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I've seen quite a few of my peers (I'm 28) make completely irresponsible decisions. One guy I grew up with paid $120k (at least that was sticker price) to get a theater degree from a private school that isn't well-regarded. He's a barista at Dunkin' Donuts. Another girl I grew up with is 29, went back to school, and is majoring in acting, and was homeless for awhile. She wonders why she struggles financially. Others have criminal records that prevent them from gainful employment. Some are addicts. However, you have boneheads, criminals, and addicts in every generation. These people will likely never find success, and aren't gauges of anything except themselves.
The real problem is when you have people who make reasonable to good decisions and still fall flat on their faces. I majored in economics, and while not the best, I should have been able to get something other than $13/hr call center work after high school. I had an internship in the field and worked during college. I didn't expect to get on Wall Street, but thought local banking was an achievable goal. I was wrong.
After bouncing between five call center jobs over the span of nearly four years, and living in five states from 2012-3/2014, I finally got a regular job making $55k this year in a fairly low cost area. I've had to work hard to get this far, take a lot of risk, and basically cast off my rather comfortable personal life back home and start over. A lot of people aren't willing to put in that kind of work and effort or make those kinds of personal sacrifices. They'd rather go along to get along and accept whatever crumbs fall their way.
Our company HQ is based around Boston. When I was at HQ for a month last year, most of the new hires just out of college were from greater Boston, and weren't graduates of the top-tier universities. However, even the second and third tier schools in Boston are better and have more connections than where I am from in Tennessee.
Effort and "bootstrapping" are still the biggest determinants of success, but the odds are stacked against those who were raised in poverty or in areas without connections. My high school in rural Appalachia was not very good and we didn't have the best AP classes, extracurricular activities, or other "checkboxes" the best schools want, thus making it more difficult for us to get into the best schools with the best connections. Most of us could only get into lower tier, local or regional schools that weren't as prestigious or well-connected, even if we had equivalent merits to a kid growing up in a prosperous big city. Because we were geographically isolated in Appalachia and because the schools weren't prestigious, few companies recruited from these schools at all, much less marquee names that polish a resume and pay well. The nearest job center to my alma mater in Johnson City, TN is Charlotte, NC, ~150 miles away. Even if you applied on your own to companies in Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta, etc, those companies already have a local pool of viable candidates - why would they need to take someone from out of the area? Because you're isolated and the area you're in is economically depressed, you have a hard time getting the few quality, entry-level jobs that still exist, which are so critical early in your career, and easily get off on the wrong track. Once on the wrong track, it's difficult to get back on the correct one.
I took on nominal debt (<$8k) to complete college, chose a semi-viable major, and yet it still took FOUR YEARS AND FIVE STATES for that investment to pay off. Most people will give up long before then.
Compare what I went through to my grandfather. He graduated high school, was in the military for a couple of years, and worked as a butcher for about ten years, buying a car, home, and having two kids. He eventually went to a factory, worked there for thirty years, did not move up substantially, and retired at 62 in 1993 with several hundred thousand dollars between his lump sum of pension and his own investments, with a paid for home and a couple of paid for cars. He never had to relocate for any of this, nor did he ever experience layoffs, firings, or contract work.
They are here buying the houses/cars/tuition/etc because they made all of their money in China on the backs of their own citizens who ARE making under a dollar an hour. They then take all that money made and move here to spend it.
Don't make it sound like they are moving here broke and then working hard here in America to get where they are.
Of course this isn't all of them. I'm sure there are some who indeed moved here broke and have worked up to be where they are.
There are more than "some". Better look around because there are entire generations of immigrants who show up with little and not only aspire to better themselves but actually do it. I think your portrayal and understanding is outdated and doesn't reflect what is actually going on. In any case, there seems to be a lot more millennials complaining about things and blaming their parents than going out and doing. Take away the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and many millennials would have a nervous breakdown, it is how they define themselves. Most wouldn't know what to with a blank piece of paper and a pen. Millennials are a lost generation, not because of anything but their own give me attitude. There is nothing to give, it must be earned. No job? Create your own, figure it out, that is what the parents did.
There are more than "some". Better look around because there are entire generations of immigrants who show up with little and not only aspire to better themselves but actually do it. I think your portrayal and understanding is outdated and doesn't reflect what is actually going on. In any case, there seems to be a lot more millennials complaining about things and blaming their parents than going out and doing. Take away the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and many millennials would have a nervous breakdown, it is how they define themselves. Most wouldn't know what to with a blank piece of paper and a pen.
Seniors, the new rich? OP, there are thousands of seniors eking out an existence as Wal-Mart greeters or cashiers because they got terminated from their high-earning jobs (that they spent their entire adult life working their way up to) in order to make room for less expensive Millennials. They've had to downsize their living quarters, or take in renters to help pay the property taxes and maintenance costs while struggling to keep enough of a paycheck coming in to cover groceries, health insurance co-pays, prescriptions not covered by insurance, and household expenses.
That Millennial in your photo, stocking shelves, probably has a senior working the night shift after she goes home for the day. Do you really believe your own tripe? Why not design a protocol for a study of this issue, and go out and talk to seniors about their lives. That would be a much more constructive use of your time. It could be enlightening. Shocking, even.
Then get back to us.
And btw, I have several friends among the Millennials. They all have ridiculously lucrative careers that they created for themselves, all self-employed and insanely successful at 25. I could cherry-pick examples to create a post completely opposite to yours, that would demonstrate that Millennials have it made, while seniors are getting by, eating cat food. Please exercise some of the critical thinking skills you were supposed to learn in college.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 01-05-2015 at 12:31 PM..
I think this is missing the point, which wasn't saying that the 18-34 age group should be the wealthiest age group, but just that they are having a much harder time getting off their feet than someone who was 18-34 years old in the 1970's would have.
Decades ago, before NAFTA and so many other structural changes in the economy, the average Joe (or heck, the below average Joe), could finish high school (or maybe not even finish), and land a unionized blue collar job that would buy him a nice ranch house on a 3 acre plot of land. And his wife would have the choice of staying home as a homemaker if she didn't want to work, and they still would have a nice middle class lifestyle. That's not the world of 2015.
That's the myth, but it's mostly hot air. Just look where the boomers ended up. The article is hot on "the average," but the facts are that 1/3 of boomers have no retirement savings at all, and another 1/3 have less than 1 year's income in retirement savings. They got laid off, downsized and regulated out of existence. At the end of the day, only about a quarter of boomers will have a comfortable retirement, and the rest look forward to a life of poverty or working until they die, perhaps both.
America has never been as affluent as the pretty magazine pictures would lead you to believe. There is good reason that Thoreau's quote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," has resonated with Americans for two centuries.
The current crop of millennials will probably do about as well as their boomer grandparents. A quarter will end up financially comfortable, and the rest will end up broke.
The current crop of millennials will probably do about as well as their boomer grandparents. A quarter will end up financially comfortable, and the rest will end up broke.
Following up on this theme, the Millennials are already following in the Boomers' footsteps. Many Boomers had no job prospects when they graduated college, because there was a recession at the time. That's one big reason "communes" (shared households) were invented--because a lot of people couldn't pay standard rent on their own place, they had to share rent on a house, paying for a room, or even sharing a room with a gf/bf. A few got jobs due to a gov't program that paid employers to hire college grads in dead-end entry-level jobs (receptionist, and the like). A few did get jobs in their field, or entry-level jobs that were the first step in a pathway to a good career. The economic circumstances were very similar to what we're seeing now, except that the federal gov't wasn't saddled with the crushing debt it has now, so it could afford better stimulus packages, ones that actually got some people at least minimal employment.
Now that the gov't is pushing the Social Security qualification age back farther and farther, it needs to pay employers to hire seniors, so that they can span the gap between getting laid off for the crime of passing 50, and the ever-retreating SS age.
If people lived today like families in the 50-70s they'd get ahead too. One car per family, one TV, home phone(you could sub a single cell phone) at dinner at home every night, bought a 1200 sqft house that was 3/1 etc
Exactly! Many young people today expect to have a 3500 square foot McMansion with a 3 car garage and granite countertops, in addition to a new SUV. People in my grandparents generation were thankful to even own a home with central heat and air. I blame much of it on TV, which makes all of these luxurious things seem like the norm.
Exactly! Many young people today expect to have a 3500 square foot McMansion with a 3 car garage and granite countertops, in addition to a new SUV. People in my grandparents generation were thankful to even own a home with central heat and air. I blame much of it on TV, which makes all of these luxurious things seem like the norm.
The same was true for Boomers, though. Remember Leave-It-To-Beaver's house? That was considered to be the middle-class norm. All the family shows back then showed houses like that (Donna Reed, etc.) The one exception was I Love Lucy, which showed the couple (later a young family) occupying a small NY apartment.
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