"most millennials are economically worse-off than their parents"
This statement bothers me. This may be true but it's because millennials spend a hell of a lot more than their parents did. Eating out, clothes, vacations etc...
Any evidence to back that up? Because it doesn't correlate at all with statistical evidence. Here's a comparison of 1973 and 2016 based on US Bureau of Labor statistics. Here's the percentage of their income that the average consumer unit (basically a family) spent on various categories in each year:
So you have increases in the spending on housing, transportation, healthcare, and education on the one hand, with a reduction in spending on food, clothing, entertainment, and alcohol and tobacco. But yeah, it's just millennials wasting money on non-essentials.
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Education can't be that low. Tuition is through the roof.
Also kids are living with parents longer so its skewed to where in a household parents are paying for the essentials and kids are paying for just their stuff.
I find 3 things we spend money on that our parents didn't. All-inclusives, destination weddings and gym memberships/rec leagues.
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^Great post. I thought it was obvious Millennials we’re doing worse than their parents due to house prices skyrocketing while wages stagnated. Those numbers pretty much prove this with large increases in fixed costs like housing forcing a cut back of discretionary costs. Calling them lazy or bad with money is just the continuing cycle of older generations not liking the ones who come after.
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Education can't be that low. Tuition is through the roof.
Also kids are living with parents longer so its skewed to where in a household parents are paying for the essentials and kids are paying for just their stuff.
I find 3 things we spend money on that our parents didn't. All-inclusives, destination weddings and gym memberships/rec leagues.
My boomer parents have been to several all inclusives. You ever see how many old people go to those places?
Education can't be that low. Tuition is through the roof.
Those are averages for everyone. Big spending on education only makes up a few years of a person's life.
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Also kids are living with parents longer so its skewed to where in a household parents are paying for the essentials and kids are paying for just their stuff.
You think people are living with their parents for fun? Or is it because non-discretionary costs have gone up.
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I find 3 things we spend money on that our parents didn't. All-inclusives, destination weddings and gym memberships/rec leagues.
My parents' generation spent more on cigarettes alone than I've spent on those 3 things combined.
Cheaper air travel has made international travel more accessible, but overall people in the '70s spent just as much on vacations as they do now (about 2.5% of income in both cases). So again the statistics prove that your impressions are an inaccurate picture of society in general.
The Boomers definitely had it easier when it comes to housing. They also had better job security, and they could reliably invest for retirement in their prime earning years.
But Boomers are also right that people in their 20s and 30s today in many ways enjoy a lifestyle that they could only dream about. Yes, Boomers could afford to get into the housing market at 24. That also means they were married at 23, paying a mortgage at 24, and starting a family at 25. And back in those days, before we entered a knowledge economy, wages were tethered tightly to experience. So at the time Boomers and earlier generations were starting families, they were making crap money (one of the reasons why air travel with young children was almost unheard of until recently).
Today, there are whole sectors of the economy reliant on the discretionary spending of childless 20-somethings and 30-somethings. A splurge holiday for a 24 year old used to be a ski trip to Whitefish. Now it's the Mayan Riviera. There are dozens of expensive restaurants and cocktail bars in Calgary patronized by 20-somethings and 30-somethings. Those didn't exist 25 years ago. Spending on the average wedding has tripled in the last 20 years. Destination weddings have become a thing. Dining out is far more common than it used to be.
The irony is that many of these things are affordable only because Boomer parents are supporting their kids rent-free, enabling them to spend most of their income on consumables and experiences. Before Millennials came of age, as soon as someone earned enough money to pay for a 1/2 or 1/3 share of rent in an apartment, they were out the door. Now, you have young adults earning 40-70k a year and not paying rent, bills, or groceries.
So both groups are right. Boomers had the big things in life easier due to the post-war boom. And many Millennials enjoy a lifestyle of consumption that was unthinkable 30 years ago.
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Before Millennials came of age, as soon as someone earned enough money to pay for a 1/2 or 1/3 share of rent in an apartment, they were out the door. Now, you have young adults earning 40-70k a year and not paying rent, bills, or groceries.
So both groups are right. Boomers had the big things in life easier due to the post-war boom. And many Millennials enjoy a lifestyle of consumption that was unthinkable 30 years ago.
That’s not really true though, and it’s skewed because “1/2 or 1/3 share of rent in an apartment” is a significantly higher percentage of income today than it was however many year ago.
The majority of millenials don’t enjoy this lifestyle. I believe the number is 1/3 young adults who live with their parents (not discriminating between those who never left and those who had to move back). That number is further skewed by major metropolitan areas where boomers have driven up the price of housing to unattainable levels.
The big difference here is that when boomers were young, they had access earlier to all the things their parents had and more. Millenials don’t, not even close. The consumerist culture is not exclusive to millenials, boomers partake in it as well, the different being: they get to afford that AND all the major things in life. Millenials are simply forced to play by the rules boomers created to their own benefit with little regard to future generations. So, young generations are left to clean up the mess.
hmmm weren't interest rates 15% at one point. Sure boomers had houses sooner but they were incredibly in debt or putting all their money into paying off their mortgages.
Renting is different now, crazy expensive. I read that millennials pay $100,000 in rent before they turn 30.
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hmmm weren't interest rates 15% at one point. Sure boomers had houses sooner but they were incredibly in debt or putting all their money into paying off their mortgages.
Renting is different now, crazy expensive. I read that millennials pay $100,000 in rent before they turn 30.
Except in the old market, 40 year mortgages were common and an available option, despite the higher interest rates.
didn't the United States themselves, martyrs of capitalism, prove that the system in its raw form doesn't work the day they started bailing out companies too big to fail, like GM?
Isn't it painfully obvious to people by now that the best systems are ones that rely on balance (aka capitalism & socialism) between spectrums?
This can be said for almost everything in life too. Balance is key.
Did anyone "catch" it? No, I kind of doubt many people here even get Fox News, much less waste time watching Steve Doocy's hour of idiocy. Although maybe now that the President randomly calls to spew nonsense it's worth having in the background just in case?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Did anyone "catch" it? No, I kind of doubt many people here even get Fox News, much less waste time watching Steve Doocy's hour of idiocy. Although maybe now that the President randomly calls to spew nonsense it's worth having in the background just in case?
Should actually expand on that, too. Peterson was Peterson but dear God that channel is just ridiculous.
I've had a few, but been watching a few more Peterson videos and I think he fundamentally doesn't understand the differences between free speech, compelled speech, and "chilled" speech, especially in constitutional terms.
he fundamentally doesn't understand the differences between free speech, compelled speech, and "chilled" speech, especially in constitutional terms.
Enlighten us!
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno