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Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

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

#81

Post by archonis »

mindslight wrote: post #66
archonis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

FWIW the traditional path for renovations was to add "sweat equity" by doing the work yourself, slowly and without permits. You can still do this today, perhaps even more effectively than previously with Youtube videos/LLMs. Although you might need to hire more "handymen" to replace what would have been bartered labor with friends/family (tying back to the social capital concept of the article). (I'm not trying to de…

The flipside is a lot of municipalities have become a lot more aggressive about enforcement, and changing regulations (especially regarding gas and electric) and manditory inspections mean that there's less that you can get away with.

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

#82

Post by JKCalhoun »

al_borland wrote: post #6

> 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…

Sure. But my excuse for denying my children would be that I also struggled at their age—zero handouts from either parent.

But I also think that attitude is a load of shit.

Early on in the 1980's I went to a community college to get the first couple of years of college out of the way. I sublet a room from a single woman (probably her landlord had no idea) and I rode a 10-speed bike between a pizza restaurant I worked at and the community college (yeah, sucked in the Kansas winter-time).

Later, at a university, I was able to work as a dishwasher at a dorm and pay my way through college.

But there's probably no way my kids can do the same 40 years later.

It would be, to me, a tragedy if our kids only finally "make it" when their parents die and all our assets are cashed in and divided among them. For myself, this would have come at a time when I didn't need the windfall.

I'd rather help them out now as they are trying to climb the ladder to homeowner, etc.

(It sure would have been nice if one of my parents could have forked over the cash to buy me that Macintosh Plus back in 1986. Alas, a student loan I was nervous to apply for did the trick.)

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

#83

Post by BobaFloutist »

yesco wrote: post #70
Avicebron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I purchased a house within commuting distance of Boston in my mid 20s, back in 2022. Didn't need PMI, the mortgage terms weren't unreasonable to me (fixed 5% interest), and the monthly payments for utilities plus the loan are still well within my means. It's even got an attached garage. I don't want to get too specific here for privacy reasons, but I believe the main difference between myself and my peers is that I c…

> the main difference between myself and my peers is that I chose to live with my parents and save for a house instead of moving out

It was very clever of you to choose to be born to tolerable parents with enough spare cash to let you live with them and save up, rather than jerks or even just poor parents that needed your help as soon as you got a job.

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

#84

Post by mindslight »

mmooss wrote: post #76

I looked up the author, Johann Kurtz. I'm not sure of Kurtz's background otherwise - any economics? Kurtz has a position at the C.S. Lewis Institute, which describes its mission, "we develop wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in personal and public life." That website describes him thusly: https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/?speaker=johann-kurtz "Johann Kurtz is a…

[dead]

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

#85

Post by ctoth »

standardUser wrote: post #44
Avicebron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Those 60-year-olds existed in a brief and exceptional moment of wealth creation brought about by factors that are unlikely to happen again in ours or our children's lifetime. The problem being that the American ethos decided to pretend that brief moment was normal and sustainable.

What factors? Why are they unlikely to come about again? How do we make them come about again?

You realize that your comment reads like "well, actually things shouldn't be getting better over time"

I, for one, completely disagree.

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

#86

Post by trescenzi »

like_any_other wrote: post #50
jamilton wrote: post #43

>For example: an American family in 1975 could send their children to public school on the assumption that the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families, communities like their own, and would speak English as a first language. Now, realistically, many parents must turn to private schooling for the same reassurances. It was hard to take the rest of the article seriously after reading this.

Let's look at those claims: "the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families" In 1975, the single motherhood rate was 15%. In 2015, it was 40%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parents_in_the_United_S... "communities like their own," In 1970, the US was 83.5% non-Hispanic White. In 2020 it was 57.8%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d... "and would speak English as a…

In a piece that is making a persuasive argument facts are usually included to back up the argument. So I think it is fair to assume the author of the piece believes this is a key part of their argument, which they seem to also think given that it’s listed one of their two main points. The problem with that is it marks the rest of the article as clearly motivated. The claim that the rise in single parent households and those who do not speak English as a first is a _primary_ cause in lack of wealth amongst millennials and Gen Z is a wild one and difficult to back up.

Another comment shows how private school enrollment has held steady or declined since ‘75. However it is true that public school enrollment has partly been eaten away by charter schools. However charter schools are the most diverse as they are most likely to be found in larger cities. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/06/us-public...

So like the op commenter I too found it hard to trust the rest of the article. I’m deeply inclined to agree with the conclusions however such a clearly motivated list of statistics, regardless of truth, as the #2 factor turned me off of the rest of the piece.

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

#87

Post by danaris »

estearum wrote: post #42
wahnfrieden wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflatio... > Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds

1. Voluntary transactions (even if high-margin for one side) is not "robbery" 2. None of the examples GP listed has anything to do with high corporate profits

"Voluntary" is bullshit.

You can call these transactions "voluntary", but when a huge percentage of the people in America do not make enough money to save, period, that means that all their income is going to necessities (with "a few small luxuries" also being a necessity for any human being).

Many of the companies making the biggest profits are also the companies that own the highest percentage of their respective markets.

People don't have a choice.

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

#88

Post by mrktf »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #83
yesco wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purchased a house within commuting distance of Boston in my mid 20s, back in 2022. Didn't need PMI, the mortgage terms weren't unreasonable to me (fixed 5% interest), and the monthly payments for utilities plus the loan are still well within my means. It's even got an attached garage. I don't want to get too specific here for privacy reasons, but I believe the main difference between myself and my peers is that I c…

> the main difference between myself and my peers is that I chose to live with my parents and save for a house instead of moving out It was very clever of you to choose to be born to tolerable parents with enough spare cash to let you live with them and save up, rather than jerks or even just poor parents that needed your help as soon as you got a job.

> the main difference between myself and my peers is that I chose to live with my parents and save for a house instead of moving out

That is 'small' cheat code if parents tolerable. I have multiple peers which got much better life and places to live because lived with parents in their 20s.

It just doing napkin math and even if you live 5 years with parents and doing minimal savings (saving rent and part of food) you already poses good chunk of deposit when comes to buying property.

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

#89

Post by yesco »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #83
yesco wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purchased a house within commuting distance of Boston in my mid 20s, back in 2022. Didn't need PMI, the mortgage terms weren't unreasonable to me (fixed 5% interest), and the monthly payments for utilities plus the loan are still well within my means. It's even got an attached garage. I don't want to get too specific here for privacy reasons, but I believe the main difference between myself and my peers is that I c…

> the main difference between myself and my peers is that I chose to live with my parents and save for a house instead of moving out It was very clever of you to choose to be born to tolerable parents with enough spare cash to let you live with them and save up, rather than jerks or even just poor parents that needed your help as soon as you got a job.

I reject your characterization of my comment. I explicitly called myself an outlier and said I didn't want to get too specific, so I'm not sure where you're getting "clever" from. I wasn't claiming credit for my circumstances. I was identifying the actual variable that separated my outcome from peers in similar circumstances, because that's useful information for anyone who does have that option available.

And plenty of people do. I know people who could live at home rent-free and chose apartments anyway because they wanted independence sooner. That's a legitimate preference, but it's still a tradeoff, and pretending the tradeoff doesn't exist because some people don't get the choice at all helps nobody. "Not everyone can do X" is true of literally every piece of financial advice ever given. It doesn't make X bad advice for the people who can.

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

#90

Post by doom2 »

al_borland wrote: post #6

> 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…

The problem is that someone in their 20s can't even envision a realistic path to where people in their 60s are. And for me personally, being somewhere between the two, I think I'm mostly doing things "right" and still am not optimistic I'll get to where my parents are. I don't even think I'll see all of the money I've paid into Social Security back, given the political rumblings about "reforming" that program. Which is to say that I can see why younger people might feel hard done by.
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