Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1) Cars costs 10-20 times 1970 prices.
2) Homes costs 10-20 times 1970 prices
3) Car insurance costs 10-20 times 1970 prices
4) Home insurance costs 10-20 times 1970 prices
5) Car maintenance costs 10-20 times 1970 prices (major items - transmission rebuilds etc)
6) Property taxes are 10-20 times 1970 prices
7) Appliances last a fraction of what they used to last
8) Smartphone service costs 10-20 times 1970 landline costs. Smartphones last "2-3" years according to the rep.
9) Internet was not a virtual requirement in 1970. Add printers, paper, ink, computers, batteries, software, maintenance/replacement espenses.
10) Television service was free, programming quality was much higher. Cable/satellite service is at least $50 if you want much more than the shopping channels....where I live anyway.
11) 200 pound human consumes more food than a 170 pound human
12) Being thrifty is sneered at in a disposable society
13) Medical care costs 20-100 times more than 1970 prices
14) Medical insurance costs 20-100 times more than 1970 prices
15) Over the past ten years, gasoline has averaged 10-15 times more than 1970 prices.
16) Car batteries costs 5-10 times more than 1970 prices
17) Car tires costs 5-10 times more than 1970 prices
18) Minimum wage is 4.53 times more than 1970 wages
19) Entertainment expenses are 5-20 times more than 1970 prices. Sporting events, concerts, ski ticket, movies etc.
20) Clothing children costs 10-20 times 1970 prices unless the kids can handle being sneered at.
21) If you want to keep what you have, add ~$50/mt for security system bills. Thieves can buy lock picking tools on the internet.
22) We are supporting a million government Thought Cops who, among other things, keep diligent tabs on our angst. Government agents make six figure incomes with increasingly rare benefits.
23) We have militarized many government agencies and local police forces. $WAT teams are expensive...for example.
24) 70,000 pages of laws is a huge administrative expense. Keeping 25% of the worlds prisoners with 3% of the worlds population is expensive
25) 70,000 page tax code is a huge administrative expense. For both the public and the government.
26) So many things have a high tech electrical board built in. Look at it wrong? Pop...fizzle...smoke. "Not built to repair."
27) Things are simply not built to last. The money is spent on packaging and marketing.
28) $20/hr manufacturing jobs have been replaced by $10/hr service jobs.
29) Petrochemicals/psychotropics are exceedingly expensive. Many of our doctors have become pill pushers
30) High tech items are obsolete within a few years. For example, a professional camera used to last for decades. When I was a professional, I was buying a new camera plus grip and flash almost every year.
31) Advertising expenses are up. Used to be that a yellow page ad would do it for most. Now we have multiple yellow pages. Enter the web site with many accompanying expenses.
32) Shipping expenses are 10-20 times 1970 prices
33) Millions of illegal aliens mysteriously receiving better government benefits than our veterans is expensive
I am sure people will choose to quibble the figures and point out various community and personal variances. I am also sure that I overlooked many of the reasons that so many people are broke.
America and its people have been sold down the river in order to benefit an elite few. The millionaire has been replaced by the billionaire. The super rich often don't make money as much as they take money. Now they take 1,000 times more.
Many of your "facts" aren't based in fact. Also a lot of your gripes seem to be based on not having access to the discretionary goods. Anyone who sees non essentials as essentials and doesn't have the $ to pay for them will dig their own financial grave. I grew up in the 70's. Was basically broke until my 30's. I'm doing fine now but there were long stretches where I did without what I wanted. Maybe the advantage in growing up when I did was that society didn't care if I felt special and the adults around me didn't ever make me think I should get something just because I wanted it.
1) New cars might, don't buy a new car. Or take the bus.
2) Incorrect. According to the US Census the average cost of a new home in 1976 was $48,000. The average cost in 2010 was $272,900 (most recent year I saw in a quick search).
3) 4) 5) Do you have a source or are you just making these numbers up? Despite what you see on YouTube, just saying something doesn't make it true.
6) Not sure if your numbers are right but no argument from me that taxes are too high.
7) My appliances are all over 12 years old and going strong. How long do you think things used to last?
8) Odd that you would compare the cost of different items. A computer costs more than a pen and paper used to, so what? Don't have a smartphone if you can't afford one.
9) Which government agency or employer is requiring you have your own computer?
10) Free tv is still available.
11) If a person would have weighed 170 in the 70's they don't have to weigh 200 lbs now just because it is 2016. You are saying millennials are disadvantaged because it is more expensive to be fat?
12) Why do you care if people "sneer" at you?
13) 14) Maybe so, we didn't have insurance when I was a kid. That was a problem a couple of times.
15) This isn't even remotely true. Gas was $.60 a gallon in 1976. 20x that amount is $12.
16) 17) Haven't price compared the decades for batteries and tires.
18) I earned minimum wage as a teenager. Goal was to get a better job or start a business.
19) Oh no, the right to ski and watch movies is being eroded. Go for a run, take a walk, read a book (from the library).
20) Again with the sneering, a lot of snared up faces where you live? I was a "poor" kid, it toughens you up. I have also been to places where people are really poor. Buying stuff at Goodwill is not a reason a kid will be broke at 60.
21) Now a security system is a need? If a person can't afford anything what is there to steal?
22) Govt does spend too much but taxes have been much higher in the past despite current efforts of the govt to keep track of your "angst".
23) People can't succeed because of swat teams?
24) Go ahead and let everyone out of prison, just expect your security system bill to go up. Also plan for more swat teams trying to protect that smartphone and those skis you cherish so much.
25) Hey we agree on one.
26) Sure.
27) Sort of repeating #7 and #26.
28) Fair point, manufacturing jobs are no longer a path to long term success for many. Time to adapt because the old jobs aren't coming back. Not much future in being a blacksmith anymore either.
29) You could always revert back to the 70's model where peopled died of their chronic conditions at earlier ages. No need for pills and less retirement savings necessary.
30) Job expense is one thing, otherwise your camera should last a while. If not, people can live without cameras.
31) Yes, the lament of many broke 60 year olds. The price of a yellow page ad.
32) Perhaps the second biggest retirement obstacle, the price of shipping. I see you reintroduced the 10-20 time higher benchmark.
33) We had major storms where I am. Guess who was up on every roof working, rather than collecting welfare. Though you are right, there are govt program abuses, including welfare, that need to be addressed. Still immigrants, legal or not, are not stopping any young person being the track to success.
When I started to type I was going to end with a suck it up and stop whining kind of messages. As I got into the last 3rd of your post I started to think you are probably being sarcastic. I haven't read most of this thread and I don't know if you are for real. So either "suck it up" or good job pointing out the absurdity of the defeatist attitude so much of our country has developed.
Many of your "facts" aren't based in fact. Also a lot of your gripes seem to be based on not having access to the discretionary goods. Anyone who sees non essentials as essentials and doesn't have the $ to pay for them will dig their own financial grave.
Griping about things hidden in the shadows and making up reasons to account for why a person has been self-defeated, seems to be the personality of some posters.
Quote:
... When I started to type I was going to end with a suck it up and stop whining kind of messages. As I got into the last 3rd of your post I started to think you are probably being sarcastic. I haven't read most of this thread and I don't know if you are for real. So either "suck it up" or good job pointing out the absurdity of the defeatist attitude so much of our country has developed.
Defeatist does seem to sum up the attitude being addressed.
When a person convinces himself that he is defeated, then all manner of success that follows will never change his mind from being defeated.
I didn't say that lol, but it's going to be a much larger percentage of this going forward based on my analysis.
Then tell you what, you have the floor. What are some solutions that you have to the issues that people like myself and others who share my analysis, have laid out in this thread? I'm talking real solutions and recommendations, not "advice" along the lines of "think more positive".
We have serious structural issues going forward like we've never had before in modern history. It's why this election season has been so special, because both sides of the spectrum are coming out in relation to these structural issues. One side supports Bernie and the other supports Trump, but they are both attacking the same structural issues.
The only "real solution" is the one you make for yourself. You are asking me to analyze the individual aptitudes of an entire generation of Americans, most of whom I have never met? Surprisingly, no, I am not able to do that.
I will say that if a person decides to sit back and wait for the government to find "real solutions" for them, they will be sitting back and waiting a long, long time.
All things are not equal. If we were to ignore health care costs, education costs, housing costs & technological changes to the economy faster than we can comprehend, it would be equal. When the job market may eliminate whole sectors of jobs and create whole new ones in 10 years, how can a young person prepare? Their parents' experience is not particularly relevant. How could the parents of someone who graduated in 1999 have given the advice to their kid "in 10 years there will be jobs like 'director of social media' and you should prepare for that"??
There was just a study today confirming what we suspected - that student loans delay family formation and major purchases like a house. In fact, for every 10,000 in student debt the person is about 4% less likely to get married within 7 years after graduation. That is a FACT and we see later and later first marriage ages now. That means there IS a problem.
There are historical forces against millennials. They are not completely unique; people have gone through it before, but they ARE beyond living memory for most. Historians are actually studying this, I saw an op-ed by a history professor in the NYT that compared what students say today to what letters/diaries from young people in the 1880s to 1900s said. The pace of technological change and its affects on the economy are similar to then. That's 100-135 years ago and no one is alive that remembers it. But the letters were along the lines of "oh why didn't I learn something useful and my parents are no help & don't understand!" Shockingly similar to what millennials say.
The parents and grandparents of that generation didn't understand why their kids could not replicate their success which was going west, acquiring land & farming. Technology had made that path obsolete & done so practically overnight which the parents had trouble wrapping their mind around. Today's elder generations also seem a bit confused. My father in law has been with the same company about 30 years. He thinks the problem with young people is that they don't have any loyalty.
All things are not equal. If we were to ignore health care costs, education costs, housing costs & technological changes to the economy faster than we can comprehend, it would be equal. When the job market may eliminate whole sectors of jobs and create whole new ones in 10 years, how can a young person prepare? Their parents' experience is not particularly relevant. How could the parents of someone who graduated in 1999 have given the advice to their kid "in 10 years there will be jobs like 'director of social media' and you should prepare for that"??
There was just a study today confirming what we suspected - that student loans delay family formation and major purchases like a house. In fact, for every 10,000 in student debt the person is about 4% less likely to get married within 7 years after graduation. That is a FACT and we see later and later first marriage ages now. That means there IS a problem.
Marriage being pushed until later doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem. It could mean a number of things. One of them being we saw that our parents tended to get married young and their generation has the highest divorce rates in our nation's history. There is also tons of research that shows that people that get married in their late 20s and early 30s are more likely to stay married.
Finally, marriage itself isn't as important to millennials as it is/was to our parents generation. We don't need the govt. or church to validate our relationships.
Marriage being pushed until later doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem. It could mean a number of things. One of them being we saw that our parents tended to get married young and their generation has the highest divorce rates in our nation's history. There is also tons of research that shows that people that get married in their late 20s and early 30s are more likely to stay married.
Finally, marriage itself isn't as important to millennials as it is/was to our parents generation. We don't need the govt. or church to validate our relationships.
This. By the numbers people are getting married later, having children later if at all and having less children. The more categories you hit from above the more likely it is that you have post high school education and the more educated the greater the tendency to to delay. I don't think it's because of a sole monetary issue but rather a shift in what people want
All things are not equal. If we were to ignore health care costs, education costs, housing costs & technological changes to the economy faster than we can comprehend, it would be equal. When the job market may eliminate whole sectors of jobs and create whole new ones in 10 years, how can a young person prepare? Their parents' experience is not particularly relevant. How could the parents of someone who graduated in 1999 have given the advice to their kid "in 10 years there will be jobs like 'director of social media' and you should prepare for that"??
There was just a study today confirming what we suspected - that student loans delay family formation and major purchases like a house. In fact, for every 10,000 in student debt the person is about 4% less likely to get married within 7 years after graduation. That is a FACT and we see later and later first marriage ages now. That means there IS a problem.
There are historical forces against millennials. They are not completely unique; people have gone through it before, but they ARE beyond living memory for most. Historians are actually studying this, I saw an op-ed by a history professor in the NYT that compared what students say today to what letters/diaries from young people in the 1880s to 1900s said. The pace of technological change and its affects on the economy are similar to then. That's 100-135 years ago and no one is alive that remembers it. But the letters were along the lines of "oh why didn't I learn something useful and my parents are no help & don't understand!" Shockingly similar to what millennials say.
The parents and grandparents of that generation didn't understand why their kids could not replicate their success which was going west, acquiring land & farming. Technology had made that path obsolete & done so practically overnight which the parents had trouble wrapping their mind around. Today's elder generations also seem a bit confused. My father in law has been with the same company about 30 years. He thinks the problem with young people is that they don't have any loyalty.
Citations please.
I entered the workforce when there was double-digit unemployment higher than at the peak of the Great Recession, double-digit inflation, and extremely high unemployment among 20-somethings. Cry me a river. Lots of generations have had challenges. I had, inflation-adjusted, $40,000 in student debt when I graduated from college. I did what anybody does. I paid it off. The difference is that I didn't major in Sociology, Art History, or that pre-law our perpetual whiner poster had as his undergrad major. I busted my tail and had Electrical Engineering and Computer Science degrees with Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. I got a job when most people I know didn't. My friends were all gathered around the keg or smoking bongs and I had to study. I don't see any difference between that and today. Nobody owes you a 6-figure job. You have to earn it and provide enough value to be worth a 6-figure salary.
The outcome for the Millennials is going to be roughly the same as the late-Boomers. 70th percentile household net worth is going to be $350K just like it is for the late-Boomers. The top 10% will do great. Professionals. Corporate execs. Successful small business people. The next 10% will be comfortably middle/upper middle class and retire well. The late-Boomers other than public sector workers don't have pensions. The Millennials will be similar except fewer public sector workers will have very good pensions. That's only 10% of the labor force so it doesn't impact the big picture very much. The bottom half of the late-Boomers are hosed. No savings. No pension. The minute they can't work, they're barely getting by on a Social Security check. I don't see the outcome for the bottom half of the Millennials being any different. The difference is the Millennials are huge on social networking so there is this groundswell of complaints about their horrible plight and how it is so much worse than any other generation. Nope. From where I sit, the outcome will be nearly identical to what the late-Boomers face.
Marriage being pushed until later doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem. It could mean a number of things. One of them being we saw that our parents tended to get married young and their generation has the highest divorce rates in our nation's history. There is also tons of research that shows that people that get married in their late 20s and early 30s are more likely to stay married.
Finally, marriage itself isn't as important to millennials as it is/was to our parents generation. We don't need the govt. or church to validate our relationships.
But the study specifically asked why they were putting off marriage. Student loans were the reason, not that they wanted to get married later.
I can't find the study they were talking about on the radio program I heard this morning, but it was something like this:
I entered the workforce when there was double-digit unemployment higher than at the peak of the Great Recession, double-digit inflation, and extremely high unemployment among 20-somethings. Cry me a river. Lots of generations have had challenges. I had, inflation-adjusted, $40,000 in student debt when I graduated from college. I did what anybody does. I paid it off. The difference is that I didn't major in Sociology, Art History, or that pre-law our perpetual whiner poster had as his undergrad major. I busted my tail and had Electrical Engineering and Computer Science degrees with Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. I got a job when most people I know didn't. My friends were all gathered around the keg or smoking bongs and I had to study. I don't see any difference between that and today. Nobody owes you a 6-figure job. You have to earn it and provide enough value to be worth a 6-figure salary.
The outcome for the Millennials is going to be roughly the same as the late-Boomers. 70th percentile household net worth is going to be $350K just like it is for the late-Boomers. The top 10% will do great. Professionals. Corporate execs. Successful small business people. The next 10% will be comfortably middle/upper middle class and retire well. The late-Boomers other than public sector workers don't have pensions. The Millennials will be similar except fewer public sector workers will have very good pensions. That's only 10% of the labor force so it doesn't impact the big picture very much. The bottom half of the late-Boomers are hosed. No savings. No pension. The minute they can't work, they're barely getting by on a Social Security check. I don't see the outcome for the bottom half of the Millennials being any different. The difference is the Millennials are huge on social networking so there is this groundswell of complaints about their horrible plight and how it is so much worse than any other generation. Nope. From where I sit, the outcome will be nearly identical to what the late-Boomers face.
But it recovered faster. Every recession since the early 1980s one has taken longer to recover from relative to their depth.
And millennials are not majoring in art history. Hardly anyone majors in that. The "studies" degrees were an outgrowth of the 1960s. They peaked in 1980. 1980! At the rate we're going we won't have anyone studying humanities in another 20 years.
Quote:
As a percentage of all bachelor’s degrees, the core humanities disciplines fell to their lowest recorded level, 6.1%, in 2014 (reliable data extend back to 1948; Indicator II-1aa). As recently as the early 1990s, the share for the core humanities was over 8.0%, with the highest postwar level being 17.2% in 1967.
Back in the good ol' days a lot more people, proportionally, studied the arts & humanities. They're studying that stuff less than ever before in the arms race to be marketable.
No, it's different. You can try to act like it''s not. It "felt" just as bad if not worse when you were young and we all have some confirmation and survivorship bias. But the situation is actually different. But may you accept the political consequence of that if you don't think so. Bernie Sanders is just the tip of the iceberg if the status quo continues.
Don't even get me started on health care or housing which is no way a better situation now vs. then.
There are some things that are better today than then. But on balance I'd say the overall situation is worse, either a little worse or a lot worse depending on your perspective and priorities. That's despite some cool advantages that technology has brought.
... We don't need the govt. or church to validate our relationships.
We never have.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
