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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

#241

Post by LUmBULtERA »

api wrote: post #120
rukittenme wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Down payments are the monkey wrench here. The requirement to have a down payment means high prices basically lock people out of homeownership, period. That in turn limits ability to build wealth at all, even at a crappy interest rate.

Owning a home is not the only way to build wealth, nor is it necessarily the best way to build wealth.

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

#242

Post by llsf »

rukittenme wrote: post #91
crooked-v wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you bought a house for $150,000 at 15% in early 80's, you likely refinanced as the interest rate continuously dropped from there. In 90's interest rate was below 10%, and around 7% in early 00's. Nobody would keep the 15% over 30 years.

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

#243

Post by refurb »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #73
john_moscow wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? Does the climate change affect your personal life more than inability to afford reasonable real estate or kid-related expenses off most today's salaries?

Some people are able to look past their own noses and think about other generations and what their descendents' lives might look like. That weighs heavily on some people

Who knows what the future holds? We could solve climate change then all be wiped out by a mutated virus. Worrying about it doesn't help.

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

#244

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

xj9 wrote: post #229
keiferski wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

changing jobs has ~0 risk. i can (and have) spent time job hunting while fulfilling my responsibilities to my employer. then i use the offer as leverage to get a raise and switch jobs if my current employer declines.

What are your odds your current employer will offer you a raise in response to an external offer? I know it's only business -- but doesn't damage working relationship with your manager if you were to get an external offer, then take a pay raise, instead of leaving? It'd make you appear as a flight risk.

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

#245

Post by refurb »

justaguyhere wrote: post #121
ddebernardy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a counter point, why should he/she bring another human in this world, fully knowing that the quality of life is going down? And, there are already 7B+ people in this planet, why add more?

As a counter point, why should he/she bring another human in this world

Because we don't know that at all? Jesus, what a depressing comment.

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

#246

Post by akeck »

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…

I found a pay stub from a temp agency from the early 90s. I was earning $7.50/h to stuff envelopes. $14.07 in 2019 dollars.

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

#247

Post by Domenic_S »

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.

I mean, you're humblebragging about different things (Los Altos, Google), not sure the subject really matters

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

#248

Post by asherwebb »

Is the issue that perhaps folks no longer have any conception of history because we are too bombarded with hyper-media and social media? My grandparents grew up on a farm in the great depression where it was common to have multiple siblings die of pneumonia, drowning or other maladies that are far less frequent. African Americans could not even vote until the 1960's in this country. For people to be so pessimistic today is fairly pathetic in my opinion. Humans have always evolved to adapt, work socially and creatively come up with solutions to huge problems from the last Ice age to the Nazis. People should move out of these horribly overpriced cities and get back to small, sustainable agriculture if they want to be happy. If you want a degree get one from a community college. Yeah we have huge problems to face today as many responders point out - specifically Climate Change, environmental destruction and income inequality. Remember in the 1940's we had to go face to face with the most evil empire the modern world has ever known along with our allies and most importantly Russia. I suggest folks toughen up a bit and know that things won't get any better without a steely resolve and working together.

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

#249

Post by rdiddly »

Domenic_S wrote: post #225
icegreentea2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a millennial, at least one thing that is different is that we all grew up in that brief period when the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable. It seemed like the adults generally knew what they were doing, and could be counted on the to the right thing. I'd also argue (with no real basis of course) that the type of dread that cli…

> the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable Here are some things I remember from that time off the top of my head: We were on the brink of environmental collapse as CFCs were destroying the ozone layer Acid rain was going to destroy lakes, trees, rivers, eventually killing us all HIV was not well understood and very very scary Waco/…

And the world was going to end at the stroke of midnight Jan 1 2000. There was a real and palpable undercurrent of apocalyptism in the zeitgeist.

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

#250

Post by Domenic_S »

rdiddly wrote: post #249
Domenic_S wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the world wasn't ending. We grew up in the 90s and early noughts, when ya, there were problems, but they all seemed containable Here are some things I remember from that time off the top of my head: We were on the brink of environmental collapse as CFCs were destroying the ozone layer Acid rain was going to destroy lakes, trees, rivers, eventually killing us all HIV was not well understood and very very scary Waco/…

And the world was going to end at the stroke of midnight Jan 1 2000. There was a real and palpable undercurrent of apocalyptism in the zeitgeist.

Of course, how could I forget Y2K?
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