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The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

nytimes.com

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Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#71

Post by tomjen3 »

M8 wrote: post #12

Partially related to having a family becoming more risky for men. If you are not protected in case of a separation, you are less likely to want to commit to a family. If there is no family, there is less motivation to earn more.

That is a concern for me, but I don't know if that is widespread (enough for people to not start a family over it) but I am concerned that it is one of those memes that could hit a tresshold and spread very rapidly, (don't date robots comes to mind). That said my treckrecord of predicting the future isn't very good.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#72

Post by learnstats2 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #61
learnstats2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on or below median income (i.e. "most people") live above their means, because they have little choice.

Some portion of them, yes. But something as simple as cutting cable can save $500+/year, usually over $1k/year. And to someone who is below the median, either of those numbers is non-trivial. Exclude a few other optional behaviors and the numbers shift more positive pretty quickly. Examples: smoking, iphone plans, pets. Someone doesn't have to go without those things forever but cutting out all the non-necessities fo…

In my experience, a typical person under median income has never owned a pet or an iPhone or had cable or gym membership, or they have already cut those things, just to keep afloat.

It's poor form for a rich person to say "just stop doing [luxury that I consider a social norm]" when a person on median income most probably doesn't do [luxury] to begin with.

You are really saying that poor people are not welcome to those things: cheap entertainment is not for them; the comfort of a pet is not for them; access to communication is not for them. Not having fair access to those things keeps people in poverty.

I would point out that owning a pet, in particular, has major health benefits for the owner - the benefit of owning a pet may easily outweigh the cost.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#73

Post by kidsthesedays »

mrybczyn wrote: post #19
enraged_camel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's referring to the fact that men lose a significant portion (usually half, sometimes more) of their financial assets during divorce. Protection in this case refers to signing certain agreements before or during marriage.

Also, they always lose custody of their children, one of the main points of marriage...

Complete BS. I've known many men who have sole or primary custody of their children including my sister in law's former husband. I also grew up with some kids who lived with the dads most of the time. This meme has to end because it isn't true. Sure, maybe most of the time the woman gets it but always is a complete lie.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#74

Post by bigtunacan »

kidsthesedays wrote: post #48
fweespeech wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically the only reason most people struggle financially in the US is due to their own financial illiteracy and living above their means. If you manage not to fall victim to either of those then you can save a substantial portion of your income towards a very early retirement should you choose to do so. That is really only true for households above the median income. So "most" is not a factual statement. About ha…

I agree that most is silly. Certainly many though. Consider: When I was single I lived a very very very comfortable life on $22,000 a year (cash, not income). I put that much in my checking account and everything else in savings and investment. This was after I spent several years putting the majority of my pay on loans to become debt free and paid off the $60,000 in student loans and a very small car loan. If someon…

There is no way around it; kids ARE expensive. The bulk cost of raising kids is not all of the unnecessary things, even with all of the crap kids have today compared to prior generations, that is all incidental costs.

The real costs of kids are the necessities. Child care, clothing, food, medical & dental expenses.

I live in the midwest and send/sent my children to a daycare that is extremely price conscious even for this area. It cost me over $7000 per year per child. So when I had 3 kids in day care at the same time; I was paying $21,000 a year just for daycare. For some people that is not sustainable; it is as much or more than they earn.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#75

Post by tomjen3 »

huxley wrote: post #64
mrybczyn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, they always lose custody of their children, one of the main points of marriage...

No, in fact it's becoming less common as time goes on. In the US by 2008, maternal sole-custody had declined to 42% of custodial arrangements (from 80% in 1986), while equal shared custody rose to 27% (from 5%). http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/05/22/joint-custody-becomi...

That is still a huge risk though. I mean fair enough if the guy is abusive but if she simply runs of and finds somebody else that is not something I want to risk my children over.

And I have seen too many people at work struggling with ugly divorces.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#76

Post by kidsthesedays »

fweespeech wrote: post #63
kidsthesedays wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that most is silly. Certainly many though. Consider: When I was single I lived a very very very comfortable life on $22,000 a year (cash, not income). I put that much in my checking account and everything else in savings and investment. This was after I spent several years putting the majority of my pay on loans to become debt free and paid off the $60,000 in student loans and a very small car loan. If someon…

> If someone makes a salary of $30,000 a year than they probably take home around $22,000 after taxes and insurance. It would be much less comfortable for them to have a lot of savings. True, not impossible, but much much harder than me since their takehome pay is equal to my "frugal" pay. They would have to give up much more than I do. Obviously you can't max out your 401(k) and IRA on that salary, maxing those out…

Which was exactly my point. :)

You'd have to basically be homeless to save enough to be able to retire very early on a modest income such as $30,000.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#77

Post by caseysoftware »

TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #67
caseysoftware wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some portion of them, yes. But something as simple as cutting cable can save $500+/year, usually over $1k/year. And to someone who is below the median, either of those numbers is non-trivial. Exclude a few other optional behaviors and the numbers shift more positive pretty quickly. Examples: smoking, iphone plans, pets. Someone doesn't have to go without those things forever but cutting out all the non-necessities fo…

As a student, I've gotten laughed at for having a prepaid (and cheap) cell phone. Saves me several hundred a year, easily. Ditto: I don't drink, and I don't have a car. And I still struggle. Don't know how some students do it.

The good news is that if you're working in STEM, this is probably the worst time you'll ever have.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#78

Post by __abc »

Clanan wrote: post #65
Omniusaspirer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a subreddit dedicated to this idea, although I warn you it's largely terrible. http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence Basically the only reason most people struggle financially in the US is due to their own financial illiteracy and living above their means. If you manage not to fall victim to either of those then you can save a substantial portion of your income towards a very early retirement should y…

As a parent I've found that "kids are pricey" can easily stem from financial illiteracy as well. It's easier than people think to have kids and not blow the budget. Don't go crazy on Christmas gifts, limit eating out, buy secondhand clothes (which are usually in great condition), etc. We always chuckle when our friends talk about how expensive their kids are, right before mentioning their three cross-country trips. F…

THIS!

I have two kids, and it's fairly easy (at least before starting school / sports)

1 - Second hands clothes, toys, etc are super cheap 1.1 - Hand me down across the extended family and your family (seriously, they grow out of it in minutes, try not to buy it new) 2 - Your kids don't need a lot of toys and crayons and paper are cheap 3 - GO TO THE LIBRARY 4 - Parks are really fun, and really cheap, as in free

Where it adds up, at least for me, is I now have a 2 & 4 year old in school and that's $1K a month (drops to zero once they hit public schools), but for a few years that's hefty. However, that's also a choice

1 - I chose private school for preschool, so that's costlier 2 - I moved to a specific area for the 10/10 public schools to save money

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#79

Post by tomjen3 »

jkyle wrote: post #54
Karunamon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious question - if hauling someone through the justice system is how we determine whether illegal behavior actually happened or not, then how does one separate the metrics "laws being unequally applied" vs "incidences of illegal behavior"?

Incidence of illegal behavior is generally determined through polling. Basically, you ask people anonymously and they're more honest. For example "Have you smoked marijuana in the last year?" There are various biases that impact the validity and reliability and there are methods for accounting for those biases. Rates of criminal behavior in the population is a very active and mature area of research. Another method i…

That is very interesting, but you would need to know the level of trust the groups have compared to how strong their norms for not breaking the law would be in order to normalize the results (e.g are people of one minority group less likely to trust strangers compared to the majority?) which are factors that you can't know.
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