41–50 of 394 posts
Compound that with the percentage of income 30 year olds spend on housing, education, health care and child care compared to their parents and we have a recipe for disaster.
Most consumers are tapped out, bad news for a consumer driven economy. There can only be so much more debt accrued.
Compound that with the percentage of income 30 year olds spend on housing, education, health care and child care compared to their parents and we have a recipe for disaster.
Price per square foot for housing has remained remarkably constant over time. People are spending more on houses than they used to because they are buying bigger houses.
It comes down to NIMBY local regulation enacted by the boomers with their FU I got mine attitude. Municipalities enforce size restrictions, ie you can't build too small, in order to ensure there isn't housing poor folk can afford. They enact parcel size restrictions which means a piece of land that could have 20 homes on it can only fit 5. They enact stricter and stricter building codes that the only way to make a profit for a builder is to build big and cram in features so the real estate agents can beat you over the head with them so you feel as though you'd be an idiot not to buy this massive house with things you don't need.
About half earn more, about half earn less. Wouldn't that imply that the average earnings are about the same? If so, I don't know that I'd complain because that indicates stability.
What makes me upset is that the economic realities do not match what is taught in large swaths of America. We are taught (at least in my community, and I am 30 now still living within 20 miles of where I grew up) that a very achievable ideal is a middle class existence with one parent working, and a small house in the suburbs. I am in the top 1% income earners for my generation and do not even come close to this. I t…
I guess it depends where? There is a large swath of the mid-West where this is true. Near a big city? Probably not.
People who will have children ("eventual parents" for the purpose of this comment) are healthier, smarter and wealthier than people who will never have children. If the question is whether things have gotten harder for the average person, it is misleading to compare a group consisting only of eventual parents with a group composed of both eventual parents and non-parents. A better comparison would be 30-years-olds of…
Compound that with the percentage of income 30 year olds spend on housing, education, health care and child care compared to their parents and we have a recipe for disaster.
This is only going to get worse with software eating the world and automation of every possible task that we can. It has already started with companies like Amazon (in their warehouses) using robots extensively.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Got data on this? In my anecdotal experience price per square foot has shot up in urban places, which is where the jobs for young people tend to be concentrated.
"the inflation-adjusted price of new homes has been relatively stable since 1973 in a range between about $105 and $125 per square foot" However this is only new homes, not used homes. http://www.aei.org/publication/todays-new-homes-are-1000-squ...
Compound that with the percentage of income 30 year olds spend on housing, education, health care and child care compared to their parents and we have a recipe for disaster.
Price per square foot for housing has remained remarkably constant over time. People are spending more on houses than they used to because they are buying bigger houses.
That is not accounted for by sq footage. Interest rates are a much more likely culprit.
This chart from the article is rather painful: https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-RD331_CHETTY_1... (I think that'll work without the workaround)
That chart is the core of the article and answers several questions from the comments here: yes it's inflation-adjusted, the ratio has gone down over time (90% of people born in the 1940's earned more than their parents at 30, and it's gone down to 50% now).
