toxic legacy handed over to offspring who will have to pay it off in at least three ways: through higher taxes, less infrastructure and social spending, and, fatefully, the prospect of painfully slow growth for the foreseeable future.

In the United States, the boomers’ bill has risen to about $50,000 a person. In Japan, the red ink for the next generation comes in at more than $95,000 a person. The huge public-employee pensions now driving many states and cities—most recently Stockton, California toward the netherworld of bankruptcy represent an extreme case of intergenerational transfer from young to old. It’s a thoroughly rigged boomer game.

More maddening still, the payback for this expensive education appears to be a chimera. Over 43 percent of recent graduates now working, according to a recent report by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, are at jobs that don’t require a college education. Some 16 percent of bartenders and almost the same percentage of parking attendants, notes Ohio State economics professor Richard Vedder, earned a bachelor’s degree or higher.

The "Last" Generation

My friend "BC" has a few thoughts on the screwed generation. "BC" writes ...

Millennials suffer from ...

• Lack of durable paid employment
• Contingent low-wage, part-time employment
• Few (if any) opportunities for occupational/career trajectories
• Low or no income and purchasing power
• Heavy debt burden
• No ability to save
• Few options to overcome individually or collectively the cumulative socioeconomic, fiscal, and distributional structural constraints bearing down on them

The generation coming of age does not have the paid employment and after-tax purchasing power necessary to support the growth of a debt-based mass-consumer economy, big mortgages, the crushing costs of parenting, discretionary spending, Obamacare, and elder transfer programs for the Boomers nor for themselves.

In this sense, the Millennials are the "Last" Generation.

[5thGenTexan]

Why are they stressed by the realization of the change they so enthusiastically voted for?

[Kaslin]

Maybe those that are stressed are finally waking up?

[proxy_user]

But if you are a hard-working young person with a good professional credential or an in-demand skill, you will find a surprisingly warm welcome from employers. There aren’t very many young people like this, so there is not much competition. The baby boomers have to retire sooner or later, and employers still need good workers coming in.

[HangnJudge]

One answer for young adult unemployment used to be
Father-Son Apprenticeships

The Son would work for/with the Father for a time,
learning the family trade

Spouses would live with or near by the Family Home
Raising children in an extended family

Other answers included entering Military or Priesthood

[9YearLurker]

Half that demographic have been thrilled to have been given free healthcare from their parents’ employers.

They voted for all this crap.

[factoryrat]

Maybe if they learned slang spanish and are willing to to work for below minimum wage as welders, carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, or factory workers, they they might have a chance of landing a job, at least if they live in the south or the west, just based on observations. Or, if they could just get a H1B visa, they could get a job with a tech or design firm, for half price of course. Like any business, oppurtunity chases the lowest overhead, which is fine. Just be prepared for the boomers and gen-x crowd to keep paying for their kids to live in their basements forever, along with supporting the unemployed and the free sh!t army on top of that. Hope you didn’t have plans on retiring or collecting SS or cashing out your 401k or IRA anytime soon.

[dalereed]

stress is nothing more than the lack of mental ability to handle the situation at hand!!!

[ScottinVA]

The millennials may be getting screwed by Obama, but they’re enjoying the experience. They’re among his staunchest backers, because they can’t... Or won’t connect his policies with the difficulties they’re facing. When ordered by the regime’s Ministry of Propaganda to believe the Repubs are to blame, the Millennials, like emerging majorities of Americans, bleat passively like good little sheep and meekly comply.

[Kenton]

Nonetheless, expect tax rates on millennials to rise so that ungracious, unappreciative boomers get ridiculous benefits they do not deserve and did not earn.

Well, that sure disabled my Give A Shit response...

Yeah, it's true, people between the ages of 18 and 33 probably are in the most stressful period of their lives because of all the changes they go though, in transition between pampered children and responsible adulthood.

I believe that's been the case as long as I can remember, it's not particularly a new phenomenon.

Sure, the challenges facing them are immense, but they COULD be a lot worse.

Boomers indeed made a lot of mistakes; one of the worst was raising the most self-entitled generation in history. My advice to the author is if he wants people to feel his pain, he needs to find a way to do it without sounding so whiney. I hate whiners.

[ScottinVA]

” Hope you didn’t have plans on retiring or collecting SS or cashing out your 401k or IRA anytime soon.

Yep, especially since the regime is eyeing plans to “help us manage” our private retirement accounts.

[RegulatorCountry]

I graduated into a pretty crappy economy locally, in the mid-late eighties. Jobs in my field were thin, I was very disappointed with what I was able to land. Had to live with my parents for two years, paying down the student loan debt. My dad helped me with that. Did what I had to do, looking back it wasn’t the greatest of circumstance for a newly minted grad, but it worked out eventually.

Now is worse than then, though. Can’t say I knew a soul among family or friends who lost their job then, let alone their house or their business. It’s not unusual at all now.

If there’s nothing where you are, move heaven and earth to get to where there’s something and throw yourself into it, make the most of what comes your way, whatever it is. Keep your eyes open for opportunity, it existed then and exists even now, just harder to find.

That’s all anyone can do, it’s what I did. I feel for them, but wallowing in self-pity will only drag it out that much longer

[TexasFreeper2009]

On the up side.. this is heaven for a gen X’er single male with a job, since he can take his pick of USDA prime 20 something girls looking for anyone with a job.

[ansel12]

Maybe your cussing in public stresses them, there is no reason to use that language on a public forum of conservatives.

[Cyber Liberty]

I can’t be too tough on Kenton for that. My Give-a-Carp gland broke down on the sentence he copied, too.

[RFEngineer]

Nobody wants to admit that they don’t deserve the government largesse that they presently receive. It makes them feel better to blame someone else and then cash “their” entitlement checks.

Millenials will get less than the present generation of SS/Medicare recipients. If you get SS/Medicare today, you’re getting it as good as it will ever be - you also don’t deserve what you get based on what you paid in.

Like any generation, Millenials have their share of idiots, and an even bigger share of folks who have yet to learn from the “school of hard knocks” by definition.

What the greedy oldsters of today fail to realize is that these kids will DEFAULT on the debt they did not incur and they will cut every Medicare/SS off completely, especially the grumpy ones who wagged their finger at them.

Then we’ll have a geriatric cannibal nightmare at what once were placid, restful retirement homes funded with Medicaid dollars, and fist-fights over the few remaining functional “free scooters” in retirement-ville.

Just kidding......sorta.

[RFEngineer]

“Boomers indeed made a lot of mistakes; one of the worst was raising the most self-entitled generation in history.”

Boomers are all greedy self-absorbed takers from government......(See how generational generalizations can work)

” I hate whiners.”

A “whiner” is someone hasn’t yet qualified for government benefits then?

[SVTCobra03]

Nonetheless, expect tax rates on millennials to rise so that ungracious, unappreciative boomers get ridiculous benefits they do not deserve and did not earn.

I stopped reading right there.

[dsrtsage]

A 21 year old nephew of a friend of mine showed up on my door on January 3, 2012. He is from Idaho, and he had the intention of becoming an electrician. As of that point he had no real skills or education for being an electrician. One of our friends is an electrician and was able to get him a chance to work out on a gold mine in BFE central Nevada. He was low man on the totem pole, of course, but he worked his ass off, and it was very noticed. Soon, he was being allowed to work on things as (not even an apprentice yet), that would normally only be allowed for apprentice or journeymen electricians because he worked his ass off, did the job right, and learned quickly. As the first project was winding down, and most of the electrical crew were discharged, they kept him there, then he got an immediate spot on the next mine in BFE Nevada, and hasn’t been out of work for one day in the 14 months since he first showed up on my doorstep.

It definitely helped that someone he knew was able to crack the door for him, but after that crack, it was all him, working harder than everyone else, learning like a sponge, and being willing to spend months working in very remote places. He finally passed his apprentice test (he has a fairly moderate reading disability), but he studied hard for it, and did it.

[zeestephen]

Millennials will solve this financial disaster the old fashioned way....

They will default.

Paying the Baby Boomer's debts, health care, and pensions is only half their problem.

Some how the Millennials must be persuaded that future generations will be stupid enough to pay for the Millennial’s retirement.

Both parts of that proposition are ludicrous.

I'm a Boomer.

Time to face reality, fellow senior citizens.

The Millennials are not going to pay our debts or our bills.