SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
70% of Millennials Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck: Survey:
Millennials' wallets are rather skimpy.
Seventy percent of the generation said they're living paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey by PYMNTS and LendingClub, which analyzed economic data and census-balanced surveys of over 28,000 Americans. It found that about 54% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, but millennials had the biggest broke energy.
By contrast, 40% of baby boomers and seniors said they live paycheck to paycheck, the least of any generation. Living paycheck to paycheck reflects economic needs and wants just as much, if not more than, incomes or wealth levels, according to the report. Age and family status also factor in greatly. This explains why millennials, who turn ages 25 to 40 this year, are struggling.
[...] It doesn't help that millennials have faced one economic challenge after another since the oldest of them graduated into the dismal job market of the 2008 financial crisis. A dozen years later, many are still grappling with the lingering effects of The Great Recession, struggling to build wealth while trying to afford soaring costs for things like housing and healthcare and shouldering the lion's share of America's student-loan debt.
The pandemic threw yet another wrench into their plans by giving them their second recession and second housing crisis before the age of 40. The report acknowledges that the pandemic played a major role in that stretched thin feeling.
[...] It seems, then, that it's a combination of external economic circumstances, a precarious life stage, and some spending habits that are leaving millennials feeling strapped for cash.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday September 29 2021, @11:51AM (8 children)
Why restrain yourself? Your neighbor is a moron and finally got a healthy dose of reality check. Welcome to the real world of today, it's not the world of the 1950s.
(Score: 4, Informative) by EEMac on Wednesday September 29 2021, @02:11PM (2 children)
One of our (elderly, retired) neighbors told us how she started with a degree in chemistry. Right after she graduated, she happened to be in {random company} for unrelated reasons, chatted with the CEO-equivalent, and got hired as a computer programmer making 3x a living wage even though she'd barely worked with computers before.
I graduated with an engineering degree. The college held a job fair, usually had 40-60 companies eager to hire. NO companies bothered to show up that year. Resumes sent out just got "we're in a hiring freeze, sorry."
You try not to take this stuff personally . . .
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday September 30 2021, @12:30AM (1 child)
Like I said, I was insanely lucky with my career life. But I wouldn't expect this to be the norm, I would actually consider it akin to a lottery jackpot. How people who were similarly lucky can be blind to how hard it is for others is kinda weird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @10:01PM
His 'big break' was Intel in the 80s, who were hiring everyone they could for a few facility they were opening. He happened to graduate with an Associate's Degree, that just so happened to be in a skill they needed. He ended up getting unofficially scouted by 5-10 departments all trying to fill up positions so when the facility went online they could have 'full staffing'. He ended up spending 2 years burning through his savings renting in Silicon Valley to make sure he had that job when the other facility opened. Spent 15 years there before burning out with a tidy amount of stock options (which were then clipped by the dotcom crash and the sudden rise in health care costs... ~25k or more for a family of 4 by 2002 or so. Not including doctors visits, lab fees, etc which were 100-300 per visit.
He was also very much about 'working your way up by your own bootstraps' which worked out badly for me. I couldn't find anywhere that wanted to hire me as a teenager without a social 'in' (every kid who had a high school job knew someone who vouched for them, or a family member to get them an in) Then college was a combination of scheduling issues, nobody hiring, or everyone wanting employees who was a narc/corporate drone (I'd been advised not to let people have your SSN in the years prior to everyone demanding it due to identity theft concerns, slowly my values didn't match the reality of the job market, which wanted simpering toadies or ideologues for whatever kind of business it was. None of them were offering health benefits below 1-2 years with the company or working your way up to management level. Few offered more than a quarter increase in pay after a month or more, meaning switching jobs was a much faster way to pay increases than staying with a company (and these were formerly 'old' companies that used to have a good reputation, or franchisees thereof.) Some of these pay deficits have been remedied, some of the companies went out of business, and some are still crufting along at the bare minimums they can get away paying. But as for the millenials, of the ones I know the only ones with houses either recieved them from the premature death of parents, got lucky with an early 6 figure job, or barely managed to eke it out in thir 30s, between a six figure job and family assistance.
Me? I'm back living with my parents, may have a few out of town options once covid lifts, but otherwise am stuck working shit jobs because I never found that connect to get me in a good door (and the few attempts I had were all with persons or companies that were playing fast and loose with their legally required responsibilities, often dumping as much of that as they could on their bottom tier employees. I wasn't getting paid enough to keep rolling those dice, and being the quiet and 'dumb' looking type I heard enough or handled enough paperwork to know just how much better those places could have been paying their employees to shoulder that risk, but since they weren't, I just moved on until the jobs dried up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @10:26PM (4 children)
Staying on the good side of busybodies is usually a good idea so they don't decide to make you the target of their ill intent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @12:26AM
The entirety of the Republican party shows that to be a lie, being nice to busybodies doesn't help.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday September 30 2021, @12:35AM (2 children)
Sorry, putting up with idiots is what got us the flat earth morons and the covidiots. It's time we start smacking them down while they're still testing the waters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @06:53AM (1 child)
You've obviously never had a vengeful neighbor. They can do a lot more damage to you than the flat earth morons and the covidiots.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday September 30 2021, @02:50PM
I am the vengeful neighbor, you insensitive clod!
But no, I haven't. In the areas where I live, annoying busybodies get priced out pretty quickly.