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

Gen Z does not dream of labor

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 510 posts

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#171

Post by paulpauper »

burlesona wrote: post #14

> “My dad got a job straight out of high school, saved up, and bought a house in his 20s,” said Anne Dakota, a 21-year-old receptionist from Asheville, North Carolina, who earns minimum wage. “I don’t even think that’s possible for me, at least with the current money I make.” I think this is pretty much the whole story. It’s very hard to be motivated to work when you could save your entire adult life and still strugg…

I think today, there is much more variance compared to 50-70 years ago. Those who have high intelligence and 'drive' have much more opportunity for advancement and to become wealthy ,compared to smart people of 70 years ago. But, opportunities for people who are not so smart may be more limited. Nowadays, you got plenty of smart people making money with high-paying white collar professional jobs, right out of college, whereas 50-70 years ago, such jobs didn't really exist and pay was lower relative to inflation and even after accounting for student loan debt. There was no equivalent of $400k tech job in the 70s. There were plenty of manufacturing jobs, but the pay even then was not that lucrative. Same for being a doctor, a lawyer, or a consultant. Those jobs payed more, relatively speaking, but not like we see today.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#172

Post by wonnage »

woojoo666 wrote: post #140
skulk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.

I found a website that says average cost of living in New York (for 1 person) is $3200/month. That's around 40,000 per year. If the electrician is making 80k, that would mean they could save 25k/year after taxes and living expenses. 8 years of work and they would have 200k, enough for a down payment right? And this is assuming they live in new york, one of the most expensive places in the world [1]: https://livingcos…

Sure, if you save every cent and commit to being single without children for 8 years. But if you go to the dentist, drop your phone on accident, find an S/O, go to the gym, eat out every once in a while, buy some new clothes, pay off student loans, ...

It's just very silly to find a website, grab a number, and then conclude that saving 200k in 8 years is realistic

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#173

Post by HWR_14 »

ghusto wrote: post #105
xmprt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly true however there's a lot of data that shows worrying trends. For example, millennials don't have anywhere near as much share of wealth as Gen X had at the same age. Wealth is being pretty heavily concentrated at the top of the age brackets.

Isn't wealth _always_ more concentrated in higher age brackets? It's only logical that the longer you've been around (and more dues you've paid) the more you opportunity you've had to accumulate whatever you're after. > millennials don't have anywhere near as much share of wealth as Gen X had I hate to go there, but isn't this because of their unrealistic views on work? I've heard of millennials not turning up for wo…

> Isn't wealth _always_ more concentrated in higher age brackets?

Yes. That's why the quoted factoid talks about "at this stage in their life". If you look back at boomers and genx, they had 4 and 2 times as much wealth as millennials do when they were the same age.

> I've heard of millennials not turning up for work because they "didn't feel like working" that day.

Why would that matter? Even if that happens sometimes it's not like it changes things on a generational level if the lowest earners get fired slightly more often.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#174

Post by slg »

woojoo666 wrote: post #140
skulk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.

I found a website that says average cost of living in New York (for 1 person) is $3200/month. That's around 40,000 per year. If the electrician is making 80k, that would mean they could save 25k/year after taxes and living expenses. 8 years of work and they would have 200k, enough for a down payment right? And this is assuming they live in new york, one of the most expensive places in the world [1]: https://livingcos…

These numbers don't add up. Someone making $80k in NY will be paying at least 15-20% in taxes. This hypothetical person would have a max of like $400 a month for all their non-housing living expenses. That isn't happening in a high COL state like NY.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#175

Post by heavyset_go »

karaterobot wrote: post #149
skulk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.

I don't agree. I made under $80k in household income when I bought my first home in 2014. This was in (well, just outside) Seattle, which was and remains one of the more expensive markets in the country. I saved up for a down payment; it took years. It wasn't my dream home, but it allowed me to build equity and continue saving for the one that was. I am not ready to say "kids these days want everything handed to them…

It isn't 2014 anymore and rents have doubled around here since then, cost of living has gone way up, while wages have stayed relatively stagnant.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#176

Post by bombcar »

stolenmerch wrote: post #147
skulk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.

I honestly don't understand. When I bought a home I was literally making the US median income and bought an average priced house. My rent at the time was about a thousand a month. I had normal student loans and regular bills too. It wasn't easy but it didn't feel like a miracle either. Not saying someone making minimum can do this by any means, but there's a huge demand for labor in decent paying areas right now. I g…

People post what they feel like, not what they’ve actually tried.

Even if you ignore first time homeowner benefits and such, the usual thing necessary is not living in the middle of California.

Often if you actually dig into it you find abject refusals to consider locations outside of a particular one, or the famous “spend less on candles. no” type of thing.

https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/384408932061417472

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#177

Post by blahblarblar »

madaxe_again wrote: post #108
rtlfe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I quite like being a programmer. This job is truly an anomaly. There are very few careers where you can earn top 1% income with no degree, no physical exertion, under 8 hours a day "on the clock", the freedom to quit any time and have multiple new offers within days, etc, etc.

That’s the thing. I know this sounds glib, but the barrier to entry is so low ($20 5th hand laptop will do just fine to do first-steps development), I can’t understand why the market isn’t flooded with coders. So many people say “oh I could never do what you do”, and I’m like “I’m a shaved ape who wanted to play computer games and accidentally ended up learning stuff, you absolutely can”. Then they just go on saying…

Try volunteering to teach some college courses on an entry level technical subject. It'll help develop some empathy for why not everyone can code. For me it was physics. I was optimistic. I thought I could teach anyone physics. After investing many hours in some of the lower ranking students I realized my mistake. Not everyone has the kind of process oriented thought processes needed to think about math or coding. Nobody knows how to teach it. All technical subjects assume you can think in this manner because they don’t know how to teach it.

Anyone talented at something thinks everyone is like them. Some singers think this too, they’ll say all you have to do is X, Y and Z and you’ll be a great singer like me, easy!

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#178

Post by noasaservice »

kitten_mittens_ wrote: post #46
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average house sold in 1946 cost $5.25K. The median salary at the time was $3K. The average house sold today costs $374K. The median salary is $51K. You can argue that those houses that were sold back then were smaller, but they were also made of vastly better materials than modern home construction, and it's not like people even have the opportunity of buying those smaller homes unless they want to live in a slum…

I agree with the sentiment, but what was the median house price v. the average?

A median is one such average. By wanting to know the mean or the range shows that you're trying to cherrypick the result you want.

> The average house sold in 1946 cost 1.75X. The median salary was X.

> The average house sold in 2022 cost 7.33Y. The median salary is Y.

Its clear from all the communications, unionizations, Great Resignation, and more that wages are completely broken.

And that above shows what it looks like.

We're one of the lucky ones. We're finalizing our recent house purchase. First time homebuyer. $375k , which was at the top of our budget. I make $150k, which is still a 2.5 factor differential... Which is .75 ABOVE what it would have been in the post-war boom 1946.

Im in my 40's, and its taken me 20+ years to actually get enough of a footing to even look at a proper house. I feel immensely sad for all younger. Can't afford a $600/mo mortgage so they're stuck with $1000 rents.

Loans are for people to borrow money when they don't need money.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#179

Post by closeparen »

deathanatos wrote: post #58
closeparen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asheville is an increasingly trendy and prestigious resort town for very rich people from all over. It is not a place I would expect anyone to buy their first home.

> ______ is an increasingly trendy and prestigious ____ town for very rich people […] It is not a place I would expect anyone to buy their first home. I've heard this about pretty much every place, at this point. ("Move somewhere cheaper!" … and get "geographic multiplier"'d into a lower salary, and you're right back where you started.)

Urban and productive places should just build a ton more housing. It is frankly insane that people feel entitled to pastoral scenes 20 minutes from SF. But I’m not sure that applies to these mountain getaway towns that only exist in the first place because they are not the city.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#180

Post by sologoub »

azinman2 wrote: post #159
spaniard89277 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COL and everything, 135K is like the 1% in Spain. On topic: I have the same feeling. I'm trying to get a dev job, that would be a huge jump of income for me. But I'm 34, how much should I grind just to get "entry-level" stuff? I was pretty unmativated in my job, just coasting by and pretty much doing the bare minimum that allowed me to be in peace with myself. Remote work increased my productivity and my hapiness ove…

135k is closer to 1% in the US than you’d think.

Not in the Bay Area, this is article from 2020 and even then $384k got you only in the top 10%. $105k was basically median.

Source: https://amp.thecalifornian.com/amp/4625295002

The national percentile doesn’t really matter when your income is not portable, and you can’t just move and take it with you.

As another post said, it’s doable on $135k but it’s not easy in the SF Bay Area.

Post reply on HN