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Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

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Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#31

Post by rayiner »

rconti wrote: post #10
DeonPenny wrote: post #2

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

I also have no idea what you're talking about. But, generally, I'm not sure that incentivizing people to legally bond themselves to another is necessarily an unquestionably positive thing.

Married people are much more financially secure and thus capable of investing in the future. They can not only share expenses, but they amortize risks and can share trade-offs. This is borne out statistically (https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-marriage-good-you-1200...), but also is painfully obvious on inspection. If you’re going to start a business with someone, would you rather do it with a Partnership Agreement in place, or an unwritten “we’ll work together long as it’s convenient for both of us” understanding?

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#32

Post by thatfrenchguy »

DeonPenny wrote: post #2

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

Ah yes, like how the federal government makes you pay taxes on the "value" of health insurance when you insure your common law partner but not when you're married ? Come on.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#33

Post by lhorie »

DeonPenny wrote: post #28
rconti wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have no idea what you're talking about. But, generally, I'm not sure that incentivizing people to legally bond themselves to another is necessarily an unquestionably positive thing.

Because married people throughout time are wealthier. Married people make more money, married millenials own 70% of all the houses millenials have bought, married people are half as likely to be in proverty. If you have to choose a way for people to get wealthy between a college degree and marriage marriage would be the better decision by far.

Correlation is not causation

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#34

Post by watwut »

ralusek wrote: post #9
mrlala wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, in what way has the government deincentivized/roadblocked marriage?

To be clear, I don't have a strong opinion about this, and I'm not making a claim that marriage is a good or a bad thing, I'm just answering your question. The usual argument that says that the government disincentivized marriage is through social safety nets like welfare, particularly ones that pay more for single parents without a spouse in the house, as well as mechanisms like child support payments. The usual arg…

Wait, marriage is disincentived because government is not forcing people to stay in it?

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#35

Post by watwut »

trianglem wrote: post #19
DeonPenny wrote: post #2

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

A marriage of equals does not work. If every decision has to get a consensus it leads to ample opportunity for deep resentment, stress and a lower quality of life overall. One parter must be the dominant one.

Which is what led to big rates of domestic abuse and violence.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#36

Post by Jtsummers »

lhorie wrote: post #25
honkycat wrote: post #18

The US is a gerontocracy. We are going to end up exactly like Japan, a whole generation of young people passing on kids due to economic and environmental stress with no-one to replace them. The stats tell the story. Young people are the largest part of the workforce[0], but we work for lower wages and have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1]. The number of my friends who are hamstrung by…

> we work for lower wages and have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations Not to detract from the point about student debt, which is absolutely on point, but isn't it expected than younger people would always hold less wealth and have lower salaries on average than older people who have been working for decades longer and have that much more work experience?

Wages for equivalent experience have held steady or declined for many Americans over the past 40 years. Women are making more (but more are part of the workforce, plus efforts to ensure equal pay). Top earners are doing better. But the average has seen stagnant wages while major costs (such as homes) have been going up faster.

So a 25 year old, today, doing the same job as their 25 year old parent/grand parent in 1980 is worse off at the same point in their career. This doesn't bode well when people like my parents and grandparents were relatively easily and affordably able to acquire homes and actually start building wealth, while the current generation of young workers are unable to build wealth.

It's not about a comparison between the youth and the now older workforce (which would be a moronic comparison). It's about comparing the youth to what the older workforce had 40 years ago. Or even 30.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#37

Post by DeonPenny »

mrlala wrote: post #4
DeonPenny wrote: post #2

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

I'm confused, in what way has the government deincentivized/roadblocked marriage?

So a few things the government does is favor oneside in divorce and family courts. They will give housing and money through programs to keep people single via section 8 and foodstamps programs. They incentivize single motherhood by allow fathers to be replaced by government checks.

All these things whether good or bad makes it less likely people settle for pairing together like they typically would have.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#38

Post by DeonPenny »

lhorie wrote: post #33
DeonPenny wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because married people throughout time are wealthier. Married people make more money, married millenials own 70% of all the houses millenials have bought, married people are half as likely to be in proverty. If you have to choose a way for people to get wealthy between a college degree and marriage marriage would be the better decision by far.

Correlation is not causation

In this case because all other effects have been minimized across culture its causation across socio-economic classes

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#39

Post by dcolkitt »

tjohns wrote: post #17
Kluny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two people working together can generate more wealth than one person working alone. It's not a controversial concept.

Marriage does not mean both couples will be working. Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes.

> Marriage does not mean both couples will be working.

That's true. But a full-time homemaker usually generates economic value that saves money in a long litany of ways. Staying home with kids saves on childcare. Being able to cook meals saves on eating out. Laundry and cleaning saves money on housekeeping costs. Not to mention all of this labor is accumulated tax-free (i.e. if you work to pay for some expense, you have to pay tax on the income first.)

> Conversely, you don't need to be married to be in a relationship with two incomes.

You absolutely don't. But the statistics are unambigious. Unmarried couples are substantially more likely to split than married ones. The dissolution of a household tends to be an expensive affair that permanently impedes wealth accumulation.

Not to mention that because of this, unmarried couples are substantially less likely to join their finances. Therefore they tend to get significantly worse deals than couples with joined finances. For example two-incomes who jointly sign a mortgage can get a much better APR, than when the mortgage is in one person's name.

Re: Over Half of U.S. Young Adults Now Live with Their Parents

#40

Post by syshum »

DeonPenny wrote: post #2

The fact that we have deincentivized marriage is a huge issue. Married couples are usually wealthier but everything that used to push people to do that has been roadblocked by govt.

I both agree and disagree with your position...

I agree in that married couple are normally muti-income households which makes them wealthy

I disagree that it should be the role of government to incentivize or decentivize marriage

We can resolve this by allowing people to form their own "households" for tax purposes and it should not matter if they are related, married, sleeping with each other, etc.

If they live in the same house, they should be treated as a household and be taxes according to that (or individually if they desire)

I would like to see an end to all government regulations on interpersonal relationships.

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