Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 449 posts

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#91

Post by rukittenme »

crooked-v wrote: post #43
xyzzyz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single mother working as a waitress at Denny's in the 1980's had more spending power than a college educated cubicle drone in 2019 Do you have any source to support this? Because real median personal[1] income went up almost 50% since then[2]. [1] — don't confuse it with real median household income, which didn't grow nearly as much, because of a significant rise in single-person households which pushes the median…

For some simple examples, inflation-adjusted home prices have gone up by a factor of 6 and inflation-adjusted education prices have gone up by a factor of 3 over the past few generations [1], while inflation-adjusted average wages have only gone up by $2/hour [2]. That single mom would have had a dramatically easier time providing housing and education for kids even with lower purchasing power for most consumer goods…

You're not accounting for the higher interest rates of the 1980s.

Which home would you prefer to buy:

$150,000 at 15% over 30 years. $350,000 at 4% over 30 years.

Hint: they both have approximately the same total loan cost and payment.

You can do this calculation with your parents. My home cost $350k at 3.8%. My parents bought my childhood home for $88k at 8%. Adjust my parents' home price for inflation and run the result through a mortgage payment calculator. You find that I paid slightly more for my home but my home is much nicer (central heat and air, closer to town, larger, better schools, etc).

My parents' home happens to be for sale currently (not by them). If I paid full asking I would pay MORE in raw dollars but LESS in inflation-adjusted-total-loan-cost (which is what actually matters).

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#92

Post by keiferski »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #39

> Less than three in ten Millennials expect to stay at their current job for the next five years. Well yeah. I can stick around my current company for 5 years and get a 2-4% increase each year, or job hop every 2-3 years and get a 20% raise each time. With a market like this, why wouldn't you job hop? Loyalty to a company only inhibits you.

All things considered, I think most people would sacrifice earning power for stability, with a reasonable tradeoff of course.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#93

Post by john_moscow »

syn0byte wrote: post #15

A single mother working as a waitress at Denny's in the 1980's had more spending power than a college educated cubicle drone in 2019; Let's talk about how is social media's fault! Twice in the last 20 years - more than any other time in US history combined - The Presidential election went to the candidate that LOST the popular vote; These generations just lack a proper understanding of civics! The beatings will conti…

I'm not sure that working as a waitress at Denny's would be good example, but most of the jobs in 1980s required much more thinking and decision-making from the employees due to fewer automation and much less centralization. That, in turn, gave more bargaining power that translated into more purchasing power.

A college-educated cubicle drone could be replaced with another one in a matter of days without any negative business impact at all, so why would the business pay them more?

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#94

Post by justaguyhere »

rubicon33 wrote: post #38

My wife and I are not having kids. If you could sum it up into one short explanation as to why: My wife and I don't believe that the future is going to be a better place. Chief among the reasons are wealth inequality and buying power. If I can barely afford to buy a house now with a great job, I shudder to think what my kids would be faced with.

I feel environmental issues are bigger problem than wealth inequality at this point, though both are important and going to have disastrous consequences. I too am not for having kids, we aren't alone in thinking this way. Birth rates are falling in developed nations.

It is hard not to feel angry/pessimistic etc at the state of affairs. In a way, a lot of things have improved - crime rates are down compared to 50 years ago, medicine has made amazing strides, we can travel cheaply across the world, the internet has opened up a ton of opportunities etc. Still, more people are depressed/lonely, salaries are stagnating, there aren't many decent leaders (around the world) that we can look up to... If there is one thing that is guaranteed, it is that humans will mess up any good thing sooner or later :(

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#95

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

oldjokes wrote: post #20
luckydata wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe we're also the first generation in a while that's seeing things considered normal by our parents systematically out of reach? Maybe we're a little pissed off that the implicit promise society made us if we "worked hard and played by the rules" like politicians like to say is being systematically broken? It's pretty clear it's not just the way we fell about things, we're objectively worse off than the previous c…

I hear this complaint a lot, but never really any details. What specifically are you mad about being out of reach and which metrics do you think you're worse off on compared to previous generations? Honest question. Is it just materials and money per person? Something more?

Here's the late boomer side, which seems to be typical for my generation: my parents were average working class but had zero trouble affording a nice-enough-but-not-special home on a single salary earned by my father, with a little extra contributed by my mother. [1]

I went to university on a full grant that covered living expenses and fees - which were much smaller than they are now, so if I'd been in a position to pay my way it would have required a relatively small investment instead of a huge life-changing outlay.

I left university with no debt, in a fairly active job market.

I had a girlfriend who didn't do well enough at school to get into university from school, but paid pocket money for an access course that got her onto a degree - which she also graduated from with no debt.

Some time later my parents died with no debt, a house that had been fully paid off well before their retirement, and some savings.

Millennials today are expected to intern for nothing. Many leave college with absolutely crippling personal debt, and work insanely long hours. Unless they're 10%ers - at least - most have almost zero chance of affording a home with two salaries, never mind one.

In the UK people are literally starving and freezing to death. Some of them are working full time and still can't afford food.

In the US, people are literally starving and freezing to death, and also being bankrupted by health insurance.

That will probably do for metrics. If you need more, let me know.

[1] The property value of the house I grew up in is now trending towards £1,000,000.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#96

Post by ddgflorida »

rubicon33 wrote: post #38

My wife and I are not having kids. If you could sum it up into one short explanation as to why: My wife and I don't believe that the future is going to be a better place. Chief among the reasons are wealth inequality and buying power. If I can barely afford to buy a house now with a great job, I shudder to think what my kids would be faced with.

Have some context - you are better off living in this time/place than any other time and your future children would probably be too.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#97

Post by bfrydl »

ddebernardy wrote: post #69
rubicon33 wrote: post #38

My wife and I are not having kids. If you could sum it up into one short explanation as to why: My wife and I don't believe that the future is going to be a better place. Chief among the reasons are wealth inequality and buying power. If I can barely afford to buy a house now with a great job, I shudder to think what my kids would be faced with.

I don't think the future is going to be a better place either, but I don't buy for an instant that it's a good reason for you to not have kids, or the actual reason you don't have any. Firstly, life is pointless and meaningless without children, or as a fallback without taking care of others. And secondly, why should you, who are aware of this, be the ones ending up not reproducing, essentially mimicking the storylin…

> Firstly, life is pointless and meaningless without children

That seems like a very personal opinion you should be stating with much less certainty about other people's lives.

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#98

Post by challenger22 »

rawrmaan wrote: post #64
Consultant32452 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constantly hitting records for economic highs. Lowest unemployment rate for blacks and Hispanics in the history of recorded unemployment rates. Rising wages. Just took a huge step in eradicating HIV in the US by securing free treatment for 200k poor people every year. Between the technological advances in solar/wind/batter, renewed interest in nuclear, and shrinking CO2 it seems climate change is well on its way to b…

> shrinking CO2 [citation needed] Global CO2 emissions are nowhere near peaking, let alone shrinking.

I imagine GP was referring to US emissions, considering that his other points were US-centric. You are correct globally.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#99

Post by refurb »

klodolph wrote: post #12
2819b wrote: post #8

I think it boils down to "comparison being the thief of joy." Social media of all types are basically one giant comparison machine, and the people that are the most visible on social media are the richest/best looking/most successful etc.

I disagree 100%. It's easy to find a scapegoat but the reasons are complex, and from data we know that Millennials and Gen Z are having greater difficulty achieving basic levels of economic stability that were somewhat easier for previous generations. Students are graduating with increasing amounts of debt and entering a job market that can make it tough to pay rent if you don't have experience. It's also easy to say…

Millennials and Gen Z are having greater difficulty achieving basic levels of economic stability that were somewhat easier for previous generations

Easier than what? Their great grandparents who lived through the Great Depression? Their grandparents who lived through Stagflation of the 1970's? Or their parents who lived through the Great Recession?

Re: Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

#100

Post by [deleted] »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #42
Kye wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Twice in the last 20 years - more than any other time in US history combined - The Presidential election went to the candidate that LOST the popular vote" There aren't a lot of data points--less than 100--for this, so it might not be statistically significant. Both those presidents are awful , but that could be an anomaly once seen in the context of a more significant sample.

Trump hasn't gotten us into any trillion dollar boondoggles in the middle east (knock on wood) so I think the history books in 100yr are going to consider W "bad" and Trump "mediocre". I'd still rather have W in the white house though. Uncouth comments and geopolitical stupidity get forgotten in the long term. Iraq, the GWOT and the accompanying erosion of our freedoms will be what's in the history books. Obama will…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN