Posted on 02/02/2014 6:52:57 AM PST by Hojczyk
Turning 30 used to mean hitting your stride as an official adult. But for many of the country’s millennials, it feels like being stuck in perpetual late adolescence.
Marriage eludes many. Children? Not anytime soon. Most millennials have some sort of job, but for many a career seems unobtainable. A home of their own? Lots of them have had to move back in with mom and dad or shack up with roommates. That’s not the place where many millennials expected or wanted to be as they enter their thirties.
What happened? One major culprit, say many millennials: The lousy economy
“It’s kind of a disillusionment that we’re facing,” Trowell said. “We were told that you can be anything you want, and now here we are and you can’t find a job.”
About 74 percent of the oldest millennials — those who are currently ages 25 to 32 — were employed in 2013, according to an analysis of government data prepared by Pew Research Center. That’s down from 79 percent who were employed in 2007.
Millennials also are getting married later. In 2013, the median age of a first marriage was 29 for men and 26.6 for women, according to Pew data. That’s up significantly from just 18 years ago, when the median age of first marriage was 26.9 years old for men and 24.5 years old for women.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Add American education to the mix..it sucks for most poor kids..then you have no dads at home..and mom lives on welfare..plus the rich give there kids everything and the middle class lives on credit to give there kids everything..My daughter started working at 15 in the mall..had a car at 16…Her kids are the most spoiled brats you have ever seen…all there friends are the someway..ages 7 and 9….
Your post #31 is 100% correct
I hear a lot of whining on this thread about millennials...but only you and Cringing have offered the real solution
Free Trade is an abject failure...and we are paying for it by subsidizing a generation of unemployed
Little do the Free Trade folks realize that most nations tariff US products heavily....through Value Added Taxes. VAT is slapped on all US exports by many nations
And, it is allowed by the World Trade Organization, the UN agency that runs trade
Tariffs on foreign goods coming into the US is a necessity
There was much talk during the '50s and '60s of a so-called 'social contract.' If one was willing to work one could get a reasonably well paying job.
To whatever degree it was true, it most definitely is not true now.
It's been replaced by a 'social formula,' if you will...go to school, get your degree, and you will get a reasonably well paying job.
What, oh what, could possibly go wrong? Where does one start?
I think that Stephen Covey may have figured it out. We lost too much when we, as a nation, moved off the farms. My Father worked in a mill, but I spent my summers on my Aunt and Uncle’s farm. I remember my Uncle getting up every morning looking to the West for rain. I remember his sense of hopelessness when the hail hit. They taught me the lessons kids don’t get in school. I saw the wonder of birth and life and the unbiased certainty of death. We have The Peace Corps and Americorps, but I wonder if we shouldn’t have a Farmcorps? Maybe we just need to make FFA and 4-H more attractive to the city kids.
Unfortunately, it’s not acting like a shortage exists. Between the questionable use of guest workers and fraudulent qualifcations, IT professions act more like they’re in a state of surplus. Spot shortages may exist, but are more the exception than the rule.
A real and market-based shortage has not existed since the late 1990’s, when qualifications didnt exclude US citizenship. Right now, we have a government-driven(through guest workers) surplus that has nothing but a *claim* to shortage.
Yeah, I have worked with a lot of millenials and I agree...the ones that are not “succeeding” are the ones that have issues. The biggest ones are that they are not willing to really work, and they feel they are entitled to luxury items.
They do not want to work a full time job. They are busy enjoying themselves. Ok, I get this...but don’t complain when you do not “achieve” what others achieve when they choose to work a full time job.
They spend their money on luxury things that are not a lasting investment. They spend a lot of money on traveling. They buy a lot of clothes and entertainment items. They have a $130/month smartphone bill. Then they complain because they do not own furniture, cars, or a house.
And yeah, they take on large amounts of student debt to get worthless degrees. Most of the Millenials I have worked with have gone to college, yet they cannot write a simple letter without making grammatical errors. I’m no grammar Nazi...I had average fifth graders who could write better than some of the people I have worked with.
The saddest thing is that this is self-perpetuating. They have missed the boat and will never catch up. Once they are 30 and have never held any sort of career job, I do not think they are likely to get one. I pointed that out to a Baby Boomer, and she was shocked because she had not thought of this. The Boomers are too removed from it and keep brushing it off as not being that bad.
The other common type of Millenial I see are the ones who did not graduate high school and are illiterate. Many of these either receive SSD or they are applying for SSD. They get it because they say they are too disabled to work. They claim mental disability. I guess this kind has been in every generation, but it seems like a higher percentage are enabled to do this now. I guess if I had a choice of working at Wal Mart for $1000/month or collecting SSD for $1000/month, I’d be too depressed to work, too. Well...I’d still work, but that’s me. They take the SSD.
“Um, do a little research you sound like a foolish idiot.”
Wow. Ok.
Way to deep-six whatever point you were trying to make. Maybe in the future you could try actually doing that?
The consequences of helicopter parenting and participation trophies mixed with cynicism.
Post of the day!
I had my kids by 31. Owned a home. Lived overseas. Traveled a little. Had our share of struggle. But, you know what? We had the enrgy and, most importantly, the wonder and excitement for it all then.
Now I am going to be 44. My kids are teens. I can not even imagine having the same energy, wonder and exuberance I had then for it all, now. So, I look at them at 32-33 and picture them at 40 trying to play catch up--glad I did it the way I did.
The Millenials voted for this by putting an incompetent into the WH...twice.
You missed an entire generation that was born between both -of the ones you mentioned.
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Yup. That’s my generation. I believe they dubbed us the Silent Generation. Roughly 1925-1942. Not sure why it’s not up to 1945 since 1946 is the commonly accepted start of the Boomer Generation.
I was born during WWII, just before the start of the baby boom. I went straight into the Navy upon high school graduation, got my honorable two days before my 21st, at 23 I was earning what would be equivalent to over $70000. a year now, driving a new car and was considered by most to be...a failure! I was single and that was looked on as some kind of sin by many in those days. At 23 I was supposed to have a wife, a house with a mortgage and a child or two.
“Right now they’re living off the wealth of the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers, and what happens when that’s gone?”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw
I was born in ‘44, I am a member of the forgotten generation. Some try to say I am a boomer but that can’t be right, the baby boom started after the war ended in ‘45.
It is 1925 to 1945, and there is no such generation as “the greatest generation”, the media just created a vague, WWII associated “generation”.
Boomers are 1946 through 1964.
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