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The Fleecing of Millennials

nytimes.com

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Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#71

Post by seanalltogether »

bengillies wrote: post #38
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #15

The fleecing affects millennials in that they cannot save and invest their income. Once they've paid their health care and education [1] payments, they have nothing left to save. Per capita, in 2017 dollars, 1970 Americans spent $1,797 on health care. In 2017, $10,739 [0]. In return on that $9,000 annual investment: Life expectancy rose from 74.7 to 78.6, adding 3.9 years. In 1993, the annual cost for tuition & fees…

I think it's worth pointing out here that the terms Gen Y and Millenial both refer to the same generation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials )

This was really odd for me to learn only a couple weeks ago. I had always assumed I was a Gen Yer and that Millenials were just getting out of college now.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#72

Post by cpursley »

nopinsight wrote: post #45

A major contributor to millennials' expenses is housing. NIMBYism will continue to be a contraint to having sufficiently more living units in existing major cities for the foreseeable future. We should push for building new cities or upgrading existing small ones. We can create them to fit with lifestyles of the young: walkable, bike- and pedestrian-friendly, well-served by public transportation, etc. Having good job…

This so much. I don't think most Americans realize how much poorly designed build-environment/cities costs them. Both in terms of maintaining the infrastructure of the vast suburbs and the cost of personal vehicle ownership.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#73

Post by raisedbyninjas »

diogenescynic wrote: post #27
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #15

The fleecing affects millennials in that they cannot save and invest their income. Once they've paid their health care and education [1] payments, they have nothing left to save. Per capita, in 2017 dollars, 1970 Americans spent $1,797 on health care. In 2017, $10,739 [0]. In return on that $9,000 annual investment: Life expectancy rose from 74.7 to 78.6, adding 3.9 years. In 1993, the annual cost for tuition & fees…

Housing and childcare are also outpacing inflation and wages. It’s crazy how much more things cost as a percentage of income than in the ‘90s. We’re going to have an inevitable retirement crisis when most millennials are forced to work until they die since they won’t have anything left to put into savings. 70% of Americans can’t even put together $400 in an emergency. I see things getting even worse unless something…

The likelihood of a crisis isn't just propagating out current trends. Once enough boomers die off, how will policy change? In 5-15 years, universal single-payer healthcare and tuition debt forgiveness are conceivable.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#74

Post by drewmate »

jimbokun wrote: post #61
hopler wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate the shitstorms. Look at the candidates who flipped districts in the 2018 elections. Also, Social Security benefits young families who aren't earning money. The student loan mess is terrible, but it's not a case of missing government funds but too many -- community colleges are in pretty good shape, but people borrow too much for useless private colleges thanks to modern marketing techniques and mo…

> Quality of life is pretty darn good compared to ancestors. If you go back far enough, sure. For most Americans economic conditions have been downhill since the 1970s, though.

This is interesting to consider. While we have Netflix and iPhones, it's not clear to me that these actually improve QoL over the middle class life my parents enjoyed in the 70's/80's (spacious home, 2 cars in the garage, time for leisure, etc...)

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#75

Post by war1025 »

diogenescynic wrote: post #62
war1025 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that is the structure of the economy, like you say. A significant proportion of it, as a millennial myself, is people having a terrible understanding of personal finance. If you spend all your money on things to impress people or because "you deserve them", then you end up with an empty pot.

There have always been people with bad personal finance. The difference is that the necessities that you cannot avoid all cost orders of magnitude more—-healthcare, housing, college, childcare. This means people how a smaller margin for mistakes and even one hospital trip can put them in debt for years/decades or bankruptcy.

The rules have changed and people are still trying to live like their parents did.

Healthcare is expensive. If you are on Obamacare, it is subsidized.

Housing is expensive if you want to live in a "good" neighborhood. There are a lot of "okay" neighborhoods that people can afford just fine.

College is expensive, but it really depends on which university you go to. As much as anything, the college issue is intentional misdirection by the people who are steering parents and kids into those choices. There are very economical options, but the price tags and ramifications of those choices are usually not spelled out very well to the people making those decisions.

Edit: Childcare is absolutely expensive, to the point that I really expect having a parent stay at home to swing back around to being more normal. We have three kids and if my wife worked, it would cost more to have them in daycare than she would make while they were there.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#76

Post by doytch »

Bahamut wrote: post #33
pm90 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unless the GOP gets its way and privatizes both.

Then we'll just be paying it out of pocket.

Eh. If that happened, then at least I'd only be paying for myself out of pocket and not also the older generation that saw fit to have their cake, eat it, and leave the bill for the next generation.

(Not that I actually believe there should be a privatised healthcare system.)

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#77

Post by canuseeme »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #66
canuseeme wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nursing et al are very 1:1 jobs with or without the help of technology How's that? I'm not familiar with the industry at all, but every place I've seen has far fewer nurses than patients. Is there a source on this information? Or some inside information I am unaware of? Or are you just exaggerating by using the term 'very'?

By 1:1 I meant that nurses spend time hands on with patients one at a time.

I see. And so you're saying productivity of the profession is fixed or somewhat limited. Got it, thanks.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#78

Post by 40acres »

I filed my taxes with Turbo Tax the other day and they compared my salary to other people my age (27) in my state (Oregon), I didn't double check the numbers but Turbo Tax reported that I made about 5 times the average 27 year old in Oregon.

What I've noticed is that there is a huge inequality gap among millennials as well, a lot of millennials have crushing debt and poor job prospects yes -- but others get a job at FAANG at 21. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out as millennials age.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#79

Post by [deleted] »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #20

Boomer's may have accumulated a large amount of wealth, but that wealth is going to be hit hard by Baumol's cost disease. Right now the US has ~4 workers per retiree. That's going to be dropping to about 2 in the next few decades. And despite frantic efforts from the Japanese, the services that the elderly need are hard to automate. These services generally suffer from Baumol's cost disease: nursing et al are very 1:…

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