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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: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday September 29 2021, @11:07PM (2 children)
Supply vs demand. There's a lot more people now. Technology has increased the supply for some things, but not others (in particular, space in areas many people want to live).
Citing minimum wage is not relevant. All minimum wage does is eliminate jobs which employers and employees want but fall below the arbitrary price cutoff. Minimum wage does have benefits in areas where a single job provider monopolizes the market and controls the price, but otherwise just interferes with the natural market.
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(Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 29 2021, @11:31PM
You can make whatever excuses or explanations you want for why all my points are true. But no matter how you slice it, if you're a young person today doing the same kind of work as your dad did when he was young, you're making less money doing it, and your fixed expenses for basic survival have increased, thus making your budget tighter or even not making ends meet at all.
And the minimum wage is one of several indicators of the wage decreases going on, along with median incomes, mean incomes, and other averages and aggregations.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @05:34AM
Even in places people don't want to live there are price controls in place through zoning and property maturity that keep prices exceedingly high. There's also property speculation out the wazoo, and this is especially apparent at the moment. On top of that you now have commercial enterprise purchasing housing to do AirBnB shit, Zillow buying housing, Blackrock bought a shitload of housing (undoubtedly speculative purchasing). All of this serves to press not only housing, but rents up, irrespective of real value. Meaning cost of living gets driven up. Add to inflation compounding that. Real compensation overall sees a net decrement for most people.
Free markets don't exist, they never have. Get it in your head - the system is as broken as Marxism.