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

In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 131 posts

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#71

Post by mrguyorama »

yamtaddle wrote: post #38
timr wrote: post #18

The first example is a junior level social worker -- that's fine, but come now: we all know that social work is not a high-paying industry. The second example is a lady with 76k in debt, who has managed to pay down nearly 70% of it . Somehow this doesn't qualify as savings to the author. The third woman actually makes a lot (they won't say how much) and has "achieved financial stability" (thus undermining the thesis…

The article may suck but every dataset I've seen supports the notion that average-net-worth-at-same-age took a sharp dive with Gen X, was even worse for Millennials, and is yet worse than that for Gen Z. IOW each generation has saved less than the Boomers when they were the same age, and the effect's gotten worse with each new generation. Perhaps unsurprisingly—and, maybe even explaining most of the effect—home owner…

And every attempt to fix this buy making housing affordable for younger people is met by extremely angry accusations of entitlement by the generation with the easiest access to wealth and good salaries in history, and spent their entire time on this earth making things shittier for next generations by making homes a for profit endeavor instead of a thing most people need, ignoring global warming and green energy for the enrichment of very few, removing and kneecapping what few social safety nets this country had, and treating people self medicating with drugs as criminals instead of people desperately trying to avoid burnout.

So yeah, any advice or claim from these people rings stupidly hollow, especially since they regularly seem to have no fucking clue what these young people are experiencing, because in their time, the minimum wage was enough to buy a medium size house, a small car, and have a family.

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#72

Post by jewayne »

notch656c wrote: post #66
rqtwteye wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are all the capitalists going to do if everybody wants to go for the big bucks and not do things like social work, nursing and many other jobs? Society is seriously f...ed up if it's ok to exploit people who do a valuable job for society and only selfishness gets rewarded. Same for entrepreneurs. What are the genius billionaires going to do if nobody wants to work for them and everybody wants to be an entreprene…

If nobody does at the current wage, then wages will have to rise to meet supply/demand. As it stands individuals see the good feels as part of their wages. Otherwise they would do something higher paying. IF nobody does the job because the good feels does nothing for them then they'll have to start paying as much as the cold capitalist job.

Yes, that's how it works. Certainly nobody would just complain loudly that "Nobody wants to work anymore!" and demand more suffering for the people at the bottom of society.

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#73

Post by kelnos »

burkaman wrote: post #68
timr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certain that people who want to read an article with this title are convinced that life has dealt them an unfair hand, and are willing to ignore or dismiss every example to the contrary. ...as this author has almost systematically done. It's not really a "lecture" when I'm just re-stating the facts in the story, is it?

It's true, if you had only restated the facts it would not have been a lecture.

... which is... what they did.

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#75

Post by kelnos »

happytoexplain wrote: post #70
timr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certain that people who want to read an article with this title are convinced that life has dealt them an unfair hand, and are willing to ignore or dismiss every example to the contrary. ...as this author has almost systematically done. It's not really a "lecture" when I'm just re-stating the facts in the story, is it?

>I am certain that people who want to read an article with this title are convinced that life has dealt them an unfair hand, and are willing to ignore or dismiss every example to the contrary. Wow, this is unrealistically antagonistic. I think you need some qualifiers somewhere in that assertion. Anybody who simply "wants to read an article with this title"? Every example to the contrary?

The person you're replying to did not say "anybody". They said "people". In conversational English, the phrasing you quoted is not equivalent to "literally every single person who wants to read this article".

Maybe stop assuming absolutism where most people would never intend it? Interpret posts with the most charitable interpretation possible given what's written? (Y'know, like the HN guidelines require of us in order to keep conversations civil?)

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#76

Post by dr-detroit »

KronisLV wrote: post #49

I am currently in my mid/late 20s and living in Latvia (Eastern Europe). After getting my Bachelor's and Master's degrees from a local university, working for about 5 years with gradually increasing salaries/hours (started while studying), saving and/or investing on average around 50% of what I make, I have about 50'000 Euros saved up. It's better than some of my peers, worse than people in the more wealthy countries…

[dead]

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#77

Post by kelnos »

rcme wrote: post #33
timr wrote: post #18

The first example is a junior level social worker -- that's fine, but come now: we all know that social work is not a high-paying industry. The second example is a lady with 76k in debt, who has managed to pay down nearly 70% of it . Somehow this doesn't qualify as savings to the author. The third woman actually makes a lot (they won't say how much) and has "achieved financial stability" (thus undermining the thesis…

> The first example is a junior level social worker -- that's fine, but come now: we all know that social work is not a high-paying industry. This is an unfair dismissal. Most industries are not high paying, therefore most workers are not earning enough to save. You're basically saying "they're not saving because they're not earning more!" Also, what is your proposed solution here? To stop having social workers? > so…

> Also, what is your proposed solution here? To stop having social workers?

Training for a job that pays below what you need to live comfortably is a choice. You may feel passionate enough about that job that you are willing to accept the consequences of a low salary. If you are not, then you should not train to do that job.

I do sympathize, as it's essentially impossible for a 16- or 17-year-old to fully understand the lifetime ramifications of the profession they're about to choose.

But if people stopped making dangerous financial compromises to take jobs they are passionate about, then those jobs will either have to get funded more such that the salaries go up, or yes, they'll cease to exist.

I think social work is a job that's extremely valuable to society, so I would hope that, in the face of a shortage (due to people not wanting to take the job because of low pay), legislatures and whatnot would vote to fund it more. But that's up to communities to decide.

> Saving $200 a month is basically nothing, especially in NYC.

The woman who saves $200/mo (the article actually says $200-$300/mo, so it's a bit better, even) lives in Bensenville, Illinois.

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#78

Post by mhb »

fnfjfk wrote: post #60
mhb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying off the loan is risk-free. Expected value of an index fund is not obviously better. But you knew that.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average... Sure, if you have exactly zero risk tolerance, pay off a low interest rate loan. But based on history, you will almost certainly lose over the long term of a decade or more.

I don't really disagree, but it's not as obvious as it seems in hindsight. 3.5% (which OP says became 4%) isn't a low interest rate when inflation and other low risk options (e.g., CDs) are Also, your article says:

"Adjusted for inflation, the historical average annual return is only around 8.5%.

There is an additional problem posed by the question of whether that inflation-adjusted average is accurate since the adjustment is made using the inflation figures from the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the index which some analysts believe vastly understates the true inflation rate."

So maybe the stock index average to use is more like 2x the loan interest.

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#79

Post by rcme »

notch656c wrote: post #66
rqtwteye wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are all the capitalists going to do if everybody wants to go for the big bucks and not do things like social work, nursing and many other jobs? Society is seriously f...ed up if it's ok to exploit people who do a valuable job for society and only selfishness gets rewarded. Same for entrepreneurs. What are the genius billionaires going to do if nobody wants to work for them and everybody wants to be an entreprene…

If nobody does at the current wage, then wages will have to rise to meet supply/demand. As it stands individuals see the good feels as part of their wages. Otherwise they would do something higher paying. IF nobody does the job because the good feels does nothing for them then they'll have to start paying as much as the cold capitalist job.

Your argument ignores the fact that people need to work at every point in their adult life unless they're privileged enough to have someone subsidize their existence. There is a large group of people in society who only have low paying work available to them with their current set of skills. Without being able to save, they don't have the means to acquire new skills. So they're quite literally trapped in low paying jobs.

Also, I think you're too hung up on "social work = good feels." Do fast food workers get good feels from their work?

Re: In Their 20s, Struggling to Save and Tired of Being Lectured About It

#80

Post by mrguyorama »

fnfjfk wrote: post #24

The woman who is not thinking about retirement savings but is doing Barry’s, yoga, and ClassPass feels like she has the opportunity to make better financial choices, unlike some of the others that are just clearly in poverty. Those class-based gyms are stupendously expensive, $30 or more per workout. Compares unfavorably with a regular gym membership or buying running shoes or a bike, depending on what you’re into. L…

This is such a stupid take. Guess what, those little expenses DON'T add up. It turns out pretty much no small transactions you avoid to save five bucks here and there can't actually compete with costs of rent going up 80% over the course of five years.

I live so frugally I have an entire years worth of cash in my bank, despite only making $65k (underpaid even for an area that has low SWE pay and a company that openly targets low SWE pay) and spending over $1600 a month in rent and utilities. But I still can't afford a house anywhere within 100 miles. I can't have a hobby that requires any extra space. Rent has gone up by $15000 a year, everywhere.

Why the hell should we get advice from the generation that lived through the easist access to well paying jobs and investments pretty much in history? They literally have no idea what this is like. They lived through a time where you could walk into a place just out of highschool and get a job that you could almost afford a brand new house with. They lived through a time where employers would train you, pay for you to learn new things, and expect to move you up through the ranks so you could be more useful and make more money. They lived through a time where fretting over a hundred dollars difference in a living expense was a common thing. They lived through all this and STILL didn't plan for retirement or save money for emergencies.

So yeah, they have no good advice to offer us, because they genuinely don't even understand how hard it is to spend literally half your income on a roof over your head.

Post reply on HN