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Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

bloomberg.com

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Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#31

Post by twoodfin »

enraged_camel wrote: post #22

It's good to see a study that quantifies what we have suspected for a while now: millennials aren't doing as well as their parents were at any given age. This is why certain "life thresholds" such as getting married or buying a house are delayed, sometimes significantly. The annoying thing is that this is typically blamed on imaginary negative traits that millennials possess, such as laziness or spite borne out of fe…

Or on average they stayed in school longer than their parents, which tends to delay everything, including high earnings years.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#32

Post by klodolph »

iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

> It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it.

It's just an arbitrary label for people born in a certain period of history. These people generally have shared experiences that are different from the experiences of other generations.

> Who draws a line between generations and why?

Same people that draw a line between lemons and limes. It's sometimes a useful distinction so people remember it and use it.

> People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation.

There is no sharp dividing line between lemons and limes, either. Fruits in the citrus family can be crossbred with each other and you will end up with hybrids that cannot easily be classified as lemons or limes. There's no sharp line between "tall" and "short", or "white" and "gray". That's just the way names generally work, outside of fields like mathematics where you can use more precise definitions.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#34

Post by Vraxx »

iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

No it does not make sense, but I think what you may be missing is that it is not supposed to make logical sense as a concept, it's supposed to appeal to other parts of a person's psyche such as pride and belonging. So this contradiction and confusion that you observe is completely accurate, but that doesn't deteriorate the effectiveness of "generational thinking" at what it does.

I think it's just a part of a bigger pattern that groups of humans tend to fall into where they pick arbitrary lines to divide them into groups so that they can justify condescending the other group.

There is also the other component that people like to tell narratives with history, which is easier when you can condense the actions of millions of people into a number of categories you can count on your hand. Largely speaking, I think the world is just really complex and the ways we try to simplify it and comprehend it break down in some illogical ways because they were never superbly accurate models in the first place.

It's good to know (I wasn't aware before) that this trend isn't present in all groups of humans, it gives me hope that it is able to be overcome collectively.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#36

Post by gambiting »

esotericn wrote: post #16

I think the term "poorer", and the monetary analysis done here, is too high level to extract real meaning. The average young person/couple that I know are able to do and buy far more than their parents (e.g. eat out, order takeaway, take holidays, go to bars, buy things for hobbies, buy clothes, ...). They just don't own property and have no path that leads there. In some sense you could say that they have higher inc…

Agreed. I live the life of incredible luxury compared to when my parents were my age, definitely in terms of "life experiences" and material possessions....except for housing. Getting on the property ladder seems like a dream that's very far away, even when working as an IT professional.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#37

Post by lucisferre »

klodolph wrote: post #32
iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

> It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. It's just an arbitrary label for people born in a certain period of history. These people generally have shared experiences that are different from the experiences of other generations. > Who draws a line between generations and why? Same people that draw a line between lemons and limes. It's sometimes a useful distinction so people remember it and use it. > People do…

> > Who draws a line between generations and why?

> Same people that draw a line between lemons and limes

I mean, I doubt it is really the exact same people who do this. At the very least it is a separate department that does the lemon-lime distincting.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#39

Post by esotericn »

enraged_camel wrote: post #28
esotericn wrote: post #16

I think the term "poorer", and the monetary analysis done here, is too high level to extract real meaning. The average young person/couple that I know are able to do and buy far more than their parents (e.g. eat out, order takeaway, take holidays, go to bars, buy things for hobbies, buy clothes, ...). They just don't own property and have no path that leads there. In some sense you could say that they have higher inc…

What you are talking about is having higher quality of life, despite having lower wealth. But that's a separate subject in my opinion.

"Quality of life" is a problematic term in that context.

Within bounds it's possible to compare. Two families living on the same street, one has $10k higher income than the other, the higher income family has (at least the potential for) a higher QoL.

But comparing someone with a high income in a downtown flatshare who has an ~infinite entertainment budget to someone who is well on the way to owning a home outright in the suburbs is really hard (e.g. a 30yo in London, vs their parents at 30yo).

The former doesn't have a higher or lower QoL than the latter because you can't define a benchmark without it being opinionated.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#40

Post by couldbewrong113 »

"Housing and food are two areas where millennials have spent less than previous generations." Spending less on food I would believe; we have tremendous abundance and it's inexpensive relative to everything else. Housing, though? That...doesn't seem correct, unless they're including in the calculation millennials who live with their family and pay nothing for housing. Can anyone point to a reference that backs up the claim that millennials are paying less for housing than the prior generation?
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