Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

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…

> Someone in their 60s is supposed to be doing better than someone in their 20s.

That’s an incredibly new, and probably temporary, phenomenon.

Across the vast majority of space-time the non-working elderly are poorer than their still working children and rely on them.

As late as the Greatest Generation senior discounts weren’t a sick joke.

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

#52

Post by win311fwg » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

otterdude wrote: post #48

honeycrispy wrote: post #13

Every time I think I have money I get massive insurance bills, massive property tax bills that increase seemingly every year, a fence I had to install so my kids don't get mangled by the pitbull 2 doors down that was $12k that was $4k 10 years ago. I know because my parents installed the same fence at their house. I'm paying a not insignificant portion of my income into a social security program that I'll never see a…

I think a couple of things are play here 1. corporate consolodation - the only promise of capitalism is that competition lowers prices. Competition is at an all time low. 2. economics and the fallacy of unlimited growth. We live on a finite size planet, and every company is acting as though it expects 10% growth to increase forever. If demand increases and supplies dwindle thats one large prevailing force that would…

> the only promise of capitalism is that competition lowers prices.

The only promise of capitalism is that you are allowed to own capital. Competition and prices come from markets, not capitalism.

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

#53

Post by al_borland » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

dachworker wrote: post #34

thinkingemote wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to qualify this with start to buy a house and get a mortgage and then pay off when older than 20s-30s. I think some people in the comments are thinking you are saying they could outright buy a house straight out of school! (Which in a way might be a symptom explained in the article!

My parents bought their house cash. No they were not high earners and not even median income earners. Yes the house is now worth close to a million dollars.

What the house is worth today is a lot of luck. I just looked at the house my parents built in 1978. It last sold for $225k in 2019.

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

#54

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#55

Post by victor9000 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

Denying your own child a $15K business loan just to placate your sadistic delusions perfectly describes the mindset of aging boomers. They're happy to watch their own children struggle for the opportunity to validate their ideology. They don't have enough empathy to help their own children, so it's futile expecting them to care about anyone else in society. They use tragedy of the commons situations to justify endless gluttony, and will act surprised when the next generation pisses on their graves.

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

#56

Post by dnemmers » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #25

honeycrispy wrote: post #13

Every time I think I have money I get massive insurance bills, massive property tax bills that increase seemingly every year, a fence I had to install so my kids don't get mangled by the pitbull 2 doors down that was $12k that was $4k 10 years ago. I know because my parents installed the same fence at their house. I'm paying a not insignificant portion of my income into a social security program that I'll never see a…

"Robbery" is a very immature and totally counterproductive way to think about rising costs.

When you are captive to the system, the costs changes are not external to you.

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

#57

Post by jamilton » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

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…

Sure, it's just such an odd bundle of claims that were not fully interrogated in the essay. 1. That these things have changed from "small minority" to "significant minority" in public school populations, 2. they haven't changed similarly in private school populations 3. these things increasing are bad and undesirable for you and your child, and 4. there are not cheaper ways to fix this than sending your child to public school (the obvious point to me is if you don't like that there's a significant ESL population, or your community, move somewhere else!).

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

#58

Post by slopinthebag » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #49

slopinthebag wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how you frame the cultural drift as men falling "behind". I assume you're speaking about politics? I don't know what other aspects of culture that have the genders diverging.

A growing segment of young men increasingly embrace violence, conspiracy theories, far-right politics and machismo in general. Women can tolerate and even embrace a lot of male-coded things, like sports and cars and video games, but do you really expect them to embrace the manosphere or Trumpism? Not to say that this is universal - but there is a clear trajectory and we see it throughout the developed world (see: Sou…

I assume it’s this graph you’re referring to?

https://xcancel.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1750849189834022932

South Korea seems like a bit of an outlier, in the other countries it’s the women who are strongly moving left while the men show a weaker drift towards the right. So it doesn’t seem accurate to frame the divergence as men becoming far-right fascists. Would you take offence if I said women are becoming Stalinist communists? Neither framing seems accurate to me.

What I think is happening is that women are broadly swayed by social issues and men are more likely to be against mass immigration and focus more attention on the economy. At least that seems to be the case in my country (which isn’t on the graph). A small minority of men buy into the Tate far-right manosphere but I don’t think that’s responsible for the entirety of the shift, let alone the entirety of the shift on the men’s side.

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

#59

Post by slopinthebag » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #36

slopinthebag wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how you frame the cultural drift as men falling "behind". I assume you're speaking about politics? I don't know what other aspects of culture that have the genders diverging.

Men drift toward violent, toward far right and toward disdain of women. All three are dangerous partners to have. Simple rationality implies avoiding them.

Seems like a massive generalization.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

dachworker wrote: post #34

thinkingemote wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to qualify this with start to buy a house and get a mortgage and then pay off when older than 20s-30s. I think some people in the comments are thinking you are saying they could outright buy a house straight out of school! (Which in a way might be a symptom explained in the article!

My parents bought their house cash. No they were not high earners and not even median income earners. Yes the house is now worth close to a million dollars.

[deleted]