Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
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Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#72Now throw in the fact that we: 1) have much higher housing costs, due to housing policies created by boomers 2) have much higher out of pocket education costs, due to education policies created by boomers 3) have much higher out of pocket health care costs, due to health care policies created by boomers 4) have much higher payroll taxes due to social security raiding and general mismanagement by boomers 5) have much…
And despite all that, the boomers go vote and their children do not.
Parents want nothing more than a bright and stable future for their posterity. They vote in accordance with policy that they believe will achieve those ends.
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#73Note that even in countries where the absolute amount of money is better, the stuff on this article still applies. I am from Brazil, and many boomers told me when I was young how awesome I was to be young, because I was living in a golden age where I didn't had to walk uphill both ways to school, could have computer, and whatnot. But it is me that envy them now, I am 29, have zero income, lots of debt, and own no ass…
How much of this do you think is due to neoliberalism?
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the comments show my point. These are the values that were taught by the boomers. Ask a boomer, were they ready for a family when they got one? No, but it was the thing to do, so they did it, made it work, and life was hard. Go back and look at the old childhood photos and you'll see what I mean. These people clearly weren't ready for kids in our modern sense of being ready. This is a quite complex subject, but t…
Do you think a focus on instant gratification is anything new ? I mean you clearly do, but it seems such a weird point to make.
The focus on it isn't new, but the ability to realize it in a way never before is.
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#75I cannot say I'm very impressed with the article. I could pick out a number of millenials who are doing better than their parents at the same age. But I wouldn't use that to argue that everything is okay. One thing that has stuck out at me has been the ways in which people have money drained from them. I think there is a huge student loan problem where young people were "sold" a crappy education. But setting that asi…
Herein lies the rub: carrying debt to maximize life now can potentially destroy your future, but the alternative is minimizing life now to improve your potential (and non-guaranteed) future later. It would be a real shame to avoid living the life you want now in hopes of an awesome future, only for the future to hand you a really shitty hand (I.e. Medical bills vaporizing all of your wealth)
I think finding balance is key.
Side note: I'm 29 and have credit card and student loan debt. I'm not proud of it and paying it back is inconvenient, but I'm able to afford the burden at the moment and am enjoying a higher quality of life because of it. I also contribute to my 401k and chose funds with low management overhead, so my future self isn't being completely left out to dry. I literally wouldn't have been on the career track I'm on now had I not taken student loans.
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are slamming an entire generation by claiming that the problem is spending irresponsibly on frivolous things. I don't blame you - it must feel great to feel that the problems of the world are rooted in others being less virtuous than you. The trouble is, my generation faces lower real wages and higher housing costs, and those effects are so large that Starbucks habits are basically noise in comparison. That narra…
Fair enough, my goal was to respectfully look at the number of additional expense items that are available today which were not part of the "Baby Boomer" menu. Since I'm an engineer and have been since the 80's and a hiring manager for much of the last 15 years I can tell you that the starting wage for an electrical engineer or a computer programmer with a four year degree is around $85,000 (that was IBM's "standard…
Googling "Young Invincibles" (mentioned in the article) quickly leads us to:
http://younginvincibles.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/FHYA-...
(admittedly, by way of
http://younginvincibles.org/financial-security-report/
http://younginvincibles.org/financial-health/
)
They don't particularly show their work there, but it is believable that they are generating the various analyses from the Survey of Consumer Finances done by the Fed (aka decent statistics).
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are slamming an entire generation by claiming that the problem is spending irresponsibly on frivolous things. I don't blame you - it must feel great to feel that the problems of the world are rooted in others being less virtuous than you. The trouble is, my generation faces lower real wages and higher housing costs, and those effects are so large that Starbucks habits are basically noise in comparison. That narra…
Fair enough, my goal was to respectfully look at the number of additional expense items that are available today which were not part of the "Baby Boomer" menu. Since I'm an engineer and have been since the 80's and a hiring manager for much of the last 15 years I can tell you that the starting wage for an electrical engineer or a computer programmer with a four year degree is around $85,000 (that was IBM's "standard…
Sure Internet is $30, but it replaces a whole bundle of other services. Back in 1984 the cost to develop a couple rolls of film and make some long-distance phone calls would easily equal today's internet bill.
The cost of education and health care is what is crushing today's generation, not backup cameras, Starbucks, and iPhones.
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#78Now throw in the fact that we: 1) have much higher housing costs, due to housing policies created by boomers 2) have much higher out of pocket education costs, due to education policies created by boomers 3) have much higher out of pocket health care costs, due to health care policies created by boomers 4) have much higher payroll taxes due to social security raiding and general mismanagement by boomers 5) have much…
Social Security tax rates haven't increased a lot since 1984. The maximum income they apply to has increased since then though: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/policybriefs/pb2011-02.html (using the inflation adjusted numbers, 20-25%) I'm not real sure what you mean by social security raiding . Of course the government has borrowed and spent much of the Social Security trust fund, but this has little bearing on the f…
If I take out a loan from a bank, I am the one who benefits from the loan, and I am the one that pays it back. But if you borrow from social security, the benficiary and the payee are not the same person, or even the same generation of people. One generation benefits, the next is on the hook to pay.
And that is exactly what happened. Boomers borrowed from social security because they weren't willing to raise taxes on themselves. They promised to pay it back using Millenials' taxes. They got the benefits, we got the debt.
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social Security tax rates haven't increased a lot since 1984. The maximum income they apply to has increased since then though: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/policybriefs/pb2011-02.html (using the inflation adjusted numbers, 20-25%) I'm not real sure what you mean by social security raiding . Of course the government has borrowed and spent much of the Social Security trust fund, but this has little bearing on the f…
If I take out a loan from a bank, I am the one who benefits from the loan, and I am the one that pays it back. But if you borrow from social security, the benficiary and the payee are not the same person, or even the same generation of people. One generation benefits, the next is on the hook to pay. And that is exactly what happened. Boomers borrowed from social security because they weren't willing to raise taxes on…
Oh sure, the debt is not good for the future but in that sense it doesn't matter a great deal who they borrowed from.
Re: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair enough, my goal was to respectfully look at the number of additional expense items that are available today which were not part of the "Baby Boomer" menu. Since I'm an engineer and have been since the 80's and a hiring manager for much of the last 15 years I can tell you that the starting wage for an electrical engineer or a computer programmer with a four year degree is around $85,000 (that was IBM's "standard…
Googling "Young Invincibles" (mentioned in the article) quickly leads us to: http://younginvincibles.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/FHYA-... (admittedly, by way of http://younginvincibles.org/ http://younginvincibles.org/financial-security-report/ http://younginvincibles.org/financial-health/ ) They don't particularly show their work there, but it is believable that they are generating the various analyses from the S…
Thank you for the report link.