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The World Socialist Web Site, publication of record of the ICFI (SEP), on May 24th released a report about the grim situation many millennials face:
The stock market is booming, and President Donald Trump is boasting at every turn that the unemployment rate is lower than it has been in five decades.
However, the working class, the vast majority of the population, is confronting an unprecedented social, economic, health and psychological crisis. The same processes that have produced vast sums of wealth for the ruling elite have left millions of workers on the brink of existence.
Perhaps no segment of the population reflects the devastating consequences of these processes so starkly as the generation of young people deemed the "millennials," those born roughly between the years 1981 and 1996. More than half the 72 million American millennials are now in their 30s, with the oldest turning 38 this year.
A recent exposé by the Wall Street Journal noted that millennials are "in worse financial shape than prior living generations and may not recover." The article, "Millennials Near Middle Age in Crisis," [paywalled] concludes by stating that people born in the 1980s are at risk of becoming "America's Lost generation."
Selected bullet points from the WSWS article:
- Millennials have taken on 300 percent more student debt than their parents' generation. [Source: The College Board, Trends in Student Aid 2013]
- By 2014, 48 percent of workers with bachelor's degrees are employed in jobs for which they're overqualified. [Source: Labor Economist Stephen Rose, published by Urban Institute.]
- The number of workers in the United States participating in the gig economy is expected to triple to 42 million workers by 2020, and 42 percent of those people are likely to be millennials. [Source: Freshbooks]
- Between 1978 and 2017, according to the EPI, CEO compensation rose in the US by 1,070 percent, while the typical worker's compensation over these 39 years rose by a mere 11.2 percent.
- In the 40 years leading up to the recession, rents increased at more than twice the rate of incomes. [Source: Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.]
- One in 5 millennials say they cannot afford routine healthcare expenses. Many of these millennials are uninsured because of the cost. An additional 26 percent say they can afford routine health-care costs, but only with difficulty. [Source: Harris Poll]
- Men and women in their thirties are marrying at rates below every other generation on record. [Source: The Atlantic, "The Death (and Life) of Marriage in America"]
- It is predicted that most millennials will not be able to retire until age 75. [Source: NerdWallet analysis of federal data]
The report concludes, "Far from becoming the 'Lost Generation' predicted by the Wall Street Journal, this generation of workers carries within it an enormous source of revolutionary potential."
[Ed. Note. I debated whether or not to run this story given the partisan source for the article, but the list of references suggested it was more than a simple opinion piece. So, are things really as grim as portrayed here? I'm too old to be a millennial, but have both personally experienced as well as witnessed many others facing the same trends listed here. Where do things go from here?]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday May 27 2019, @10:06PM (6 children)
You misunderstand my point.
It's not about specific people or corporations. It's about the macroeconomic impact of wealth concentration.
Spreading it around will still allow the rich to be plenty rich, and will create a more vibrant, robust and resilient economy.
And that ain't socialism, it's Econ 101.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 27 2019, @11:38PM (5 children)
There isn't one. Or rather the impact is a null op for the top end to increase faster in wealth than everyone below them. And rest assured we are all steadily increasing in wealth. Is it creating the optimal ratio of wealth distribution across the population for economic growth? Almost certainly not. It's not harming anyone either though. This is why I can say with complete conviction that anyone espousing wealth redistribution is getting their avarice on (econ geeks aside).
There may well indeed be a moving sweet spot for the economic prosperity of a nation but as of yet nobody has found a way to track it nor made a convincing argument as to why we should aim for it over aiming for individual liberty.
Now a lot of redistribution types like to say that we're losing wealth from inflation but this simply isn't true. There absolutely are specific sectors that inflation is out of control in. And trying to tweak the entire economy to keep up with a broken industry is the worst possible way to go about fixing things short of nationalization. You only need to, and only should, fix the specific industries that need addressing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:17AM (3 children)
You can track economic prosperity when you know the export/Import and how the internal economy is doing. If all of this is balanced, you don't need to wonder about inflation since you can keep it stable.
I think the problem is more related to "free trade", which is a weasel word for "no tariff". If you have for example a 50$ phone that is then sold 1000$, you know that 950$ profit is made on it, and where those 950$ be reinvested? Mostly where they are manufactured and where the components are made. Which means barely anything is done for the country where it is mainly sold.
That's just an example but you can imagine that if all production is off-shored to somewhere else, then where does the population that it is sold to get their money? If not from manufacturing, or other jobs?
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 28 2019, @02:15AM
Drastic change of subject aside...
That you need to ask tells me you really, really do not understand money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @08:49AM (1 child)
Service based economy. Aka a huge circle of hairdressers, each one cutting the hair of the guy in front of him.
What's so hard to understand? You'll tell me next you don't believe in trickle down economy either?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 28 2019, @10:25AM
You don't either, apparently.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @03:39AM
wealth concentration is unavoidable.
Compared to the living standards of the early 19th century, it would take close to 400 slaves PER HOUSEHOLD to produce everything that we consume today. (I did the math myself as part of an economics degree). In other words, we are all rich. So what's the problem? It's this -- percentages.
Society/civilization is a lot like a super-organism. It's a well known metaphor. Some cells (heart, brain, etc.) get more resources than others (bone, bowels, skin...) But what happens in an organism when a small group of cells takes too many resources for themselves, and away from the greater organism? It's called a cancer, and it is usually fatal.
Today the richest 1% has a monumentally larger fraction of the total wealth than the rich did in the 19th century or any other period of human history prior to 1950. People, we have a cancer. You know what to do. It has to be cut out. I know, I know, it's going to be painful. It's a violent thing to do. But it's the only way our civilization will survive.
But if it doesn't survive, all is not lost. Our dystopian future will eventually grow a new civilization out of the scraps and pieces. As the bible says, the meek shall inherit the Earth... In other words, those 1%'er rich people are going to die one way or another. Don't fret about how it happens.
Fortunately, I'm pretty old. I'll probably miss all the fun. Good luck out there.