7 ms·

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

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 massive student loan debt is sickening. The US is bleeding my generation dry. 0: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/11/millennials-largest-generation-us-labor-force/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/11/millennials... 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-versus-boomers-wealth-gap-2020-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-versus-boomers-w...

gelert 6y ago
That's true for the established wealthy (and generally white) population but the US is bolstered by strong birth rates in minority populations and among recent immigrants so it has a much healthier demographic future than somewhere like Japan.
- rayiner 6y ago
  You’re welcome!
lhorie 6y ago
> 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?
- ancientworldnow 6y ago
  Yes, but the disparity has been growing and the amount of wealth held by young adults is a much smaller percentage than previous generations had.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    Right, I'm not disputing that. I just think that pointing to the raw numbers might paint a misleading picture in the sense that the disparities aren't necessarily an ageist injustice, but rather that the gap increase might be better explained by factors like increasing amounts of student debt, bad minimum wage raise policies, etc - many of which are factors that are actionable at a government level.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  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.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  this! i have always thought so too. especially since quality of life has risen so much since..population has doubled globally in my lifetime and i have seen the world change...internet, smart phones, eradication or reduction of poverty, disease, illnesses, better health, more equality, all things hedonistic. the world is a better place. much much better place. i am grateful for every single day and i hope it becomes better. the previous generation did so much with so little. with current attitudes, i dont know how life would become better in the next hundred years. is the defeatism due to not ever having to 'truly' struggle? if people had given up after ww2(or after any of the world's catastrophes), where would we be now?
DeonPenny 6y ago
The millennial generation has made terrible decision egged on by the previous. No one needed all those degrees to begin with. Most are useless to the larger economy. That along with the choice to stay single longer has doomed this generation.
- danhak 6y ago
  The millennials also made the terrible decision to enter the workforce during the worst economic crisis in a generation. And then to continue working for stagnant wages while costs of housing and healthcare skyrocket.
  - artvark11 6y ago
    Millennials are forced by law to buy over priced healthcare that subsidizes the dying boomer generations. They are forced to pay into social security,but they will likely never see any of the returns.
- nickelcitymario 6y ago
  > egged on by the previous. This. All I heard growing up was "go to post-secondary." Zero concern for what the actual degree would be. Any degree would do. Now, I'm a big believer in education and post-secondary. 100%. The top earners across the board are more educated than the lower half. BUT: It depends on the degree. So many of my friends are still paying for degrees that went nowhere, and I'm in my mid-30s. I've got 4 kids and my message to them is to keep their options open, figure out what kind of work they want to do for the rest of their lives, and get the right education for that. If they want to be an engineer, fantastic. University it is. But so many degrees lead to poor job prospects or low wages that do not in any way justify the cost. It's crazy town. If the type of work you want to do doesn't pay especially well, that's fine. There's more to life than money. But don't go into debt over it.
- honkycat 6y ago
  I will say that I got a useful degree ( computer science ) from a university I could afford and have already paid off my debt. I mostly agree, I don't know what people were thinking what was going to happen when they majored in underwater basket weaving. I don't pretend know why people chose to go so deeply into debt. I do know a lot of smart people I respect made this decision, so it is more complicated than simply saying "screw the millennial." However: There is now a mess that is damaging our society. When there is a fire going on, one does not stand around pointing fingers trying to figure out who started the fire. We put the fire out and figure the rest out afterwards. Millenial student debt is stifling their ability to build wealth, participate in the economy, and damaging their quality of life to the point they choose not to have children. I think this is a problem worth solving.
petra 6y ago
So the economic situation in the US is not as amazing as it was before. So what ? Compared to the rest of the world, people in the US have it easy. Heck, in many places in the western world, people can't even afford to buy an apartment , which many in the US own or will own houses.
- salamimonger 6y ago
  I'd say people in other places have it way easier. They don't fear bankruptcy when considering whether or not to get a health checkup. They don't pay the majority of their wage to have a decent livingspace. They pay less for food and overall have less cost of living. Poor people in the third world can eat decent meals (and they don't even need to cook it themselves) for almost nothing compared to the US. What do our poor have access to? I guess dollar menus at fast food chains. So no, I don't think it's fair to say people in the US have it easy. You have it easy, and maybe the people around you do. But that means nothing to all the other people whose pain and suffering are invalidated by people like you just because they happened to be born on a piece of land that happens to be classified as "first world."
- westwing 6y ago
  Look at tax/insurance burden in all these developed and aging countries. Most of that money is going towards paying off the older generations, their ailments and their debt, and it's still not enough, debt just keeps growing. Then look at the tax/insurance burden of developing countries. Sure, these people earn nominally less, but they often live relatively better lives. They're living lives closer to what our boomer parents lived. Real estate prices are a distraction. These are high because interest rates are low. It's probably not a good idea to buy real estate even if you can afford it.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  People in Pakistan and afghanistan can legally be in debt bondage to their landlords. US citizens have it on easy mode.
- vcxy 6y ago
  You're definitely right, but it doesn't change that, at least from the inside, the parent comment seems to be accurately describing the cognitive dynamic. I'm married and in my 30s. We aren't planning to have kids, we have no assets, my wife still has student debt (epidemiology is a bad field if you plan to work in the public sector), and with my "good" insurance, I can't afford dental work that I need related to growing up in poverty. Despite this, we have super comfortable lives, as you say. We've jumped from trailer park, meth country poverty to truly living like we're in the middle class, something I think is way harder to do in other countries. But kids? No. That looks like a ticket right back to where we started.
artvark11 6y ago
No we won't. The only people not having kids is the educated class. There are plenty of poor minorities with many kids. Japan does not allow widespread immigration like the us does.
- paulpauper 6y ago
  exactly. go to any poor, inner-city neighborhood. lots of young people
eulers_secret 6y ago
Chiming in to say: This is me to a T! I cannot afford children (or, more accurately: I cannot give children the life I want to give them). Houses are far too expensive to even dream about, and uncertainty in continued employment incentivizes me to just save all the money I can while living as cheaply as humanly possible. It's not the best life, but at least I have some cash to fall back on when my at-will employment is terminated for no cause and I can't find a job for a couple years. Or maybe my carpal tunnel syndrome will drive me out of the (extremely competitive) job market. Either way, I'm not going to spend more money than I need to so I can have at least some semblance of "stability". And I sure as hell am not raising another generation of wage slaves. This terrible way of life ends with me.
jseliger 6y ago
The degree to which housing restrictions create costs that fall disproportionately on the young is also important: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21154 https://www.nber.org/papers/w21154 Using a spatial equilibrium model and data from 220 metropolitan areas we find that these constraints lowered aggregate US growth by more than 50% from 1964 to 2009. Most of the "income inequality" discourse in the U.S. is really a gloss on what should be housing discourse.
react_burger38 6y ago
> [we] have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1]. This is 100% true, especially compared to the home ownership rate of past generations at younger ages, 25-35. The home ownership rate among people 25-34 and 35-44 now is significantly lower than a few decades ago. [1]: https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-rate-us-housing-12961/ https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-rate-us-housin... (from 2016 so could be a bit different, but still relevant) [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeownership-eludes-millions-of-millennials-heres-why.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeownership-eludes-million...

gelert 6y ago

That's true for the established wealthy (and generally white) population but the US is bolstered by strong birth rates in minority populations and among recent immigrants so it has a much healthier demographic future than somewhere like Japan.

rayiner 6y ago
You’re welcome!

lhorie 6y ago

> 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?

ancientworldnow 6y ago
Yes, but the disparity has been growing and the amount of wealth held by young adults is a much smaller percentage than previous generations had.
- lhorie 6y ago
  Right, I'm not disputing that. I just think that pointing to the raw numbers might paint a misleading picture in the sense that the disparities aren't necessarily an ageist injustice, but rather that the gap increase might be better explained by factors like increasing amounts of student debt, bad minimum wage raise policies, etc - many of which are factors that are actionable at a government level.
Jtsummers 6y ago
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.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
this! i have always thought so too. especially since quality of life has risen so much since..population has doubled globally in my lifetime and i have seen the world change...internet, smart phones, eradication or reduction of poverty, disease, illnesses, better health, more equality, all things hedonistic. the world is a better place. much much better place. i am grateful for every single day and i hope it becomes better. the previous generation did so much with so little. with current attitudes, i dont know how life would become better in the next hundred years. is the defeatism due to not ever having to 'truly' struggle? if people had given up after ww2(or after any of the world's catastrophes), where would we be now?

DeonPenny 6y ago

The millennial generation has made terrible decision egged on by the previous. No one needed all those degrees to begin with. Most are useless to the larger economy. That along with the choice to stay single longer has doomed this generation.

danhak 6y ago
The millennials also made the terrible decision to enter the workforce during the worst economic crisis in a generation. And then to continue working for stagnant wages while costs of housing and healthcare skyrocket.
- artvark11 6y ago
  Millennials are forced by law to buy over priced healthcare that subsidizes the dying boomer generations. They are forced to pay into social security,but they will likely never see any of the returns.
nickelcitymario 6y ago
> egged on by the previous. This. All I heard growing up was "go to post-secondary." Zero concern for what the actual degree would be. Any degree would do. Now, I'm a big believer in education and post-secondary. 100%. The top earners across the board are more educated than the lower half. BUT: It depends on the degree. So many of my friends are still paying for degrees that went nowhere, and I'm in my mid-30s. I've got 4 kids and my message to them is to keep their options open, figure out what kind of work they want to do for the rest of their lives, and get the right education for that. If they want to be an engineer, fantastic. University it is. But so many degrees lead to poor job prospects or low wages that do not in any way justify the cost. It's crazy town. If the type of work you want to do doesn't pay especially well, that's fine. There's more to life than money. But don't go into debt over it.
honkycat 6y ago
I will say that I got a useful degree ( computer science ) from a university I could afford and have already paid off my debt. I mostly agree, I don't know what people were thinking what was going to happen when they majored in underwater basket weaving. I don't pretend know why people chose to go so deeply into debt. I do know a lot of smart people I respect made this decision, so it is more complicated than simply saying "screw the millennial." However: There is now a mess that is damaging our society. When there is a fire going on, one does not stand around pointing fingers trying to figure out who started the fire. We put the fire out and figure the rest out afterwards. Millenial student debt is stifling their ability to build wealth, participate in the economy, and damaging their quality of life to the point they choose not to have children. I think this is a problem worth solving.

petra 6y ago

So the economic situation in the US is not as amazing as it was before. So what ? Compared to the rest of the world, people in the US have it easy. Heck, in many places in the western world, people can't even afford to buy an apartment , which many in the US own or will own houses.

salamimonger 6y ago
I'd say people in other places have it way easier. They don't fear bankruptcy when considering whether or not to get a health checkup. They don't pay the majority of their wage to have a decent livingspace. They pay less for food and overall have less cost of living. Poor people in the third world can eat decent meals (and they don't even need to cook it themselves) for almost nothing compared to the US. What do our poor have access to? I guess dollar menus at fast food chains. So no, I don't think it's fair to say people in the US have it easy. You have it easy, and maybe the people around you do. But that means nothing to all the other people whose pain and suffering are invalidated by people like you just because they happened to be born on a piece of land that happens to be classified as "first world."
westwing 6y ago
Look at tax/insurance burden in all these developed and aging countries. Most of that money is going towards paying off the older generations, their ailments and their debt, and it's still not enough, debt just keeps growing. Then look at the tax/insurance burden of developing countries. Sure, these people earn nominally less, but they often live relatively better lives. They're living lives closer to what our boomer parents lived. Real estate prices are a distraction. These are high because interest rates are low. It's probably not a good idea to buy real estate even if you can afford it.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
People in Pakistan and afghanistan can legally be in debt bondage to their landlords. US citizens have it on easy mode.
vcxy 6y ago
You're definitely right, but it doesn't change that, at least from the inside, the parent comment seems to be accurately describing the cognitive dynamic. I'm married and in my 30s. We aren't planning to have kids, we have no assets, my wife still has student debt (epidemiology is a bad field if you plan to work in the public sector), and with my "good" insurance, I can't afford dental work that I need related to growing up in poverty. Despite this, we have super comfortable lives, as you say. We've jumped from trailer park, meth country poverty to truly living like we're in the middle class, something I think is way harder to do in other countries. But kids? No. That looks like a ticket right back to where we started.

artvark11 6y ago

No we won't. The only people not having kids is the educated class. There are plenty of poor minorities with many kids. Japan does not allow widespread immigration like the us does.

paulpauper 6y ago
exactly. go to any poor, inner-city neighborhood. lots of young people

eulers_secret 6y ago

Chiming in to say: This is me to a T! I cannot afford children (or, more accurately: I cannot give children the life I want to give them). Houses are far too expensive to even dream about, and uncertainty in continued employment incentivizes me to just save all the money I can while living as cheaply as humanly possible. It's not the best life, but at least I have some cash to fall back on when my at-will employment is terminated for no cause and I can't find a job for a couple years. Or maybe my carpal tunnel syndrome will drive me out of the (extremely competitive) job market. Either way, I'm not going to spend more money than I need to so I can have at least some semblance of "stability". And I sure as hell am not raising another generation of wage slaves. This terrible way of life ends with me.

jseliger 6y ago

The degree to which housing restrictions create costs that fall disproportionately on the young is also important: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21154 https://www.nber.org/papers/w21154 Using a spatial equilibrium model and data from 220 metropolitan areas we find that these constraints lowered aggregate US growth by more than 50% from 1964 to 2009. Most of the "income inequality" discourse in the U.S. is really a gloss on what should be housing discourse.

react_burger38 6y ago

> [we] have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1]. This is 100% true, especially compared to the home ownership rate of past generations at younger ages, 25-35. The home ownership rate among people 25-34 and 35-44 now is significantly lower than a few decades ago. [1]: https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-rate-us-housing-12961/ https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-rate-us-housin... (from 2016 so could be a bit different, but still relevant) [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeownership-eludes-millions-of-millennials-heres-why.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeownership-eludes-million...