Posted on 08/15/2016 11:06:57 AM PDT by Lorianne
Millennials are not some vast unsolvable mystery. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau (PDF), they earn $2,000 less than their parents did at a comparable age, they are more likely to live in poverty, and they are more likely to live at home.
But Baby Boomers and Gen Xers still seem to find it hard to believe that basic economic math can explain much of the younger generation’s behavior.
After several news outlets, including The Daily Beast, reported that rates of millennial sexual inactivity in early adulthood are surprisingly high, armchair social theorists came out in force to blame it on everything but the fact that nearly one-third of young adults are still living at home.
One right-wing college news website found a way to attribute the finding to millennials’ desire for “safe spaces.”
Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speculated on Twitter that it was an example of the “porn paradox,” whatever that means. Others attributed it, predictably, to the effects of technology or increased anxiety. A Rutgers biological anthropologist even suggested that millennials might be too “motivated” and “ambitious” to even bother with sex.
The most likely explanation—which was mentioned in the study itself—is that parents’ basements do not make great boom boom rooms. But who needs Occam’s razor when you’re publicly opining about the behavior of an entire generation? Lower wages sending 22-year-olds back home after college isn’t nearly as sexy as complaining about porn or political correctness.
The truth is that lower wages and poverty can account for so many of the things that older generations find so mystifying about millennials.
For example, millennials drive less than their parent’s generation—and until recently, at least—were relatively uninterested in buying cars. As The Atlantic reported in 2012, this crisis prompted automakers to appoint “youth emissaries” and come up with new car colors like “techno pink” and “denim.”
But trying to make cars cooler doesn’t change the fact that, as CityLab found, there’s a significant gap in vehicle miles traveled between millenials who make over $30,000 a year and those who make less. Simply put: Cars cost money and millennials have less of it.
Millennials have also been shamed for how much they spend eating out instead of say, saving for retirement. “Millennials Are Spending an Embarrassing Amount on Brunch and Takeaway Pizza,” Vice recently declared.
It’s easy to chalk that generational difference up to some sort of narcissistic short-sightedness but the truth is probably a lot closer to fatalism: When millennials can’t save for retirement anyway, why not spring for some bottomless mimosas instead of enrolling in a 401(k)?
SNIP
Mr. Millennial: Fido969 is talking like a fool. The war is not between boomers and millennials. There’s no war between native born Americans who don’t hate America. You’re right - a revolution is needed. Some of us boomers have had a terrible foreboding for most of our lives (for myself, since at least 1975). Find the few of us (I guess) who are still fighting and not just fat and corrupt and happy. We actually can pass on some good information to you. Thanks!
When my husband and I I paid about $500,000 combined into social security, you better believe that I am not going to roll over and say that the government can keep it. No way, Jose. That is the liberal viewpoint, not the conservative.
There is nothing for the government to keep or to give you. Every penny was either already paid out or stolen. The question is whether any majority of adults will choose to accept that fact and move on or will we continue the charade and borrow against our kid’s future to keep the checks rolling for a few more years.
WilliamCooper1 doesn’t sound like a socialist to me. Why are all you old farts beating up on him? He wants a revolution. Who would not agree with him?
WE paid for SS Son, secondly, I am 64 and have no Medicare, have been to the doctor 10 times in my life. By the way, I also have a RECORD, and am employed as a Mechnical Engineer making more money than ever...heh heh. Most of the Hi-Tech conveniences you have are thanks to BBrs and ME! heh heh
I joined the Marines in 1969 at the age of 17. How about YOU, where did YOU serve?
“William, Social Security has $300,000 of my money FRiend.”
SS has none of your money, it was either stolen or spent as quick as you sent it in.
500 out of 120 million. Impressive.
Sir - the SS we have paid is being spent RIGHT NOW on people older than us, people our own age, immigrants, criminals, fake disabled people, and a few truly disabled people. Nothing is saved for us.
If you retired right now, money WilliamCooper1 pays is going to you. Not to him.
That’s the shit system we have. If I were WilliamCooper1, whose siblings, statistically, were aborted, I would not want to pay for you, or me, either.
Strawman
“I stand by the point that graduating with a useful degree is the cure to most millennials’ woes.”
And I totally agree with that statement. A good degree is never worthless. It might not be as valuable as it once was, or maybe it didn’t teach as much as it used to, but it is still the best career investment next to a good work ethic (which also lends well to college).
I doubt is William has a degree let alone a job, no Logic, no Critical Thinking skills, no understanding of History, just a crybaby..
correct. We aren’t far from ONE millennial with an actual job paying for ONE retiree. It won’t work.
The millennials, through no choice of their own, had their siblings (who would have been native Americans paying taxes, not islamists and other degenerates stealing and murdering) aborted and were grossly miseducated. They got a shit deal while boomers got fat, bought 2nd and 3rd homes, and voted for socialists.
you’re acting like a shithead to pick an argument with another American. Fight the common enemy with WilliamCooper1
Where would that be?
Are you suggesting that you have dollars that would buy more someplace else? I remember reading about some recipients of Social Security living happily in Poland.
I hope you are and remain in good health. I was until March of 2014. Then I developed pneumonia, had a minor heart attack, was given up for dead in the ICU, had a quadruple bypass, and cancer surgery.
Had I been in some other country in March of 2014 I think I would already be gone. I would not expect to find the kind of emergency and diagnostic care I got anywhere else on earth.
Good comment Mr. Millennial. You are showing decent critical thinking and debating skills. Keep it up!
I served as a congressional staffer...hehe there is your problem, you should have learned a trade or taken hard sciences, you make it sound like it is someone elses’ fault you are not successful, Liberal M.O.
How are they paying it if they’re making 30K or less? They’re not
Our generation bears much more responsibility for the crap education and loss of siblings and cousins that millennials endure than they do. You and I don’t bear it, but our fellow bastard leftist idiot boomers do, and we didn’t stop them.
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