Millennials the new poor in the USA, while seniors are the new rich - Is there any hope for those 18-34? (loan, insurance)

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

What I hear from a lot of millenials is that they don't really want what their parents had. I know of a few couples in their 20's, they're perfectly happy living in their downtown urban apartment. No house, no corporate job = no responsibilities and suburbs are boring (according to them). Plus they get to do with what they really want (psychologists and one works with deaf people).

Maybe millenial underachievement is often by choice? It seems to me to be.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Originally Posted by scottkuzminski

Again, its the lack of opportunities to save for the younger generations......when they retire they will rely entirely on whatever social security is available at that point.....at least the older folks had a chance to save, and many did...

To put it bluntly, when the current seniors were saving, jobs were not outsourced enmasse like now, and you could raise a family on a living wage that was not too hard to come by. That is NOT the case now, and will have huge repercussions on the american economy for years to come, as China takes our lunch.

I cannot even imagine the lifestyle millennials will have when THEY retire......if they ever can....

They will enter retirement with ZERO saved.......at least todays retirees have some savings, some have much, so much that they, as I mentioned, are the wealthiest age co-hort of all......

That will hardly be the case with the millennials.....whatsoever..

Well millennials will have another whiny "impoverished" generation to wait on them won't they?

[kanhawk]

I am in my 50s and have a lot more wealth and live more comfortably than I did in my 20s. In fact, when I was in my 20s I didn't have much more than rent money and enough to get me some tuna and mac and cheese at the store. I often was on the edge of being homeless and I sure never blamed the older generation for it.
Is there any hope? Yeah quit whining and work your way up like most everyone else from every other generation has done.
Oh, and stop voting for stupid politicians who couldn't run a lemonade stand much less a national economy simply because they give you "hope".

[scottkuzminski]

That all being said, does anyone believe the offshoring/outsourcing of living wage jobs, and the fact that the majority of new jobs being in low-paying ones such as retail, have any effect on the generation coming up?

I think that morally accusing them of being collectively slackers is facetious....does not address the issue....

This is a structural issue.....those jobs are not coming back.....even the skilled jobs are migrating out.....

Can't create a vibrant economy surfing the web for hours or checking your apps....That's essentially what the Millennials have to look forward to..... a lifetime of surfing the web and
checking out phone apps, as the viable living-wage jobs are outsourced. Some, of course, will manage, but most will struggle for their entire lifetimes...

Call them the lost generation.....

We have just sold and outsourced the US economy enmasse, and sold out an entire generation.....along with entire metro areas.....

I expect all replies, in the nature of counterpoints, to be against this, but this truly is the world we live in now.....

We outsourced our entire economy, largely to the Chinese, made our bed, sold out an entire generation, and now can do nothing but live and sleep in it(that bed)....

Sweet Dreams..

[Free-R]

Originally Posted by scottkuzminski

Per article...

Here is where the repercussions kick in. The wealthy seniors in our topsy-turvy world will die off eventually, and leave the money to the boomers. The boomers will spend it all, as they are struggling as well, and health care will siphon the rest.......the Millennials are going to be left with nothing per wealth passed on, zero, with no way to gather it for themselves in volume career-wise.

This will for all intents mark the end of the housing market.

I actually believe this has already happened (from late-'90s to2007ish), and it is the reason for why the economy was uncharacteristically strong in the face of what was actually going on on the world stage. Market forces were telling you that things were not going to be the same, so the last wash-out was the Boomers getting their inheritance money and either blowing it, investing it in vehicles were it's not easy to withdraw the money, or spending a lot of it on an upgraded house. Some of these may not have worked out so well.

[Nepenthe]

I think you touched a nerve!!

I agree it's a huge problem that we are now confronting. I don't know where it all leads. I don't know what the answer is. A lot of folks seem to think there's nothing new under the sun, or that American exceptionalism will see us through, or that it's just the same old progress and generational grumbling and hitches. Or, they just don't care and want those dam n kids off their lawns.

I hate it for my brother who is 13 years younger than me, and for my niece and nephew. My plan is to get out before my job / career is sent elsewhere or able to be done by an AI. Retiring at age 50 (ten years).

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Yeah but I've heard it all before. I graduated in the early 1990's when the Japanese were the bad guys, figured we'd all be working in McDonalds by now (me included). No, I have an excellent job and most people I know do. Capitalism finds new problems, new markets, new solutions. And new jobs are created all the time. It's worked out in the past every time.

Like I said, I don't care how much gets outsourced, as long as humans have problems to solve, then we will have employment. The problems we have are indeed structural, but more along the lines of not getting enough capital to small businesses and such. As well as government policies that are unfriendly to new businesses.

[scottkuzminski]

Originally Posted by Free-R

I actually believe this has already happened (from late-'90s to2007ish), and it is the reason for why the economy was uncharacteristically strong in the face of what was actually going on on the world stage. Market forces were telling you that things were not going to be the same, so the last wash-out was the Boomers getting their inheritance money and either blowing it, or spending a lot of it on an upgrading house.

Brilliant point....

Coagulated money looking for someplace to go, with Foreign buyers looking for easy money(tranched mortgages)......

To extend your point, imagine it happening again.....Another bust....the next one could be venture capital chasing ridiculous valuations with all that collective saved money, ala the What'sAPP 19 Billion fiasco purchase.

However, all that money seniors are holding will never be inherited, as they will collectively outlive it. What they do not outlive, the medical sector and gov't will take. It will never circulate enough to jumpstart the economy, and there will never be enough savings by the millennials, or those coming after them, for the US to invest in themselves....At that point, we become a third-world nation, and depend on FDI injections, like any other third-world country, and sell off anything of value(largely happening now as Asians buy US real estate)..

At a point, all we would have left is core resources like oil/gas, land, agriculture, and perhaps freshwater(and cheap labor)......That would be the point where there is not even derivative financial tertiary money to be made in our large cities anymore, like there at least is now.....

A nation is only as good as its savings....when it cannot any longer save, it dies......it cannot regenerate itself anymore.....

Something to think about..

[Malloric]

Originally Posted by scottkuzminski

It's not that they have no net worth...its that they have little to zero chance of ever accumulating any, unlike any prior generation. I'm sure you have heard that this is the first generation to not do as well as their parents......this is taking place in Europe as well, where, for example, in Greece, close to half(49%) of all adults between 18-34 are unemployed.

That means few will have a chance to buy a home, and most will struggle to even raise a family....put another
way, most are struggling now just to support themselves, whether they are still living at home or not, and this into their 30's.....

That being said, the 18-34 cohort in the 60's and 70's were already buying homes and raising families in that cohort(18-34)....so the answer to your first question would be, as recently as the 70's most of that age cohort was raising families, and many were buying their first homes....

My parents bought their first home in 1966 in a Chicago suburb, when they were 24 and 23......



Your answer to the other question, "Why shouldn't the oldest generation have the most cash?"......That was not always the case....up to as recently as 1963(just before Medicaid), seniors were the poorest generation, and saved little.....they made little, few lived as long as now, and med bills, pre medicaid, ate up their savings......People told jokes about old people eating Alpo dog food back then(which many did as they could not afford regular meat)....



It is unheard of for seniors to have more savings than other cohorts, as they generally outlive their saving, and cannot work to generate more income anymore, thru history, till the 70s, when that started changing.

Yeah, baby boomers basically sucked at saving for retirement.

Now, we live in a topsy-turvy world, where the age groups that are traditionally the biggest spenders, the young adults, and middle-aged ones raising families, have the least net worth, and seniors, traditionally the tightest with their savings for good reasons, having the most...

Yeah, it's not like that doesn't make complete sense or anything

[GoFigureMeOut]

At what point in history did 18-34 year olds have significant net worth? Unless you're a trust fund baby, it's pretty standard to have to accumulate your wealth through saving and investing over a number of years.