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Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

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21–30 of 141 posts

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..

Buying a house in their 20s... are you serious? If true and not just an urban myth, that must have been a US specific thing, maybe caused by the exceptional situation of the US coming out as the biggest winner of WW2. Anywhere else in the world you could be lucky to even move out of your parent's rented flat in your 20s ;) PS: also, what's the obsession of young people with home ownership

Possibly. I bought my first house in my 20s in the US, this would have been in 1980s. I remember the 12.5% interest on the mortgage.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#22

> It’s Hard to See My Parents Live So Lavishly While We’re Struggling While I won't deny there are some problems currently, I think people comparing where they start to where others end is a huge mistake and leads to a lot of unnecessary anguish. Someone in their 60s is supposed to be doing better than someone in their 20s. They had 40+ years to work and save. If they did it right, that will put them in a better posi…

Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..

You might want to qualify this with start to buy a house and get a mortgage and then pay off when older than 20s-30s.

I think some people in the comments are thinking you are saying they could outright buy a house straight out of school! (Which in a way might be a symptom explained in the article!

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..

Buying a house in their 20s... are you serious? If true and not just an urban myth, that must have been a US specific thing, maybe caused by the exceptional situation of the US coming out as the biggest winner of WW2. Anywhere else in the world you could be lucky to even move out of your parent's rented flat in your 20s ;) PS: also, what's the obsession of young people with home ownership

It was a US-specific thing created by massive post-war infrastructure investment (read: suburban sprawl) and cheap automobiles.

This entire problem more or less resolves to the cost of land. It became effectively super-cheap post-WW2 for the aforementioned reasons. Now we've run out that runway and will face rolling bankruptcies across all sorts of municipalities due to infra maintenance costs.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#24
post #11

> Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch. College educated women marry at the same rate they used to. They marry similarly earning men without collage degrees, who exist. Marriage rates collapsed among non e…

In divorces involving college educated women, they initiate 90% of them. It’s bad news all round.

Thank the gods that women aren't trapped in failing marriages anymore. At least some things are getting better.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#25

Every time I think I have money I get massive insurance bills, massive property tax bills that increase seemingly every year, a fence I had to install so my kids don't get mangled by the pitbull 2 doors down that was $12k that was $4k 10 years ago. I know because my parents installed the same fence at their house. I'm paying a not insignificant portion of my income into a social security program that I'll never see a…

"Robbery" is a very immature and totally counterproductive way to think about rising costs.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#26

Every time I think I have money I get massive insurance bills, massive property tax bills that increase seemingly every year, a fence I had to install so my kids don't get mangled by the pitbull 2 doors down that was $12k that was $4k 10 years ago. I know because my parents installed the same fence at their house. I'm paying a not insignificant portion of my income into a social security program that I'll never see a…

I feel you. My property tax has gone up more in the past decade than it did during the previous 3 decades.

Cost and necessity of permits for renovations plus re-asessment of property after renovation for tax increase means every path forward is much more expensive than it would have been in decades past.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#27
"Marriage follows the same pattern. Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch."

I read a lot on this particular topic and this is a little too narrow of a reading. There is a more dominant trend - women and men are drifting apart culturally faster than they are economically. Men who keep pace culturally can get away with falling behind economically, and, to a lesser degree, vice versa. But you can't fall behind on both and expect to find a lot of women interested in dating or marrying you.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a house in their 20s... are you serious? If true and not just an urban myth, that must have been a US specific thing, maybe caused by the exceptional situation of the US coming out as the biggest winner of WW2. Anywhere else in the world you could be lucky to even move out of your parent's rented flat in your 20s ;) PS: also, what's the obsession of young people with home ownership

I guess you’re not British either then?

German, of course ;)

The German equivalent is that everybody is complaining about rising rents in city centers because everybody wants to live in city centers. Home ownership in Germany basically means that you'll have to pay it off for the rest of your life anyway (and that's not a new phenomenon) so in the end there isn't all that much difference to renting finance-wise, except that renting is usually much less hassle.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..

Buying a house in their 20s... are you serious? If true and not just an urban myth, that must have been a US specific thing, maybe caused by the exceptional situation of the US coming out as the biggest winner of WW2. Anywhere else in the world you could be lucky to even move out of your parent's rented flat in your 20s ;) PS: also, what's the obsession of young people with home ownership

Not just US - UK, Canada, Australia, etc.

Re: Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

#30
post #11

> Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch. College educated women marry at the same rate they used to. They marry similarly earning men without collage degrees, who exist. Marriage rates collapsed among non e…

In divorces involving college educated women, they initiate 90% of them. It’s bad news all round.

Fun fact too: college educated women divorce less then others. So, their behavior does in fact leads to stability, their partners are happy or at least choosing to stay.

What seems to happen is that if the marriage does not work, they tend to ve at the loosing side of it and have real option to leave.

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