Millennials continue to get the big shaft. massive rents, college debt, mcjobs etc..

[cbrunny]

I'm facepalming so hard right now. I'm just going to chalk this up to "he doesn't know where his money even comes from."

You're like... an adult child. You have no idea how much it actually cost you to go to college.

lol no idea how you could possibly have come to that conclusion from my comment. You literally could not be more wrong.

 

[CountZero]

At least as of 2013 people in their 30s were worse off (measured as accumulation of wealth) than the same age groups 30 years ago. This means Gen X and millennials are both worse off than their parents.

Wage stagnation + college debt + increasing house prices + (now) increasing rents = the inability to buy a house. As houses tend to be the largest portion of an American's wealth there is the problem.

This is on average. People on this site tend to be educated and be in the tech sector so are likely above average in wealth accumulation for their generation.

If you don't believe wealth accumulation is a good measure of relative wellness between generations that's fine but on that measure there are two generations worse off. Maybe they will catch up later in life and this is a momentary blip or maybe a sign of worse things to come.

 

[child of wonder]

At least as of 2013 people in their 30s were worse off (measured as accumulation of wealth) than the same age groups 30 years ago. This means Gen X and millennials are both worse off than their parents.

Wage stagnation + college debt + increasing house prices + (now) increasing rents = the inability to buy a house. As houses tend to be the largest portion of an American's wealth there is the problem.

This is on average. People on this site tend to be educated and be in the tech sector so are likely above average in wealth accumulation for their generation.

If you don't believe wealth accumulation is a good measure of relative wellness between generations that's fine but on that measure there are two generations worse off. Maybe they will catch up later in life and this is a momentary blip or maybe a sign of worse things to come.

This is very true. My wife and I earn far more than we ever dreamed we would and I don't feel rich at all. Every year our grocery bills shoot up, our gas and electric bills climb, property tax exceeds inflation, and so on. To live like you made $100,000 in 2000 you'd need over $200,000 today.

 

[rudder]

So what about me?

I don't have a college degree. I am almost 30 and bought a house with my GF almost 2 years ago for 250k. She does have a degree and up until recently was only making a little more than I was. I dont have any debt and make well above minimum wage or a McJob.

Other than my house, I have zero debt. My GF is the same. We do not get and have not gotten any financial once we got out of high school. I got a 1986 VW Jetta to get to FL. She got a 1994 corolla and that was it. I then bought a new car after getting to FL which I have now paid off.

How are we able to live our lives?

Maybe the OP should separate out people like you from the millennial types that go to a $40,000/year school and study Punjabi charcoal art then cry about high rent and student loans when they cannot find a job other than starbucks after graduation.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Pish, posh.

They are too busy doing <insert wild unfounded fantasy> to save actual money!

 

[HumblePie]

lol no idea how you could possibly have come to that conclusion from my comment. You literally could not be more wrong.

Looks at your location. See's Canada.

Realizes he's been trolling people in this thread because the Millennial discussion is about American problems. Something Canadian's wouldn't have the same way.

The Millennial problem the OP is referring to is US only thing.

The statistics for Millennials in the US are not good as a whole despite some few doing well.

 

[michal1980]

plus they have to pay more for health insurance so baby boomers can get a discount.

 

[Spungo]

plus they have to pay more for health insurance so baby boomers can get a discount.

Same thing with pensions. Generational theft at its finest. How many people in states like Illinois retired at 55 with a fantastic government pension? Where do people think that money comes from? It comes from debt which will be paid by young people. Lots of states and municipalities are on the brink of bankruptcy because older generations voted for everyone else's money. You should see the pension my mom gets. She owns her home and two vehicles, has no debt, tons of cash, and the pension she collects is about 2x the average American income. That's damn good income when you have no expenses like mortgage payments, car payments, or student loan payments. She's not some evil mastermind who found loopholes. She's just an average retired person. The country has tens of millions of people just like my mom, and then we wonder why governments are going broke left and right.

I can't remember what the number was for Social Security, but the payout is expected to drop to something like 70% of the current payout in about 10-20 years because that's the only way to remain solvent. Let's think about that for a second. If we know this scheme is not sustainable at its currently payout rates, why is the government policy to give as much as possible to today's old people then fuck tomorrow's old people in the ass? If you're a baby boomer, you get 100% payout. If you're gen X, you can expect only 70% payout. Why can't we split the difference and slash the payout to 85% right now so it's fair for everyone? Because our government is obsessed with reversed welfare. Find the richest people in the country and throw money at them. Apparently it will "trickle down" or something.

 

[cbrunny]

Looks at your location. See's Canada.

Realizes he's been trolling people in this thread because the Millennial discussion is about American problems. Something Canadian's wouldn't have the same way.

The Millennial problem the OP is referring to is US only thing.

The statistics for Millennials in the US are not good as a whole despite some few doing well.

LOL really? BAHAHA ok guys.

 

[alcoholbob]

At least as of 2013 people in their 30s were worse off (measured as accumulation of wealth) than the same age groups 30 years ago. This means Gen X and millennials are both worse off than their parents.

Wage stagnation + college debt + increasing house prices + (now) increasing rents = the inability to buy a house. As houses tend to be the largest portion of an American's wealth there is the problem.

This is on average. People on this site tend to be educated and be in the tech sector so are likely above average in wealth accumulation for their generation.

If you don't believe wealth accumulation is a good measure of relative wellness between generations that's fine but on that measure there are two generations worse off. Maybe they will catch up later in life and this is a momentary blip or maybe a sign of worse things to come.

Wealth accumulation is a symptom, not a underlying cause of inequality. The cause is rise of corporatism, and wealth accumulation is directly related to how close you are to the spigots where money is being created.

Currency accumulation after all is not the same as wealth accumulation--even if you taxed the 1% today for every dime they had and distributed it to the masses (something like a maximum wage tax), it won't be even close to returning price levels for housing, education, and domestic consumer goods back to say 1960s levels. That would require a 4 or 5 fold increase in per capita income and the top 1% just don't have that money. The cause is an inability for the economy to increase wealth relative to the expansion of the money supply, which drives up prices.

 

[HeXen]

No degree. buying my home, 2 newer cars in the drive. A nice garage to store it in, plenty of money to waste and a perfect credit score...just wasted $150 on a transformer megatron sega genesis. I plan to waste a lot more than that here real soon

But of course i'm not a millennial. However it seems every generation has more debts due to the way our society evolves. Soon you won't even be able to function without monthly payments for a cell phone. I'm dreading that day.

 

[Murloc]

I'm facepalming so hard right now. I'm just going to chalk this up to "he doesn't know where his money even comes from."

You're like... an adult child. You have no idea how much it actually cost you to go to college.

I think he gets your point, but the fact is that for a typical university student the costs his parents have for the room and board at their house are not his problems.
The problem is starting to work without having accumulated debt. If this problem isn't there, it's much easier, regardless of what the parents spent.

 

[OverVolt]

lol no idea how you could possibly have come to that conclusion from my comment. You literally could not be more wrong.

"I am justin Beiber"

 

[OverVolt]

Looks at your location. See's Canada.

Realizes he's been trolling people in this thread because the Millennial discussion is about American problems. Something Canadian's wouldn't have the same way.

The Millennial problem the OP is referring to is US only thing.

The statistics for Millennials in the US are not good as a whole despite some few doing well.

To be fair we are all heading down the same path. Going to Australia is like going back to 2005. They are about a decade behind the USA. Canada is about the same.

They will be having the same systemic problems we had down the line, if not worse. You'd practically expect someone in 2005 who thinks "everything is awesomeeee" to be a big headed buffoon. He delivers.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm facepalming so hard right now. I'm just going to chalk this up to "he doesn't know where his money even comes from."

You're like... an adult child. You have no idea how much it actually cost you to go to college.

The dollar value of a good college education depends on a choice of majors, and there would be naturally greater competition, too many students, departments bent on weeding out average or below performers.

There's also an intrinsic value, perhaps with a parallel in the intrinsic satisfaction of the job.

A student could pick a major with less promising income prospects, based on his idea of intrinsic value.

The costs:

Student fees
Tuition -- per credit-hour or other basis
Books -- an item that increased unreasonably over the last decade or so
Transportation, Housing, food and necessities

Unless you can find time to work part-time, you would figure in "loss-of-income" in some alternative job that didn't require any degree.

In 1937, Robert McNamara graduated from Berkeley, and from his account, he was paying $25/semester in tuition. In 1969, I graduated from another UC campus and was paying more like $150 to $200/quarter. [4 quarters = 3 semesters]. I think there was an autobiographical novel by Jack London, about being an oyster-pirate with academic or literary aspirations in a conflicted relationship with a bourgeois UC Berkeley student -- a novel about social class.

Today, it costs something in the order of $14,000/annum in tuition alone to attend my "alma mater." Wage opportunities would certainly vary: everything from Mcjobs to positions with greater promise and greater difficulty to obtain.

So, as goes the general US economy since the 1970s, wages have stagnated.

Do the math. Figure it out. We're talking about the University of California with this. You could get into Harvard, but could you afford Harvard?

 

[JSt0rm]

the rich of the baby boomer generation burned us.

 

[brianmanahan]

Nah I'm good. I have three university degrees, a wife, two dogs, two cars, a mortgage, and no non-mortgage debt.

that's cool. i am also a millenial and have 4 university degrees, 2 wives, 3 dogs, 3 cars, 2 mortgages and people owe me money.

 

[brianmanahan]

Holy s**t I can't believe that .3% of students receive enough money to cover everything. That is shockingly high (no sarcasm).

I certainly didn't! Not even close.

i actually did

(proud to be a member of the %0.3)

 

[Sonikku]

Millenials have it harder than their parents and grand parents? Poppy cock! I'm sure rent/college tuition was just as cheap and strong middle class factory jobs etc. are just as plentiful today as back then. They must all just be really lazy.

 

[Spungo]

But of course i'm not a millennial. However it seems every generation has more debts due to the way our society evolves. Soon you won't even be able to function without monthly payments for a cell phone. I'm dreading that day.

Please don't refer to it as evolution. Evolution implies that things naturally change without a leader. Cell phone technology evolves, for example. The price of everything is exploding due to central bank fuckery. It has nothing to do with natural economics.

This is quite easy to understand if you have parents or relatives who bought a house some time around 1980. In 1980, interest rates were astronomical. When interest rates are high, the amount of money you can borrow is very limited. For this reason, the price is everything is very low when interest rates are high. The house my mom lives in cost about 60k when she bought it. That was about 2 years of income, give or take. Now that house is worth somewhere in the ballpark of 300-400k, so it's about 10x the median yearly income. What happened? Interest rates happened. When you can borrow money at 3%, you can easily borrow a quarter mil, so that's where house prices sit. You mom or dad can't just give you half a house worth of cash anymore. It's simply isn't possible. We're all debt slaves because of the fed suppressing interest rates.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Please don't refer to it as evolution. Evolution implies that things naturally change without a leader. Cell phone technology evolves, for example. The price of everything is exploding due to central bank fuckery. It has nothing to do with natural economics.

This is quite easy to understand if you have parents or relatives who bought a house some time around 1980. In 1980, interest rates were astronomical. When interest rates are high, the amount of money you can borrow is very limited. For this reason, the price is everything is very low when interest rates are high. The house my mom lives in cost about 60k when she bought it. That was about 2 years of income, give or take. Now that house is worth somewhere in the ballpark of 300-400k, so it's about 10x the median yearly income. What happened? Interest rates happened. When you can borrow money at 3%, you can easily borrow a quarter mil, so that's where house prices sit. You mom or dad can't just give you half a house worth of cash anymore. It's simply isn't possible. We're all debt slaves because of the fed suppressing interest rates.

One needs to consider property taxes and their status-quo in this mix.

Look at it in a more general level. As wages began to stagnate, people began to buy things on credit. Credit institutions "evolved." Before that, they would save whatever they could for major purchases. This extended to more expensive autos and mortgages.

 

[JSt0rm]

that's cool. i am also a millenial and have 4 university degrees, 2 wives, 3 dogs, 3 cars, 2 mortgages and people owe me money.

:biggrin:

 

[Annisman*]

Pfft I like my G.E.D., screw these 2 and 3 degree nonsense !

 

[child of wonder]

that's cool. i am also a millenial and have 4 university degrees, 2 wives, 3 dogs, 3 cars, 2 mortgages and people owe me money.

Noob. I'm a 10 year old with 5 degrees, 6 wives, 12 mistresses, 32 kids, 18 dogs, 4 mortgages, 1 gerbil, and I loan the Federal Government money.

 

[MongGrel]

So, millennials live in a separate world from everyone else ?

I'm not exactly happy with a lot of things in my life these days myself.

It is what it is I guess, go overpopulation.