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

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

#191

Post by xyzzyz »

ranie93 wrote: post #70
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…

I'm not the OP, and they may be overstating statistics (happy to be shown otherwise). At the same time, wage stagnation is no myth: "From 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9 percent while productivity increased 74 percent. This breakdown of pay growth has been especially evident in the last decade, affecting both college- and non-college-educated workers as we…

The productivity and wage decoupling is very hot debate topic in the economic circles. It's not very easy to sum it up, as there are many factors going in. For example, productivity is calculated based on real GDP, which uses GDP deflator, while deflator for real wages that is typically used is CPI. Just the fact that you're using two different deflators already makes a meaningful comparison harder.

Looking at minimum wage is not really relevant, as only around 2% of workers earn minimum wage.

The degree cost explosion is very unfortunate, not only because it is more expensive now, but also because much fewer people had (or even attempted to obtain) degrees, so not only it was much cheaper for them, but also they simply didn't need to get them as much as people need them now. The push for universal tertiary education has been very detrimental to our society, as people need to spend more, and the only result is degree inflation.

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

#192

Post by benatkin »

algaeontoast wrote: post #148
bfrydl wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah, I get enough of this as is - outside of HN. It still blows me away how having a kid is used both as a "meaning of life" play and a "look at how much money I have" play (akin to humble bragging about a $70k BMW in the driveway). During my time living in Los Altos with three other Google engineers (in the same house) this was common place in our neighborhood.

Homer Simpson has the best reason to enjoy having kids: "Kids are the best; you can teach them to hate the things you hate."

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

tathougies wrote: post #55

Millenial here, and I just don't understand why my generation is so pessimistic. Things are simply better than when we were children. Perhaps it's having immigrants for parents, but my life just seems great compared to my parents and my aunts and uncles.

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by oldjokes »

ranie93 wrote: post #70
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…

I'm not the OP, and they may be overstating statistics (happy to be shown otherwise). At the same time, wage stagnation is no myth: "From 1973 to 2013, hourly compensation of a typical (production/nonsupervisory) worker rose just 9 percent while productivity increased 74 percent. This breakdown of pay growth has been especially evident in the last decade, affecting both college- and non-college-educated workers as we…

The really weird thing about wage stagnation is that there are millions of jobs going unfilled, companies are so desperate for people that they can't find anyone and are just dumping cash into stock buybacks instead of raising wages.

Something is fundamentally broken in the labor market, it is not responding to supply & demand forces as it has in the past. I am not sure what terminology to use to describe what's going on now, but it's not a free labor market any more, it has been destroyed or transformed into some other construct.

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

MrRadar wrote: post #164
jakeogh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In elementary (late 80's) were constantly propagandized that the whales were going to be extinct, the ozone layer was going to be gone, and killer bees were going to get us all. Not a peep of optimism that we could solve problems. It was presented as inevitable. There are strong forces that need people to be in a constant state of worry. Power is derived from it.

> There are strong forces that need people to be in a constant state of worry. Power is derived from it. Who is "deriving power" from sounding the climate change alarm? The people with the most power (the wealthy) seem to be trying to silence/defund/ dis empower the entire scientific community over it.

[deleted]

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

#197

Post by NTDF9 »

tathougies wrote: post #55

Millenial here, and I just don't understand why my generation is so pessimistic. Things are simply better than when we were children. Perhaps it's having immigrants for parents, but my life just seems great compared to my parents and my aunts and uncles.

> Millenial here, and I just don't understand why my generation is so pessimistic. Things are simply better than when we were children. Perhaps it's having immigrants for parents, but my life just seems great compared to my parents and my aunts and uncles.

Other countries (outside of NA and western EU) were in shambles until the soviet fell. There was a constant threat of proxy wars in third world countries, eastern EU etc.

Until 80s-90s, US was the champion of intellectualism, innovation, trade, commerce etc. The wealth of that is what "good ol' day" is about.

From 90s-2020, US became a society for the rich, ie. More debt, recessions, wars, higher inflation (that is not counted as inflation) etc.

So yes, if you are from one of the countries in shambles in the 90s, your life is immeasurably better. But for anyone who just believed blindly in American exceptionalism and enslaved everything with debt, are seeing their kids suffering today

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

#198

Post by algaeontoast »

benatkin wrote: post #192
algaeontoast wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get enough of this as is - outside of HN. It still blows me away how having a kid is used both as a "meaning of life" play and a "look at how much money I have" play (akin to humble bragging about a $70k BMW in the driveway). During my time living in Los Altos with three other Google engineers (in the same house) this was common place in our neighborhood.

Homer Simpson has the best reason to enjoy having kids: "Kids are the best; you can teach them to hate the things you hate."

After multiple friends of mine had kids, they all seem to agree that kids can also teach you to hate everything you once enjoyed.

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

#199

Post by spamizbad »

shemnon42 wrote: post #170
will_brown wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standard 30 year mortgage requires 20% down...what’s the percent of households that can put down $70k to purchase a home?

Not many first time home buyers do a standard mortgage now. Typically 3-5% is all that is needed. That and the lowest home mortgages rates anyone alive has seen have contributed to the home price increase. It's not the total value of the house but the amount of the monthly payment that is the driver, and 3% (today) vs 13% (early 80s) mortgage rates provide a huge swing.

OK, but now you hold less equity in your home and you're paying PMI on top of that until you reach ~22% equity. There's no free lunch here.

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

#200

Post by rubicon33 »

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…

> IMHO you've other reasons to work out, and the reasons you put forward are only an excuse.

Well, I've only put one reason forward. Of course there are more reasons but they all center on one core philosophy:

Having kids should never be about me. I shouldn't have children because I want to better my life for myself. Having kids should be viewed from the perspective of the child. Will they live a life so fruitful and free from suffering, that they themselves would choose to be born again if given the option?

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