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American greatness was long premised on the common assumption was that each generation would do better than previous one. That is being undermined for the emerging millennial generation.
The problems facing millennials include an economy where job growth has been largely in service and part-time employment, producing lower incomes; the Census bureau estimates they earn, even with a full-time job, $2,000 less in real dollars than the same age group made in 1980. More millennials, notes a recent White House report, face far longer period of unemployment and suffer low rates of labor participation. More than 20 percent of people 18 to 34 live in poverty, up from 14 percent in 1980.
They are also saddled with ever more college debt, with around half of students borrowing for their education during the 2013-14 school year, up from around 30 percent in the mid-1990s. All this at a time when the returns on education seem to be dropping: A millennial with both a college degree and college debt, according to a recent analysis of Federal Reserve data, earns about the same as a boomer without a degree did at the same age.
[...] Like medieval serfs in pre-industrial Europe, America's new generation, particularly in its alpha cities, seems increasingly destined to spend their lives paying off their overlords, and having little to show for it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday February 07 2017, @02:46PM
I know quite a few who managed to break the pattern. ... The difference I see is that the ones on the successful end tend to have solid long term planning capabilities, solid work ethics, and an ability to say: "No." No, they won't buy the newest shiny-shiny from BananaCorp. No, they won't buy a house just to say that they have one. ... I know this will sound to some like a sort of neo-retro appeal for old-fashioned values, but it's really not. If anything, we need to spend more time teaching ourselves...life skills.
Absolutely right. Lots of people malign the millennial generation for being entitled, for being snowflakes. It's not maligning them, though, when it's the truth. People are living at home a lot longer, refusing to take responsibility for their own lives. Work ethic? They've never held a job. Ability to say "no"? Why, when mom'n'pop pay for everything you want.
Of course, this behavior is enabled by those helicopter parents who never let their kid experience a disappointment, who cannot bear to let them grow up, so they deliberately fail to help their kids transition to adulthood.
To take an example: I have an acquaintence whose older son dropped out of college twice, changed majors repeatedly, and finally - in his late 20s - finished his undergraduate degree. He lived on his parents' pocketbook the whole time. A bit of time flipping hamburgers or stocking shelves would have shown him just why he might want to finish that degree. Or not, which would also have been fine; his choice. His parents enabling a decade of immature behavior? That was no service to anyone. Also: where was his self-respect? His parents are nearing retirement age, and someone spent a large part of what they should have saved towards retirement.
Anyway, there you are, in your late 20s: You've never held a job, never earned your own living, never filed taxes, never had to deal with insurance, organized a plumber for a leaky faucet, or any of the myriad other details of adult life. Really, it's bizarre. It's no wonder there is now such a thing as an "adulting school".
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @08:20PM
> People are living at home a lot longer, refusing to take responsibility for their own lives.
Actually laughing out loud here.
I know lots of people who are mortified about having moved back in with their family after college. But they don't have a choice, literally, since bankruptcy is out, their jobs barely cover student loan payments, food and transportation (yes they almost all work - I can think of one who's been unemployed for a year but that sucker got way too narrow of a degree), and poorhouses have been outlawed.
Where I live, mean housing costs exceed 40% of the mean take-home wage of all workers. That's almost half of all income in my city going into housing. For millennials not living at home I think I remember a newspaper claiming > 50% of take-home wages went to housing costs! In generations past this was dramatically lower. It's literally unbearable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @08:48PM
Right. Literally unbearable. Every single one of them tries to bear it, but literally can't. They hang themselves. Shoot themselves. Drown themselves. Every single one of them. Because literally, it is impossible to bear the strain. And that's the ones that just don't go completely, apeshit, bugfuck insane from it all.
It's a generational bloodletting on an epic scale!
Literally!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2017, @03:37AM
While some of the more idiotic ones may have suicided (you didn't apparently, so not literally all the idiots did). A lot of them literally moved back home with mum and dad, like literally for real, moved back home with mum and dad when they literally couldn't bear the cost any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2017, @03:59AM
So, this is kind of off-topic, but you're off on the idea of what "unbearable" means. It's not a synonym for "unaffordable".