Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High • Hacker News Board

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#131

Post by lucker » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 8:57 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #126

malandrew wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem already goes beyond millennials. Increasing automation is going to make unskilled labor a huge liability for countries. This is one reason I don't think some of the anti-immigrant position of many Americans (and Europeans) is unwarranted. Every country should want highly skilled labor to help improve their current account, but unskilled labor is huge future liability. There is already a huge surplus of do…

Immigrants, boomers and technology are convenient scapegoats for declining wealth. Technology is particularly favored in the media because it sounds vaguely plausible if you don't look too closely and being anti-technology makes you look ridiculous. The 0.1% and their media naturally aren't going to blame themselves, or their trade agreements, or their lobbyists, or their wall street.

I wonder what the math is on the 0.1%'s money. If the 0.1% became significantly more generous with their money, how much would that actually benefit everyone else?

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#132

Post by rebootthesystem » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:00 AM UTC

The most natural state is to remain with your family until you form your own family. I have never understood the stigma attached to adult children living at home.

Admittedly, this might very well be because I have lived in multiple cultures, most of which don't have this antagonistic "kick them out of the house" relationship between parents and adult kids.

The other side of that story is that, yes, if an adult kid has opportunities that might take the kid away from the family home it could make total sense to move out. One example is getting into a really good university on the other side of the country.

I personally believe that the family connection is crucially important and it must remain as intact as possible until the adult children are ready to form their own families. There is no better incubator for future good people than a good family life.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#133

Post by lucker » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:01 AM UTC

astronautjones wrote: post #94

pjdemers wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time the young adults of today are too old to work, they will have long since inherited their parent's house. I would bet in 25 years when 10,000 baby boomers are dying every day, housing prices will be in free fall. So many of today's young adults will pay little, if anything, for the house they retire in.

Speaking as a younger person, I have and will have no interest in living in a rural suburb with no jobs. I'll have to sell, and when that time comes it won't be for much. The reverse white flight into cities is going to wreak havoc on this country.

Out of curiosity — how would you feel about a rural suburb if you could work remotely from it and make the same money that you could make in a big city? What other things would you need the rural suburb to provide if employment wasn't an issue?

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#134

Post by sebcat » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:04 AM UTC

Pseudosudowoodo wrote: post #125

ryandrake wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen X here, just turned 40. If you compare how I'm doing with how my parents (who were solidly middle class) were doing, it's not even close. At 40, they had multiple homes, were secure in their savings and retirement through generous pensions, and practically debt free. This was on school teachers' salaries! Me? Student loan debt set me back years, crippling housing costs, and a crappy 401(k) that is probably worth…

1990 child here. To avoid a lengthy block of text I've deleted it all and decided on a short sum. While I can only speak from my own experience, many of my friends and colleagues (EE) have left the country already. There are lots of good arguments on both sides and plenty of stories to each end. That said, it comes to this, the people in my generation with real skill are leaving. Not all of them, but enough that it's…

People I knew when I was younger later went on to get a good education and moved to the U.S.A. for work.

They still have student debt, but with practically no interest adjusted for inflation, and they didn't have to pay for university. They won't be spending their future worrying about their loans.

Grow up in a country with ~30% income tax and ~25% VAT, get universal healthcare and free education, then emigrate and take a job and pay (less) taxes in another country where working actually makes you money.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#135

Post by babyrainbow » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:04 AM UTC

Great. Now let us push it even more.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#136

Post by lucker » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:09 AM UTC

white-flame wrote: post #13

I'm not a millennial, but it makes a heck of a lot of financial sense to live with family. I'm glad that with these shifts, the stigma is falling away. My immediate family has lived through rough times, with lots of "creative" living arrangements. Of course, we should still train general life autonomy, and not promote being able-but-incapable shut-ins, but being able to venture into housing (or back out of it if thin…

In many situations, it does make financial sense to live with family — however, sometimes one is simply happier and more productive when one has sufficient space that one more or less controls. Living in close proximity with others can be wonderful, but it can also take a toll. Even when those around you are nice people, it can take some energy to interact with them. I wonder how much productivity society loses when people who long to live alone are forced by circumstance to live together with others.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#137

Post by tkyjonathan » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:23 AM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #9

notyourwork wrote: post #3

Cost of tuition continually grows, most graduates are not falling into extremely lucrative salaries and average salaries are not keeping up with inflation. This is far from surprising but is very concerning. Another avenue to pursue this discussion from is the % of income allocated to retirement savings. I have a sneaky suspicious most of my peers are saving less for retirement than the same demographic 10, 20, 30 ye…

The problem already goes beyond millennials. Increasing automation is going to make unskilled labor a huge liability for countries. This is one reason I don't think some of the anti-immigrant position of many Americans (and Europeans) is unwarranted. Every country should want highly skilled labor to help improve their current account, but unskilled labor is huge future liability. There is already a huge surplus of do…

Sorry, but I am not sure I understand. Automation is in things like factories, back offices.. Those things are not entirely unskilled. While you still have plenty of unskilled labour jobs in services/food/entertainment and they haven't yet invented robots to pick strawberries - which in the UK is something we use season immigrants for.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#138

Post by k-mcgrady » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:26 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #70

smallnamespace wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how you got the impression that it's talking about parents sucking wealth out of their kids. I mean, living with parents is more or less the definition of parents helping their children, not the other way around. The reciprocation comes later in life, when parents aren't able to be self sufficient anymore.

I'm highlighting the word "reciprocating" which seems to suggest both directions.

Well if your staying in their home longer than normal and using their resources why shouldn't you 'reciprocate' financially?

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#139

Post by eropple » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:28 AM UTC

lucker wrote: post #133

astronautjones wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a younger person, I have and will have no interest in living in a rural suburb with no jobs. I'll have to sell, and when that time comes it won't be for much. The reverse white flight into cities is going to wreak havoc on this country.

Out of curiosity — how would you feel about a rural suburb if you could work remotely from it and make the same money that you could make in a big city? What other things would you need the rural suburb to provide if employment wasn't an issue?

For me, it would need to not be rural or a suburb to provide what I desire out of life. I want to be near things. There is a life to urban communities that does not exist in rural or suburban places (and I grew up in both) that I don't think I would want to live without. Being in places where it's a half-mile walk to things I want to do is an unmitigated good for me and there is nothing a suburb or rural area can do to replace that.

Remote work from home, where you are ensconced in your isolation box, is gross, too; as a consultant, I have a home office and I spend most of my time out of it.

(Mind, I have considered buying something in a rural area--but that's effectively a retreat, not a home. Homes are a by-and-large a pipe dream for people who are under 30 right now unless they want crushing commutes or nothingvilles.)

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#140

Post by Frondo » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 9:35 AM UTC

ixacto wrote: post #101

ryandrake wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen X here, just turned 40. If you compare how I'm doing with how my parents (who were solidly middle class) were doing, it's not even close. At 40, they had multiple homes, were secure in their savings and retirement through generous pensions, and practically debt free. This was on school teachers' salaries! Me? Student loan debt set me back years, crippling housing costs, and a crappy 401(k) that is probably worth…

Student loans are stupid unless taken for CS or Medicine. Otherwise the military or community college is just fine. Don't follow your passion unless you have a trustfund with >1mm and can pay for college. It's not that hard, you put 23k/yr total in the roth IRA & Roth 401k in VFIAX. I do not work in the tech industry anymore and am still doing this, just stop eating out, live cheap. Compound this over 40-45 years and…

The military is fine until you're sent to Afghanistan and you're assigned to missions where you end up killing people. They're dead, and you're messed up for a long, long time. Happened to a couple friends of mine. One of them is de facto permanently disabled (though refuses help from the system itself), bounces from one job to the next, spends every waking moment high, because of the things he did over there.

As for the rest, asking someone to live cheap until they're 65, as a way to compensate for systemic malfunction, ehh...nope, let's get political and fix the system.