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America’s Millennials Are Waking Up to a Grim Financial Future

116 points by Deinos 8y ago

s2g 8y ago
At some point is the media going to realize that most millenials are adults, and have been for a while?
- electricslpnsld 8y ago
  While many articles erroneously refer to 12 year olds as millennials, I don't think this article falls into the trap. They clearly define the age ranges they are bucketing into millennial at the outset and continue the analysis from there.
- pembrook 8y ago
  This article clearly recognizes millennials as adults.
- allegedganon 8y ago
  While true, it doesn't come naturally given how the average millennial manages his/her life :)
sunshinelackof 8y ago
>For some reason that period of tremendous growth barely helped millennials. I don't think it's just us, though it probably disproportionately is. What wealth small and medium towns had has moved to cities, you just won't have a good job unless you move to the city. Something about it all seems so sinister. Not everyone can be an engineer or a doctor. If society is to function people need to be able to live a reasonable life just being mildly productive.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  In a world where the sum total of productive human labor potential is not needed to sustain the human population, we need to rethink social organization. We should want to encourage productivity improvements, but if people's self worth is tied to their labor, all we do is effectively remove people from society
- thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  Yeah and if you live in a city in the US and you don’t work in finance/tech/whatever high earning job, you’re forced out. Not so great either.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > if you live in a city in the US and you don’t work in finance/tech/whatever high earning job, you’re forced out I have friends in New York's service industry (bartenders, waiters, et cetera). Breaking in was tough. But once they established themselves, they began doing quite well. Economised with roommates; diligently saved; kept a tight budget and continuously applied to the affordable housing lotteries.
- strict9 8y ago
  This is why the red/blue election map broken down by county is so stark and shocking. I grew up in and still have friends/family in a rural area and there is no optimism for earning a decent living for most people. And this is a sunbelt state with explosive growth in its cities. Can't sympathize with their political views but I do sympathize with wanting to blow the system up and try something different. Things are going to go south real fast if/when the same trend of disappearing jobs starts happening in cities too.
  - pm90 8y ago
    > Can't sympathize with their political views but I do sympathize with wanting to blow the system up and try something different. Things are going to go south real fast if/when the same trend of disappearing jobs starts happening in cities too. You shouldn't. They have the choice to pack up and find better jobs and opportunities. Not all city jobs are doctors and engineers; in fact the fastest growing job is wind turbine technicians. America has been through this before; the industrial revolution and then the Service sector industry led to mass migration from rural to Urban areas. And most younger Americans from smaller towns do end up doing just that. I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone that can condone; nigh constantly encourage the kind of cruelty that we see today from the GOP.
    - strict9 8y ago
      >have absolutely no sympathy for anyone that can condone; nigh constantly encourage the kind of cruelty that we see today from the GOP. Believe me, this is why I can't speak with some family/friends from back home. But packing up and moving doesn't boil down to will, cards are stacked against you when you live in a rural area with few opportunities (same is true for high crime neighborhoods in cities). It took me years to escape and it boiled down to getting lucky that I knew someone who left for a medium-sized city and was able to hitch a ride as a temporary roommate, got started waiting tables and taught myself programming at night/on weekends. It's incredibly difficuly to move to a city: unless you are something amazing, employers want local candidates. Landlords want you to have a job before giving you a lease. It's an awful chicken/egg problem that is insurmountable to most.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  > If society is to function people need to be able to live a reasonable life just being mildly productive. One of my criticisms of neoliberal economics/politics is it doesn't consider stable meaningful jobs that your can support a family on as a necessary output of the economic system.
  - sunshinelackof 8y ago
    I'm not an expert in any degree, but it seems that there are plenty of problems out there, just that the only ones being solved cater to investors and wealthy tech-workers. There's no money in improving infrastructure, returning good food to food deserts, teaching school children - or otherwise the things that most would probably agree suggest the success of the society at large. Very likely this is what stakeholder-profits-at-all-costs leads to.
  - anonymous5133 8y ago
    Because it factors in the idea that people need to be incentivized to work. If people can free ride on something then they will. I am definitely in that group. If i can have a decent living on social welfare programs then i definitely would not work. Working sucks. I just hate the idea of working or satisfying customer's needs because it represents a master/slave type relationship.
    - sunshinelackof 8y ago
      At least how we organize work today, it sucks tremendously hard. Someone might pretend he likes it, but no one likes waking up at 6am, commuting both ways, and effectively losing half his day doing something he might not enjoy. There's no real reason most work needs to be like that either besides the momentum of the status-quo.
balls187 8y ago
I wonder if this is just the inevitable trend that all great societies move towards--adding social safety nets programs to lessen the impact that "luck" and "timing" having with individual success.
- ianai 8y ago
  My impression is that they move toward chaos. Rome used “bread and circuses” to keep the people occupied. Meanwhile power concentrated into the emperor. There’s probably no exact trend. But that golden eras are easier to identify.
dawhizkid 8y ago
This assumes basic income won't become law
- sunshinelackof 8y ago
  To me basic income seems like an incredibly -bourgeois- solution. Accepting it as a solution accepts that the current economic practices are not working for large swaths of the working-age population.
  - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
    I don't think they are
- yifanl 8y ago
  I can't imagine a more grim scenario than whole populations being entirely reliant on government money. I'm not decided on where I sit on basic income yet, on the one hand, it might become a necessity as jobs vanish, but on the other hand, it consolidates a lot of power into a benevolent state, one which has not shown it's ability to stay benevolent.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    I would love to have enough money for basic living necessities (healthy food, rent, utilities, clothing, healthcare) provided by the government. I'd never work again.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      That's a very honest answer and is also one that argues against such a system. I also wonder if you feel the same way about a true BI of maybe $10K per year plus the equivalent of Medicaid (very limited doctor network) in the US.
      - paulcole 8y ago
        At $10k/year I would move somewhere cheap in the midwest and use my savings to buy a home with cash. I require expensive prescriptions to live and if those were covered I'd be fine. If not, I'd stay put, continue to work for decent insurance, and just bank the $10k/year.
m52go 8y ago
It's a messed up world for a young adult, but it's also full of more _accessible_ potential than ever. If people would stop and make an honest assessment of their situation, why they're not where they want to be, commit to grinding until they get there, and actually DO IT...things would be better. Unfortunately it's become fashionable to point fingers, assign blame, and make a ruckus about being 'oppressed'. That may get you more Twitter followers, but it won't lead to economic betterment.
- arcaster 8y ago
  As a millennial, this is why my generation is pathetic. I'm not sure where I read this, but a quote that really resonates with me as a millennial who went out and found / fought for nearly all their opportunities "I love being a millennial, because it's so easy to be better than most of my generation".
  - holografix 8y ago
    I’d invite that person to consider how much of her/his success is due to luck and I’d draw parallels with the peasant who working twice as much and providing more grain is allowed a bit more privilege. I’m all for meritocracy. But only if the game is fair.
    - ericd 8y ago
      It's more than a bit hyperbolic to compare our current economic setup with that of medieval serfdom. The difference in economic mobility is extreme. Yes, we have some issues we need to sort out - NIMBYs and zoning laws tamping down on new housing supply in cities, and a broken healthcare market are the largest ones. But it's dangerous to forget that the system we have is overall overwhelmingly better for most people than what came before the 1900s, let alone before the 1400s.
  - test6554 8y ago
    As a millennial, I feel like if I were not in a technology field, I would be screwed. But as it stands, I bust my ass doing what I love, and society happens to value the work I love to do. It would be comforting for me to attribute my good fortune to being a badass or super talented, but I know that my chosen field is just highly valued. I know some people who have followed their dreams and it has led them straight into the poor house doing years of unpaid internships all for a job that is rare, but still only one or two steps above minimum wage. But I do think there's an attitude and professionalism problem. The term "funemployed", the way beards, tattoos, and casual drug use are coming back in style. The oversharing. And the fact that somehow the generation that grew up with computers still has way too many people on the wrong side of the digital divide.
acd 8y ago
Here is the thing central banks are printing exponential debt money from nothing. Most people from youth generations cannot afford to buy affordable houses priced with that debt.. You could even say younger people are exponential debt slaves working for the old and rich. Having kids myself I do not feel this system is fair.
- daxorid 8y ago
  Indeed. And the strange irony is that HN millenials will defend central banking, "inflation targets", and ZIRP vehemently. I don't understand it.
  - pembrook 8y ago
    It sounds like you haven't read anything about history in the United States before modern central banking took hold. See section 2, the free banking era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit... With no central bank, our economy experienced regular depressions (worse than recessions--but lots of those too) and panics with unemployment fluctuating up to 20% during each of those times.
    - wycs 8y ago
      We also had pretty incredible productivity growth. Perhaps they are related. A sort of forest fire effect.
      - pembrook 8y ago
        I think you can attribute that less to a wildly volatile economy and more to the industrial revolution.
- gruez 8y ago
  >central banks are printing exponential debt money from nothing Source? Didn’t QE end a while ago?
wheremind 8y ago
It seems like this came to a head around the time of the occupy wall street protests (is it 10 years ago now?). The public consciousness became aware of the way our political/financial systems were in a kind of symbiotic conspiracy to vacuum up productivity gains, there was huge pressure to do something about it despite the media's constant stream of 'nothing to see here'..... and then nothing happened. The popular culture of the west instead decended into this en masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. Seems like there was a huge opportunity that was foiled or just missed and this is possibly going to be the result of it.
- jryan49 8y ago
  The more we fight each other the less we are fighting "them".
  - wheremind 8y ago
    Yes, it seems like classic divide and conquer strategy but I have no evidence for it. the idea has been kind of obsessing me a bit recently, I'd love to see someone that has actually looked into it and tried to compile a bit of data.
    - TAForObvReasons 8y ago
      This is a very old thought. Both LBJ and MLK understood this, at least in the context of racism as a tool to divide the lower and middle classes of society. You've probably heard this quote, attributed to LBJ: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
      - wheremind 8y ago
        I know, I'm wondering whether anyone's looked into it in the context of the occupy wall street movement. The popular consciousness was so strongly diverted at the point it began to threaten elite interests that it's at least noteworthy, yet I've never really seen it talked about much. It may just be an artifact of the rise of social media, although I'm not sure that the timelines really match up very well. I just want to see if anyone's really looked into it because I don't even know where to start with something like that, but it's been playing on my mind for a few months now.
milennialthrwy 8y ago
Here's my grim reality I'm just waking up to now as a millennial. Married with $100k in student loans between the two of us. Her first job out of college paid $30k with no benefits. No matter, I had the money making tech degree, we'd be fine. My first job out of college was $100k, so I didn't see a problem there. Three year later I'm facing mounting healthcare costs incurred even with top notch gold plated tech insurance. Most of my salary the last 3 years went to my landlord and the government. The remainder went to student loans and medical costs, so I don't have much in the way of savings even after earning $300k. And somehow I still owe $100k in student loans. And my $100k tech job didn't come with retirement benefits so I don't have any retirement savings yet. It did however come with a generous stock grant. But then again, the company folded and now I don't have a job or insurance. And now I'm a full time caregiver for my wife, with no health insurance, trying to get a job, with $100k in non-dischargable debt, looking to get on welfare, but at the same time reading about how our government wants to take even that away. So that's what I'm doing this weekend.
- matthewwiese 8y ago
  Although I am not in your position yet (a few years laggard) I feel echoes of your sentiment in my life already. Alas, all I have to offer is a measly upvote, the currency of Millennials' bright shining future.
- bmer 8y ago
  I don't understand. Why can't you apply for another job? It seems like if you were able to get one, you could get another, right? (Full disclosure: I am an unemployed millennial as well, and too naive to understand what's keeping you from getting another job. Hence the question.)
  - medntech 8y ago
    They are a full-time care giver to their wife.
    - harryh 8y ago
apo 8y ago
It's surprising the article leaves out medical expenses. There's this one mention: The same 2017 survey found 27 percent skipping medical treatments because they can’t afford them. In the end, I suspect that medical costs driven to astronomical levels by retirees is what will do the most financial damage to millennials.
- dv_dt 8y ago
  Medical costs in the US are driven by the only healthcare system in the first-world that puts profit at the center instead of people.
  - EADGBE 8y ago
    I'm sure the largest generation in retirement entering late-life doesn't help with the situation. Provides ripe opportunity for jacking up health care costs on age 50+ ailments/treatments.
    - dv_dt 8y ago
      It doesn't but other nations such as Japan have a much older shifted demographic and their costs are much better managed. All other first world nations have better cost and overall performance outcomes in their healthcare than the US. None of them allow private companies to dictate drug and procedure prices. The US dedicates 50% more of it's GDP to healthcare than Japan does, despite having more favorable demographics for need of services by age. (see fig 2 [1]) [1] https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Country-Note-JAPAN-OECD-Health-Statistics-2015.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Country-Note-JAPAN-O...
  - thucydidesofusa 8y ago
    That doesn't seem entirely true. Costs are still elevated in not-for-profit care centers.
  - wycs 8y ago
    I think full deregulation of healthcare would be superior to universal healthcare. But universal health care is clearly superior to American style almost fascistic corporate/government rent seeking.
allthenews 8y ago
I would argue that the wealth gap is symptomatic of a degeneration of culture and education in this country. I am in my late 20s, and even when I was graduating it was apparent that most students in my cohort simply were not leaving school with the skills to function as adults, let alone be productive members of society. Same in college, 18-21 year old children. And now these same children look desperately for others to blame, while in reality we have a growing proportion of incompetent workers performing increasingly meaningless tasks, walled away behind miles of red tape and a Goliath of bureaucracy. American popular culture places little value on education and self-improvement. The windfall that was WWII is dwindling, while other nations take steps to optimize the very parts of their labor pipeline that we in the U.S. neglect. Millennials are waking up to a decline that they are ill-equipped to reverse. Twitter, Facebook, et al. are only hastening the degradation of western culture, accelerating an existing, emergent glamorization of shallow materialism over knowledgeability and competence.
- ianai 8y ago
  The government could fully employ people in digging holes in the ground and filling them, alternately. But that’d be too shallow, so the machinations of government employ the many. The free market is built on ends - singular goods and services. But the living world is not. What dies or is consumed today feeds the survivors for tomorrow. A sparrow could never be reimbursed by a hawk for its life. But eventually the hawks raw materials rejoin the worlds supply and plays its part in supplying for more life. Life on earth takes energy from the sun or earth, ultimately - that’s the “end” that fuels all life. Humanity does itself the greatest disservice in defining goods and services as ends in themselves. Humanity ought to “close the loop” - find a way to survive and thrive through redefining how humanity works such that it obeys that the only end that the earth actually receives is energy from the sun or earth.
- simonsarris 8y ago
  You're getting downvoted, but your hunch is correct: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c9983692e0 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c... Students aren't leaving high school, nevermind college, with the skills that should be expected of them. A great dumbing down is in effect because we do not want to hurt feelings and want everyone to graduate, move on to the next level, etc.
fear91 8y ago
I believe there are some solutions to help alleviate the situation. Introduce land value tax. In the countries using it, stop the mandatory Ponzi scheme retirement pyramid where young people are forced to pay a sizeable part of their paycheck while having no hope of receiving any in 30-40 years - that's straight up, time-delayed stealing. Close the tax gaps used by corporations. Provide free healthcare so people don't get ruined by medical emergencies. Stop the student loan madness, provide free university education. Restrict mortgage lending - it makes the property prices baloon in the long run and encourages housing bubbles. Most importantly, start treating renewable energy and emissions seriously because we are destroying this planet with a speed with which we probably won't have to worry about economy after a few more generations. Unfortunately, all of those would require enormous political changes and are impossible to implement.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > all of those would require enormous political changes and are impossible to implement Because our generation doesn't vote [1]. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-...
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    They also are clustered in coastal cities and votes there are worth less than votes elsewhere for reasons. I wonder how much of turnout downturn is just rational: If half my city didn’t vote it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference for the last national election. Probably wouldn’t have mattered if the whole city didn’t vote, because I live in coastal California.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > votes there are worth less than votes elsewhere for reasons 139 million Americans voted in 2016's general election [1]. Of that, 34 million were millennials, or 49% of millennial eligible voters [2]. 69% of Boomers voted [2]. If a similar fraction of millennials voted, we'd have had 48 million votes [a]. That would bring our share of the vote to 31% [b], the same as boomers [c]. Geographic effects act on the margins. Bringing 14 million additional voters to the polls will change outcomes and change legislative priorities regardless of how they are distributed. [1] http://www.electproject.org/2016g http://www.electproject.org/2016g [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-... [a] (34 x 10^6 / 0.49) 0.69* [b] (48 x 10^6 - 34 x 10^6)/(48 x 10^6 - 34 x 10^6 + 139 x 10^6) [c] 48.1 x 10^6 / (48 x 10^6 - 34 x 10^6 + 139 x 10^6)
pembrook 8y ago
Somewhat ironic that this is being posted on Hackernews, where if I had to guess the average salary for millennials here is 3X the national average. Seems most of us here already found the answer: learn something about the fastest growing sector of the economy and participate in the future instead of lamenting the present. If you're waiting for government action to create a better distribution of wealth in the only developed country where poor people actually vote against a public safety net you're going to be disappointed. It's just not going to happen politically in the US for decades so your only option is to play ball in the system as it is now and vote in the meantime.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  > Seems most of us here already found the answer: learn something about the fastest growing sector of the economy and participate in the future instead of lamenting the present. That's so callous. Would you say the same if computers had turned out a dud, a fringe curiosity nothing more? If the fastest growing sector of the economy had instead turned out to be MMA cage fighting? Or perhaps you're physically inclined; imagine whatever it is you would be vigourously annoyed doing. Cobra wrestling. No-chute skydiving with plane re-entry. I really wonder about those parallel universes. About what the parallel you would have said, there, to the elite in their cobra wrestling ivory tower, lamenting those lazy plebs. They should just man up and start hitting the serpentine goldmine! Or was it, like, a reverse psychology point, where precisely by explicitly pointing out the absurdity of the only solution, you realise just how untenable our current predicament is?
  - pembrook 8y ago
    If the fastest growing sector of our economy was cobra wrestling, I would be telling everybody that the solution to their economic woes would be to get involved in cobra wrestling. It's not callous, it's pretty simple logic. Complaining that you don't like how everything is changing into Cobra wrestling won't change the fact that it's happening. Even if you're physically not suited to cobra wrestling, there would many many tertiary jobs and functions needed to support that growing sector you could enter. Cobra wrestling promoter. Cobra wrestling trainer. Cobra wrestling gym manager. Cobra wrestling photographer. Cobra wrestling filmographer. Cobra wrestling transport. What would be your better solution for people? Try to get government to artificially support the no-longer needed computer workers so they can still pretend they make money from working on computers?
throwaway2016a 8y ago
Just waking up to it? I'm an older millennial 33 and I've been awake for a long time. My friends who didn't get PTSD in the war spent the first 8 years of our career in a recession so when the market grew had no money in the market to capitalize on that. And even as a healthy person with good health care and six figures in my bank I worry I can get wiped out by a medical emergency. I think it's more like: other people are finally realizing what millennials have been living with their entire adult life so far.
acconrad 8y ago
I feel like all of these "us vs them articles" (us = millennials, which I am one, and them = baby boomers, who are my parents age) are red herrings. Do you really believe that your mother/grandmother is the enemy here? My belief is that who you're actually imagining when you read this article is some fat-cat corporate executive in a suit and tie who is old enough to reap the largess of Reagonomics. They happen to be 60+, but in actuality, the distinguishing feature is that they're rich. My dad is a retired firefighter and Vietnam vet, and my mom is a executive admin. These are two people who should not be blamed for the cards the youth have been dealt. It's the Elite. The Controlling Class. Whatever you want to call it, they enacted policies some decades ago to benefit only them, and now they're reaping those rewards at a staggering pace. And they're quite happy that you have found someone else to blame besides them. Even the "Top 1% vs Us 99%ers" is the same kind of thing. They're happy your anger is centered at plastic surgeons and defense attorneys. The real wealth is in the 0.01%, the people who don't have to work (and haven't for generations) and want to keep it that way. As long as you are blaming someone else, they're safe and happy to keep pulling the strings on society. But I'm not going to take a cop-out excuse of blaming the grandmother down the street who has been living in the same 1800 sq ft home she bought with her husband and 3 kids in the 70s and hasn't ever update the decor in her kitchen.
RickJWagner 8y ago
Ha, ironic they chose a picture with an avocado in it. Seriously, the current age feels like the mid 80s. If that holds true, the millenials will be fine.
RickJWagner 8y ago
Single-paycheck family here. We've got the first of 3 kids in college now, 2 and 3 are not far behind. We hammer on scholarship preparation, hard. Our college boy works paid internships each summer. The kids are all in band, good for small scholarships at little effort. We are fine so far. Good luck to others on this path. Avoid the debt, it can be one.
kamaal 8y ago
Indian Millennial here. Lived in the US(for work) for around 4 years and returned to India. So I know a little about what I'm talking about. I am yet to understand why US millennials have all these troubles, or is it just perceived by them as such? Because frankly, comparatively speaking food is not expensive in the US. Even on minimum wage you can eat the best, healthy food there is. Infrastructure is just a whole country Disneyland. Opportunities are higher than all of human history including the present combined. Schooling is free. You can afford a good car for minimal monthly payments. You get pure drinking water, and more importantly unlike the third world countries, you get to breathe the purest air possible. Its not hard to exercise and maintain good health either. Gaining any skill or knowledge has never been more easier, than it is today. I understand if you had a unfortunate health complication beyond your control, or you are disabled at birth. But for healthy people, there isn't much you can complain about. Sorry for sounding rude here. This sounds a lot more like decadence, than any real problem.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Lived in the US(for work) for around 4 years and returned to India. So I know a little about what I'm talking about. The US is a huge country; living in it for 4 years for work — unless that work is, I dunno, leading a large cross-regional socioeconomic study — will leave you knowing pretty close to nothing about it related to the issues you discuss. > I am yet to understand why US millennials have all these troubles Because radical shifts in US tax policy over the past several decades have changed the arc of financial prospects for the non-elite much faster than cultural expectations have adapted. > Even on minimum wage you can eat the best, healthy food there is No, you can't. On minimum wage you can't even afford minimal (as in, not so substandard as to be condemned and illegal for habitation) shelter in much of the country, much less shelter + “the best, healthy” unprepared food + food storage and prep equipment, or shelter + “the best, healthy” prepared food. > Infrastructure is just a whole country Disneyland. It's really not, you need to see more of the country if you think it is. (Unless by “Disneyland” you mean “glitzy facade that's hollow underneath”, which is closer to true, but even there much of the country lacks even the facade.) > Opportunities are higher than all of human history including the present combined. That's not even abstractly possible, much less true. > Schooling is free. But often absymally bad. > You can afford a good car for minimal monthly payments. Median used car price in the US is just under $20,000; median auto loan interest is 4.20% (for used cars probably higher, because the most credit-worthy people are more likely to buy new cars.) On a 60 month loan with zero down, that's 50+ hours at federal minimum wage to make the monthly payment. > You get pure drinking water, No, you don't, in many cases, though awareness of this (except for Flint, MI, which is not unique in its toxic lead levels though perhaps unique in the manner by which that occurred) is poor.
shellyhaddon234 8y ago
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116 points by Deinos 8y ago

s2g 8y ago

At some point is the media going to realize that most millenials are adults, and have been for a while?

electricslpnsld 8y ago
While many articles erroneously refer to 12 year olds as millennials, I don't think this article falls into the trap. They clearly define the age ranges they are bucketing into millennial at the outset and continue the analysis from there.
pembrook 8y ago
This article clearly recognizes millennials as adults.
allegedganon 8y ago
While true, it doesn't come naturally given how the average millennial manages his/her life :)

sunshinelackof 8y ago

>For some reason that period of tremendous growth barely helped millennials. I don't think it's just us, though it probably disproportionately is. What wealth small and medium towns had has moved to cities, you just won't have a good job unless you move to the city. Something about it all seems so sinister. Not everyone can be an engineer or a doctor. If society is to function people need to be able to live a reasonable life just being mildly productive.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago
In a world where the sum total of productive human labor potential is not needed to sustain the human population, we need to rethink social organization. We should want to encourage productivity improvements, but if people's self worth is tied to their labor, all we do is effectively remove people from society
thatfrenchguy 8y ago
Yeah and if you live in a city in the US and you don’t work in finance/tech/whatever high earning job, you’re forced out. Not so great either.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > if you live in a city in the US and you don’t work in finance/tech/whatever high earning job, you’re forced out I have friends in New York's service industry (bartenders, waiters, et cetera). Breaking in was tough. But once they established themselves, they began doing quite well. Economised with roommates; diligently saved; kept a tight budget and continuously applied to the affordable housing lotteries.
strict9 8y ago
This is why the red/blue election map broken down by county is so stark and shocking. I grew up in and still have friends/family in a rural area and there is no optimism for earning a decent living for most people. And this is a sunbelt state with explosive growth in its cities. Can't sympathize with their political views but I do sympathize with wanting to blow the system up and try something different. Things are going to go south real fast if/when the same trend of disappearing jobs starts happening in cities too.
- pm90 8y ago
  > Can't sympathize with their political views but I do sympathize with wanting to blow the system up and try something different. Things are going to go south real fast if/when the same trend of disappearing jobs starts happening in cities too. You shouldn't. They have the choice to pack up and find better jobs and opportunities. Not all city jobs are doctors and engineers; in fact the fastest growing job is wind turbine technicians. America has been through this before; the industrial revolution and then the Service sector industry led to mass migration from rural to Urban areas. And most younger Americans from smaller towns do end up doing just that. I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone that can condone; nigh constantly encourage the kind of cruelty that we see today from the GOP.
  - strict9 8y ago
    >have absolutely no sympathy for anyone that can condone; nigh constantly encourage the kind of cruelty that we see today from the GOP. Believe me, this is why I can't speak with some family/friends from back home. But packing up and moving doesn't boil down to will, cards are stacked against you when you live in a rural area with few opportunities (same is true for high crime neighborhoods in cities). It took me years to escape and it boiled down to getting lucky that I knew someone who left for a medium-sized city and was able to hitch a ride as a temporary roommate, got started waiting tables and taught myself programming at night/on weekends. It's incredibly difficuly to move to a city: unless you are something amazing, employers want local candidates. Landlords want you to have a job before giving you a lease. It's an awful chicken/egg problem that is insurmountable to most.
Gibbon1 8y ago
> If society is to function people need to be able to live a reasonable life just being mildly productive. One of my criticisms of neoliberal economics/politics is it doesn't consider stable meaningful jobs that your can support a family on as a necessary output of the economic system.
- sunshinelackof 8y ago
  I'm not an expert in any degree, but it seems that there are plenty of problems out there, just that the only ones being solved cater to investors and wealthy tech-workers. There's no money in improving infrastructure, returning good food to food deserts, teaching school children - or otherwise the things that most would probably agree suggest the success of the society at large. Very likely this is what stakeholder-profits-at-all-costs leads to.
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  Because it factors in the idea that people need to be incentivized to work. If people can free ride on something then they will. I am definitely in that group. If i can have a decent living on social welfare programs then i definitely would not work. Working sucks. I just hate the idea of working or satisfying customer's needs because it represents a master/slave type relationship.
  - sunshinelackof 8y ago
    At least how we organize work today, it sucks tremendously hard. Someone might pretend he likes it, but no one likes waking up at 6am, commuting both ways, and effectively losing half his day doing something he might not enjoy. There's no real reason most work needs to be like that either besides the momentum of the status-quo.

balls187 8y ago

I wonder if this is just the inevitable trend that all great societies move towards--adding social safety nets programs to lessen the impact that "luck" and "timing" having with individual success.

ianai 8y ago
My impression is that they move toward chaos. Rome used “bread and circuses” to keep the people occupied. Meanwhile power concentrated into the emperor. There’s probably no exact trend. But that golden eras are easier to identify.

dawhizkid 8y ago

This assumes basic income won't become law

sunshinelackof 8y ago
To me basic income seems like an incredibly -bourgeois- solution. Accepting it as a solution accepts that the current economic practices are not working for large swaths of the working-age population.
- Karrot_Kream 8y ago
  I don't think they are
yifanl 8y ago
I can't imagine a more grim scenario than whole populations being entirely reliant on government money. I'm not decided on where I sit on basic income yet, on the one hand, it might become a necessity as jobs vanish, but on the other hand, it consolidates a lot of power into a benevolent state, one which has not shown it's ability to stay benevolent.
- paulcole 8y ago
  I would love to have enough money for basic living necessities (healthy food, rent, utilities, clothing, healthcare) provided by the government. I'd never work again.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    That's a very honest answer and is also one that argues against such a system. I also wonder if you feel the same way about a true BI of maybe $10K per year plus the equivalent of Medicaid (very limited doctor network) in the US.
    - paulcole 8y ago
      At $10k/year I would move somewhere cheap in the midwest and use my savings to buy a home with cash. I require expensive prescriptions to live and if those were covered I'd be fine. If not, I'd stay put, continue to work for decent insurance, and just bank the $10k/year.

m52go 8y ago

It's a messed up world for a young adult, but it's also full of more _accessible_ potential than ever. If people would stop and make an honest assessment of their situation, why they're not where they want to be, commit to grinding until they get there, and actually DO IT...things would be better. Unfortunately it's become fashionable to point fingers, assign blame, and make a ruckus about being 'oppressed'. That may get you more Twitter followers, but it won't lead to economic betterment.

arcaster 8y ago
As a millennial, this is why my generation is pathetic. I'm not sure where I read this, but a quote that really resonates with me as a millennial who went out and found / fought for nearly all their opportunities "I love being a millennial, because it's so easy to be better than most of my generation".
- holografix 8y ago
  I’d invite that person to consider how much of her/his success is due to luck and I’d draw parallels with the peasant who working twice as much and providing more grain is allowed a bit more privilege. I’m all for meritocracy. But only if the game is fair.
  - ericd 8y ago
    It's more than a bit hyperbolic to compare our current economic setup with that of medieval serfdom. The difference in economic mobility is extreme. Yes, we have some issues we need to sort out - NIMBYs and zoning laws tamping down on new housing supply in cities, and a broken healthcare market are the largest ones. But it's dangerous to forget that the system we have is overall overwhelmingly better for most people than what came before the 1900s, let alone before the 1400s.
- test6554 8y ago
  As a millennial, I feel like if I were not in a technology field, I would be screwed. But as it stands, I bust my ass doing what I love, and society happens to value the work I love to do. It would be comforting for me to attribute my good fortune to being a badass or super talented, but I know that my chosen field is just highly valued. I know some people who have followed their dreams and it has led them straight into the poor house doing years of unpaid internships all for a job that is rare, but still only one or two steps above minimum wage. But I do think there's an attitude and professionalism problem. The term "funemployed", the way beards, tattoos, and casual drug use are coming back in style. The oversharing. And the fact that somehow the generation that grew up with computers still has way too many people on the wrong side of the digital divide.

acd 8y ago

Here is the thing central banks are printing exponential debt money from nothing. Most people from youth generations cannot afford to buy affordable houses priced with that debt.. You could even say younger people are exponential debt slaves working for the old and rich. Having kids myself I do not feel this system is fair.

daxorid 8y ago
Indeed. And the strange irony is that HN millenials will defend central banking, "inflation targets", and ZIRP vehemently. I don't understand it.
- pembrook 8y ago
  It sounds like you haven't read anything about history in the United States before modern central banking took hold. See section 2, the free banking era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit... With no central bank, our economy experienced regular depressions (worse than recessions--but lots of those too) and panics with unemployment fluctuating up to 20% during each of those times.
  - wycs 8y ago
    We also had pretty incredible productivity growth. Perhaps they are related. A sort of forest fire effect.
    - pembrook 8y ago
      I think you can attribute that less to a wildly volatile economy and more to the industrial revolution.
gruez 8y ago
>central banks are printing exponential debt money from nothing Source? Didn’t QE end a while ago?

wheremind 8y ago

It seems like this came to a head around the time of the occupy wall street protests (is it 10 years ago now?). The public consciousness became aware of the way our political/financial systems were in a kind of symbiotic conspiracy to vacuum up productivity gains, there was huge pressure to do something about it despite the media's constant stream of 'nothing to see here'..... and then nothing happened. The popular culture of the west instead decended into this en masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc. Seems like there was a huge opportunity that was foiled or just missed and this is possibly going to be the result of it.

jryan49 8y ago
The more we fight each other the less we are fighting "them".
- wheremind 8y ago
  Yes, it seems like classic divide and conquer strategy but I have no evidence for it. the idea has been kind of obsessing me a bit recently, I'd love to see someone that has actually looked into it and tried to compile a bit of data.
  - TAForObvReasons 8y ago
    This is a very old thought. Both LBJ and MLK understood this, at least in the context of racism as a tool to divide the lower and middle classes of society. You've probably heard this quote, attributed to LBJ: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
    - wheremind 8y ago
      I know, I'm wondering whether anyone's looked into it in the context of the occupy wall street movement. The popular consciousness was so strongly diverted at the point it began to threaten elite interests that it's at least noteworthy, yet I've never really seen it talked about much. It may just be an artifact of the rise of social media, although I'm not sure that the timelines really match up very well. I just want to see if anyone's really looked into it because I don't even know where to start with something like that, but it's been playing on my mind for a few months now.

milennialthrwy 8y ago

Here's my grim reality I'm just waking up to now as a millennial. Married with $100k in student loans between the two of us. Her first job out of college paid $30k with no benefits. No matter, I had the money making tech degree, we'd be fine. My first job out of college was $100k, so I didn't see a problem there. Three year later I'm facing mounting healthcare costs incurred even with top notch gold plated tech insurance. Most of my salary the last 3 years went to my landlord and the government. The remainder went to student loans and medical costs, so I don't have much in the way of savings even after earning $300k. And somehow I still owe $100k in student loans. And my $100k tech job didn't come with retirement benefits so I don't have any retirement savings yet. It did however come with a generous stock grant. But then again, the company folded and now I don't have a job or insurance. And now I'm a full time caregiver for my wife, with no health insurance, trying to get a job, with $100k in non-dischargable debt, looking to get on welfare, but at the same time reading about how our government wants to take even that away. So that's what I'm doing this weekend.

matthewwiese 8y ago
Although I am not in your position yet (a few years laggard) I feel echoes of your sentiment in my life already. Alas, all I have to offer is a measly upvote, the currency of Millennials' bright shining future.
bmer 8y ago
I don't understand. Why can't you apply for another job? It seems like if you were able to get one, you could get another, right? (Full disclosure: I am an unemployed millennial as well, and too naive to understand what's keeping you from getting another job. Hence the question.)
- medntech 8y ago
  They are a full-time care giver to their wife.
  - harryh 8y ago

apo 8y ago

It's surprising the article leaves out medical expenses. There's this one mention: The same 2017 survey found 27 percent skipping medical treatments because they can’t afford them. In the end, I suspect that medical costs driven to astronomical levels by retirees is what will do the most financial damage to millennials.

dv_dt 8y ago
Medical costs in the US are driven by the only healthcare system in the first-world that puts profit at the center instead of people.
- EADGBE 8y ago
  I'm sure the largest generation in retirement entering late-life doesn't help with the situation. Provides ripe opportunity for jacking up health care costs on age 50+ ailments/treatments.
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    It doesn't but other nations such as Japan have a much older shifted demographic and their costs are much better managed. All other first world nations have better cost and overall performance outcomes in their healthcare than the US. None of them allow private companies to dictate drug and procedure prices. The US dedicates 50% more of it's GDP to healthcare than Japan does, despite having more favorable demographics for need of services by age. (see fig 2 [1]) [1] https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Country-Note-JAPAN-OECD-Health-Statistics-2015.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Country-Note-JAPAN-O...
- thucydidesofusa 8y ago
  That doesn't seem entirely true. Costs are still elevated in not-for-profit care centers.
- wycs 8y ago
  I think full deregulation of healthcare would be superior to universal healthcare. But universal health care is clearly superior to American style almost fascistic corporate/government rent seeking.

allthenews 8y ago

I would argue that the wealth gap is symptomatic of a degeneration of culture and education in this country. I am in my late 20s, and even when I was graduating it was apparent that most students in my cohort simply were not leaving school with the skills to function as adults, let alone be productive members of society. Same in college, 18-21 year old children. And now these same children look desperately for others to blame, while in reality we have a growing proportion of incompetent workers performing increasingly meaningless tasks, walled away behind miles of red tape and a Goliath of bureaucracy. American popular culture places little value on education and self-improvement. The windfall that was WWII is dwindling, while other nations take steps to optimize the very parts of their labor pipeline that we in the U.S. neglect. Millennials are waking up to a decline that they are ill-equipped to reverse. Twitter, Facebook, et al. are only hastening the degradation of western culture, accelerating an existing, emergent glamorization of shallow materialism over knowledgeability and competence.

ianai 8y ago
The government could fully employ people in digging holes in the ground and filling them, alternately. But that’d be too shallow, so the machinations of government employ the many. The free market is built on ends - singular goods and services. But the living world is not. What dies or is consumed today feeds the survivors for tomorrow. A sparrow could never be reimbursed by a hawk for its life. But eventually the hawks raw materials rejoin the worlds supply and plays its part in supplying for more life. Life on earth takes energy from the sun or earth, ultimately - that’s the “end” that fuels all life. Humanity does itself the greatest disservice in defining goods and services as ends in themselves. Humanity ought to “close the loop” - find a way to survive and thrive through redefining how humanity works such that it obeys that the only end that the earth actually receives is energy from the sun or earth.
simonsarris 8y ago
You're getting downvoted, but your hunch is correct: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c9983692e0 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/higher-education-erodes-a7c... Students aren't leaving high school, nevermind college, with the skills that should be expected of them. A great dumbing down is in effect because we do not want to hurt feelings and want everyone to graduate, move on to the next level, etc.

fear91 8y ago

I believe there are some solutions to help alleviate the situation. Introduce land value tax. In the countries using it, stop the mandatory Ponzi scheme retirement pyramid where young people are forced to pay a sizeable part of their paycheck while having no hope of receiving any in 30-40 years - that's straight up, time-delayed stealing. Close the tax gaps used by corporations. Provide free healthcare so people don't get ruined by medical emergencies. Stop the student loan madness, provide free university education. Restrict mortgage lending - it makes the property prices baloon in the long run and encourages housing bubbles. Most importantly, start treating renewable energy and emissions seriously because we are destroying this planet with a speed with which we probably won't have to worry about economy after a few more generations. Unfortunately, all of those would require enormous political changes and are impossible to implement.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> all of those would require enormous political changes and are impossible to implement Because our generation doesn't vote [1]. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-...
- mattnewton 8y ago
  They also are clustered in coastal cities and votes there are worth less than votes elsewhere for reasons. I wonder how much of turnout downturn is just rational: If half my city didn’t vote it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference for the last national election. Probably wouldn’t have mattered if the whole city didn’t vote, because I live in coastal California.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > votes there are worth less than votes elsewhere for reasons 139 million Americans voted in 2016's general election [1]. Of that, 34 million were millennials, or 49% of millennial eligible voters [2]. 69% of Boomers voted [2]. If a similar fraction of millennials voted, we'd have had 48 million votes [a]. That would bring our share of the vote to 31% [b], the same as boomers [c]. Geographic effects act on the margins. Bringing 14 million additional voters to the polls will change outcomes and change legislative priorities regardless of how they are distributed. [1] http://www.electproject.org/2016g http://www.electproject.org/2016g [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-and-gen-xers-outvoted-boomers-and-older-generations-in-2016-election/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/31/millennials-... [a] (34 x 10^6 / 0.49) 0.69* [b] (48 x 10^6 - 34 x 10^6)/(48 x 10^6 - 34 x 10^6 + 139 x 10^6) [c] 48.1 x 10^6 / (48 x 10^6 - 34 x 10^6 + 139 x 10^6)

pembrook 8y ago

Somewhat ironic that this is being posted on Hackernews, where if I had to guess the average salary for millennials here is 3X the national average. Seems most of us here already found the answer: learn something about the fastest growing sector of the economy and participate in the future instead of lamenting the present. If you're waiting for government action to create a better distribution of wealth in the only developed country where poor people actually vote against a public safety net you're going to be disappointed. It's just not going to happen politically in the US for decades so your only option is to play ball in the system as it is now and vote in the meantime.

nothrabannosir 8y ago
> Seems most of us here already found the answer: learn something about the fastest growing sector of the economy and participate in the future instead of lamenting the present. That's so callous. Would you say the same if computers had turned out a dud, a fringe curiosity nothing more? If the fastest growing sector of the economy had instead turned out to be MMA cage fighting? Or perhaps you're physically inclined; imagine whatever it is you would be vigourously annoyed doing. Cobra wrestling. No-chute skydiving with plane re-entry. I really wonder about those parallel universes. About what the parallel you would have said, there, to the elite in their cobra wrestling ivory tower, lamenting those lazy plebs. They should just man up and start hitting the serpentine goldmine! Or was it, like, a reverse psychology point, where precisely by explicitly pointing out the absurdity of the only solution, you realise just how untenable our current predicament is?
- pembrook 8y ago
  If the fastest growing sector of our economy was cobra wrestling, I would be telling everybody that the solution to their economic woes would be to get involved in cobra wrestling. It's not callous, it's pretty simple logic. Complaining that you don't like how everything is changing into Cobra wrestling won't change the fact that it's happening. Even if you're physically not suited to cobra wrestling, there would many many tertiary jobs and functions needed to support that growing sector you could enter. Cobra wrestling promoter. Cobra wrestling trainer. Cobra wrestling gym manager. Cobra wrestling photographer. Cobra wrestling filmographer. Cobra wrestling transport. What would be your better solution for people? Try to get government to artificially support the no-longer needed computer workers so they can still pretend they make money from working on computers?

throwaway2016a 8y ago

Just waking up to it? I'm an older millennial 33 and I've been awake for a long time. My friends who didn't get PTSD in the war spent the first 8 years of our career in a recession so when the market grew had no money in the market to capitalize on that. And even as a healthy person with good health care and six figures in my bank I worry I can get wiped out by a medical emergency. I think it's more like: other people are finally realizing what millennials have been living with their entire adult life so far.

acconrad 8y ago

I feel like all of these "us vs them articles" (us = millennials, which I am one, and them = baby boomers, who are my parents age) are red herrings. Do you really believe that your mother/grandmother is the enemy here? My belief is that who you're actually imagining when you read this article is some fat-cat corporate executive in a suit and tie who is old enough to reap the largess of Reagonomics. They happen to be 60+, but in actuality, the distinguishing feature is that they're rich. My dad is a retired firefighter and Vietnam vet, and my mom is a executive admin. These are two people who should not be blamed for the cards the youth have been dealt. It's the Elite. The Controlling Class. Whatever you want to call it, they enacted policies some decades ago to benefit only them, and now they're reaping those rewards at a staggering pace. And they're quite happy that you have found someone else to blame besides them. Even the "Top 1% vs Us 99%ers" is the same kind of thing. They're happy your anger is centered at plastic surgeons and defense attorneys. The real wealth is in the 0.01%, the people who don't have to work (and haven't for generations) and want to keep it that way. As long as you are blaming someone else, they're safe and happy to keep pulling the strings on society. But I'm not going to take a cop-out excuse of blaming the grandmother down the street who has been living in the same 1800 sq ft home she bought with her husband and 3 kids in the 70s and hasn't ever update the decor in her kitchen.

RickJWagner 8y ago

Ha, ironic they chose a picture with an avocado in it. Seriously, the current age feels like the mid 80s. If that holds true, the millenials will be fine.

RickJWagner 8y ago

Single-paycheck family here. We've got the first of 3 kids in college now, 2 and 3 are not far behind. We hammer on scholarship preparation, hard. Our college boy works paid internships each summer. The kids are all in band, good for small scholarships at little effort. We are fine so far. Good luck to others on this path. Avoid the debt, it can be one.

kamaal 8y ago

Indian Millennial here. Lived in the US(for work) for around 4 years and returned to India. So I know a little about what I'm talking about. I am yet to understand why US millennials have all these troubles, or is it just perceived by them as such? Because frankly, comparatively speaking food is not expensive in the US. Even on minimum wage you can eat the best, healthy food there is. Infrastructure is just a whole country Disneyland. Opportunities are higher than all of human history including the present combined. Schooling is free. You can afford a good car for minimal monthly payments. You get pure drinking water, and more importantly unlike the third world countries, you get to breathe the purest air possible. Its not hard to exercise and maintain good health either. Gaining any skill or knowledge has never been more easier, than it is today. I understand if you had a unfortunate health complication beyond your control, or you are disabled at birth. But for healthy people, there isn't much you can complain about. Sorry for sounding rude here. This sounds a lot more like decadence, than any real problem.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Lived in the US(for work) for around 4 years and returned to India. So I know a little about what I'm talking about. The US is a huge country; living in it for 4 years for work — unless that work is, I dunno, leading a large cross-regional socioeconomic study — will leave you knowing pretty close to nothing about it related to the issues you discuss. > I am yet to understand why US millennials have all these troubles Because radical shifts in US tax policy over the past several decades have changed the arc of financial prospects for the non-elite much faster than cultural expectations have adapted. > Even on minimum wage you can eat the best, healthy food there is No, you can't. On minimum wage you can't even afford minimal (as in, not so substandard as to be condemned and illegal for habitation) shelter in much of the country, much less shelter + “the best, healthy” unprepared food + food storage and prep equipment, or shelter + “the best, healthy” prepared food. > Infrastructure is just a whole country Disneyland. It's really not, you need to see more of the country if you think it is. (Unless by “Disneyland” you mean “glitzy facade that's hollow underneath”, which is closer to true, but even there much of the country lacks even the facade.) > Opportunities are higher than all of human history including the present combined. That's not even abstractly possible, much less true. > Schooling is free. But often absymally bad. > You can afford a good car for minimal monthly payments. Median used car price in the US is just under $20,000; median auto loan interest is 4.20% (for used cars probably higher, because the most credit-worthy people are more likely to buy new cars.) On a 60 month loan with zero down, that's 50+ hours at federal minimum wage to make the monthly payment. > You get pure drinking water, No, you don't, in many cases, though awareness of this (except for Flint, MI, which is not unique in its toxic lead levels though perhaps unique in the manner by which that occurred) is poor.

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