More serious comment: Part of the "Millennials are screwed" narrative is that millennials were promised more of an education premium for having gone to college than they actually got and this education premium was clustered in a very few occupations.
I am thrilled by the 48 likes but the comment may have to be modified to say that humanities and social studies graduates may not have expected to make very much--but did not expect to be no better off than if they had not gone to college.
I was in law school in the late 1990s and graduated after 9/11…when we started out everyone was going to start out with $100k jobs! When we graduated you were lucky to make $25/hr.
In the two recessions from 2000 to 2009 companies did a lot of cost cutting with respect to legal costs while at the same time law schools increased enrollment due to the student loan bubble.
I would think that the education premium really varies by major and university, not just name power but access to the alumni network or the network one builds during university.
The idea that you could graduate college and "write your ticket" was popular in the mid 1960/70s by the white upper middle class who all had connections. Because a corollary was "it isn't what you know, it's who you know." Plenty of us in the graduated into a horrible slow recovery post recession in the early 1980s and no prospects because everyone wanted experience and the only people who had it were those who graduated earlier than us (the late Boomers). It was hard on anyone whether they had a college degree or not. And it didn't get much better for that cohort after that but we didn't have major debt load as no one would lend us money or give us credit to begin with. So going back to school also meant you had to fit in with your full time job to keep a roof over your head and your overpriced assigned risk auto insurance paid and there were not a lot of alternative to day classes and the internet did not exist for most of us (and who could afford to buy a computer that could go "online" back in 1985? Rich people, that is who) even if online degree programs had even existed. I remember working a variety of dead end jobs, temporary factory work etc. for the life-changing hourly minimum wage of $3.35/hour - FICA.
Most millennials I know are terrified of the right-wing 's social beliefs. When the GOP goes hard-in on anti-trans and anti-gay and anti-drag, millenials see them as the party of oppression.
I bet we'll see millennials economic beliefs moderate, but not their voting patterns.
The GOP is totally losing the plot on abortion. And maybe gay rights - I’m not sure what is going on there. Conversely trans is likely more complicated.
Should have mentioned abortion. That slipped my mind—AMAB privilege there.
Trans is more complicated among non-millennials. And trans sports are more complicated among millennials. If the GOP made a reasonable push on trans sports, they could totally take the moderate vote.
But the GOP is going all in on trans-denial, and all the studies on millennials I've seen show it's pushing them away.
The irony of trans sports is that there are virtually no trans people in high school sports in the first place. If conservatives made a push there, their best bet would be to actually push for historically conservative legislation, meaning something giving local authorities power and freedom from being sued without otherwise making broad, sweeping legislation. But because they insist on writing broad legislation in states where there are literally zero trans high school athletes, they just end up looking like adults bullying kids.
I don’t get the sense most early middle aged people (millennials, we are that) are down with the politics of retribution that have come to characterize the modern GOP. If republicans just opposed trans activism around things like sports I agree they’d be okay, but their policies are clearly designed to humiliate and punish a class of people they detest and for the most part that doesn’t fly with my generation.
I see your point, but disagree with your conclusion that this is a key voter's issue. I'd love to see a source to change my mind if you can share one. My rationale:
A lot of millennials have grown up more "personal finance literate", or at least interested, than their parents - IMO this is due to a lot of things like broad access to information, the idolization of people like Warren Buffett, and the cost of trading stocks coming down.
As a result, I believe they are more likely to prioritize voting based on whichever party is focused on the economic issues they believe are important. I suspect many moderates would not rank niche social issues (eg trans sports) in their top 5.
From the lens, conservatives or progressives that fill up lots of air time on social issues at the expense of economic policy, cleaning up cities, or defense policy, will raise red flags for many moderates - regardless of a candidate's actual position on those social issues.
Pretty sure that trans issues are just low salience. Trans people are rare as a portion of the adult population, and something like "trans women athletes" is just insanely niche. Only a subset of people care about sports, and only a subset of those care about women sports.
I will tell you there is a certain lack of outrage for all Trans issues because most people understand them but sympathy will increase with GOP abuse. This is now much bigger than sports, it's about medical freedoms, youth medical freedoms, and the ability to live in public.
I meant to say that its low salience for almost all people - but there is a very committed minority on the left, and its rising in salience. Something like 80% of americans support protections for trans people in the workplace, so at most its a case of lacklustre support rather than ideological opposition.
I think its just the least radioactive thing they can deliver to the conservative portion of their base. But then again given RDS's polling, we can see how well that goes.
This will be interesting, and I think there are glimmers of this already happening. In Illinois, a comfortably blue state, the electorate rejected a progressive tax measure a couple years ago, and I’m not convinced it was all right wing propaganda - I think in high-tax blue states there is a re-examination going on about gov spending. Also, JB Pritzker is governing like an economic moderate because I do think he feels pressure to do so.
Hmm, I'd be curious of how he hasn't governed as an economic moderate, because all I've seen is a pretty boring, fiscally responsible tenure so far.
After the progressive income tax amendment went down, he has mostly focused on raising revenue by nibbling around the edges of the tax code (increasing the number of services that are taxed, etc) and doing procedural things like maximizing medicaid reimbursements.
He's been very responsible in the use of COVID funds and the increased sales tax receipts from this current inflationary period. The state has paid down it's bill backlog from the Rauner-Madigan feud, replenished the almost empty rainy-day fund to a tune of almost $2B, and have increased funding to the pension funds. It has seen increases in it's credit ratings from the rating agencies. On top of all this, there hasn't been a noticeable increase in the state workforce or any hugely expensive initiatives that I can see.
Illinois is not going to be a state cutting taxes anytime soon given the deep, DEEP pension hole (without a pension reform amendment), so Pritzker's approach seems to me about as good as its going to get for folks looking for fiscal responsibility balancing low-impact revenue increases and responsible use of revenue to bring stability to the state's finances.
That pension debt is a very good point to raise. I tend to think of Pritzker as someone who is still trying to raise taxes in the nation's highest-taxed state* and therefore someone who has to be pretty ideologically committed to tax increases given that you'd think Illinois is already pretty far up the marginal benefit curve. I have a friend (politically idiosyncratic moderate, increasingly liberal) who describes himself sometimes as a refugee of Illinois' tax and regulatory code. However, given the eye-catching hole in the state's finances, I suppose there really isn't a prudent lower-tax equilibrium in the short term.
Yeah, it’s forgotten by many, but Rauner’s big idea for fixing the pension mess coming into office, short of a pension reform amendment, was to move pension debt from the state to municipalities and then have them declare bankruptcy. So, unfortunately, I don’t think there is a lower tax solution right now, and it seems the GOP plans have been pretty crude, if you believe the state should pay what it promised state workers. It’s important to keep in mind that state workers hired 2011 and later are on a much less generous pension plan, so over time the pressure will let up on the system.
Another point in ‘Pritzker as moderate’ tally is that I read he’s really concerned about the new Chicago mayor taxing big business out of the city.
One day I decided to check out housing prices in South Chicago instead of the north or suburbs—you can buy a house with a garage for $100k. That is the only world class city in America where you can do that and property taxes aren’t high. Inglewood now has $700k houses. Maybe you can find a $100k house in Dallas or Houston but if I’m only spending $100k I can spend December and January and February in Florida or Vegas.
This probably understates the length and psychological impact of the recession. Educated people are resilient, but spending your 20s being told to pound sand is not an easy thing to unwind, and I think the cultural residue from that is hard for people who did not live through it to recognize.
I think this is true, and also that it creates a knowing through experience how much luck impacts people's economic situation. I also wonder what this looks like if you separate out the portion of millennials that entered the labor market 2007-2012 from the entire generation.
"In 10 or 20 years when the Boomers die" My goodness, what will happen to Gen Xers (me) when that happens!? Society will expect us to be the responsible older adults because there is no one else! Also there will be no one to resent for thinking they invented pop culture!
No, Gen X starts in 64 or 65. Obama is really Generation Jones, 1955-1964. Culturally, Boomers are really 1939-1954, give or take a year. Look at when the Beatles and Stones were born. Ken Keasey and Owsley Stanley, icons of the counter-culture, were born in 1935.
I see what you're getting at, but the phrase "baby boomer" as initially conceived has a pretty specific meaning: someone born during the period of spiking birth rates that followed the Second World War. So it kind of doesn't make sense to include people born before, say, 1945 in that cohort.
It's also worth noting that a given generation's cultural icons are often of the generation prior. Silents loved Frank Sinatra, who was born in 1915. Many of the famous hip-hop artists beloved by millennials are Gen-Xers. Kurt Cobain was an Xer, but a lot of the famous alt-rockers from the 80s and early 90s are actually late Boomers. Etc.
That’s where the problem start. The Baby Boom generation was named strictly on the basis of the shape of the birthdate curve, and then stereotyped the generation based on what happened to the first half of the curve. I was born in 1960, and never had the option to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” I was seven during the “summer of love” and never eligible for the draft. Instead, we in the second half of the birth rate bulge got two oil embargo’s, and stagflation during our high school ears and graduated into the 1981 recession. That’s why I like to break us out as Generation Jones.
That's fair. Though as an older millennial, I'd say the same thing about me and someone born in 1995 who barely remembers 9/11 and got a smartphone in high school. There's a strong element of arbitrariness to this entire exercise.
All you're doing is pointing out how ludicrous it is to place everybody in these arbitrary 18-year time slices and think it tells you something meaningful about them. It only allows you to make gross generalizations in aggregate terms. People towards either end of the slices are always going to feel like they are culturally different from each other. Most people probably feel that their age cohort extends about five years on either side of them.
And besides which, stereotyping people is a bad idea, period. I did have the option to turn on, tune in and drop out, but I did none of them. In no way does this define me.
My parents- Dad - 1938 and Mom -1943- Silents. They both hated Nixon. However, we passed the hippies hitchhiking to Woodstock on the move upstate. My Dad was a bank manager and was getting transferred up to Central NY from Long Island when I was about 3, I had a baby brother and my mother was a housewife. They divorced in 1973. But neither of them were turning on, tuning in or dropping out of society. Thank God they were both spared Trump. Their new house in central NY cost $20K-- 3 BR, 1.5 bath tract home. My father's salary was $85/week.
Yeah, Boomers' kids are Gen X -- people born in the 40s and 50s already had their kids before the mid to late 80s. The inheritance will have to go through our hands before it trickles down to the Millenials.
My millennial children live in house worth twice mine, have kids, and show no signs of drifting right politically, the one who was a radical Marxist in HS and is now a finance professor--he's now a social democrat.
Are they twice as successful as you? Or more than twice as successful?
Because I'm in a similar boat, I make way more than my parents and live a better life but I also am 3-5x more successful.
My friends who are the same level of success as my parents are financially fucked. 0 savings, no way to save since their entire paycheque is gone before they get it, etc
I mean, academia is now heavily selected for leftist politics - unlike a private sector job, it's harder to keep your head down and your mouth shut if you disagree with the prevailing politics. Also, most professors these days don't make very much compared to people working much more ordinary jobs, although I grant that a finance professor may be an exception.
I think Millennials could become increasingly right-wing on economics, particularly their own tax bill, as their incomes grow with age while maintaining liberal views on social and cultural issues. Recent polling by Pew shows that the majority of Americans under 65 believe they pay more than their fair share in taxes. [1] For 18-29, 53% express that view as do 60% of those between 30 and 49.
Americans in general have had a fairly strong aversion to paying more in taxes since Reagan. And we’re now at the point where even Democratic politicians have to promise no tax increases on anyone earning less than $400k. Seems this trend will continue with Millennials.
"Americans in general have had a fairly strong aversion to paying more in taxes since Reagan." a bit harsh to put that on Reagan no? has there ever been a period where people didn't have a strong aversion to paying more taxes? especially rich when speaking about a country that was founded from a revolt about paying taxes. If Reagan increased that aversion I'd like to see some evidence.
You see this period from 1932 until 1982? See how government spending as a percentage of GDP goes up and up? That’s because people wanted government to do more and voted in politicians who increased taxes and spent more. For a long time there the “low tax” GOP party couldn’t get a majority in either chamber of Congress. From 1932 until 1980 the Democratic Party was the majority in both chambers 44 out of 48 years. And remember we mostly ran balanced budgets back then. So there was broad support for more taxes from FDR to Reagan.
hmm. so first of all the chart you linked to is net federal outlays. outlays = spending, it's actually the exact opposite of taxes. Confusing the two is a bit of a problem. If the two were similar we wouldn't be fighting over tax ceiling at moment.
I struggle to see the Reagan effect (well i mean it's visible, but just noise in grand scheme of things). Basically things have been flat since end of WWII. The increase you are seeing in your earlier chart is exclusively attributable to ever looser restraints on debt-funded spending.
at the state and local level taxes have generally increased over time, but no reagan effect there obviously these taxes actually increased noticeably during his presidency. Worth noting that local+state taxes add up to a very substantial portion of total taxation, so the overall increase / burden on taxpayers has been quite real.
all I see is combination of great depression + WWII followed by cold war drove both a need for much more government spending (and taxation) as well as public willingness to support such measures (and of course in reality politicians spent well beyond that level of willingness, through incurring debt), and as these things usually go once you build up the apparatus to spend lots of money it's impossible to ever go back, so you just reach a new plateau until the next big crisis forces you to level up to next one etc.
Interesting data thanks. What really looks like to me is that the willingness of the government (and the populace) to run deficits started to increase during the Carter/Reagan era and then never really went away. Clinton famously balanced the budget but it wasn't enduring, mostly due to an unexpected increase in tax revenue if I recall correctly.
sorry but I really struggle with your interpretation of the data. I mean look at your own chart.
- Carter was president from 77-81. In 1976 year before he came in federal deficit was -3.9% of GDP. It narrowed to 2.6% in 1980 last full year he was president, and 2.5% in 1981 if you want to count that year as well on the theory of delayed impact of his policies.
- Reagan was president from 81-89. In 1980 year before he came in federal deficit was 2.6% of GDP. It widened all the way to 3.0% in 1988 and 2.7% in 1989.
Color me not impressed by these numbers. Of course reality is more complicated, GDP goes up and down and may cause a denominator effect, these presidents may have set in motion movements that only manifested later etc., all am saying is I struggle to draw conclusions you are drawing based on the data you are presenting. as far as I can see fiscal discipline went rather out of window during recession of mid-70s, i.e. during the Ford administration. But of course he was such an insignificant president nobody bothers to tar his legacy.
If you read some of the literature, scholars do agree I believe (not an expert in the area, have just read tidbits here and there) that Reagan was nowhere as much a tax hawk as popular imagination represents him.
Lastly yeah, the balanced budgets during Clinton era were mostly (i say mostly because he did try to reign in spending as well, with mixed effects) bullshit mirage effects from internet bubble, similar to all the big state budget surpluses seen in 2022 due to fed spending induced asset price bubble, but that politicians e.g. in California couldn't commit fast enough to new spending initiatives as if it was going to be forever sustainable income.
replying to myself here but another way to look at it is that while it's probably normal/healthy for government to run deficits during/right after recessions (and wars), in the past once the crisis is over one tries to go back to surpluses, or if that is not possible at least balance the books so that there is more room for manoeuvre the next round of bad times comes around. And yeah on that basis, and only eyeballing the chart you linked to, it appears carter / reagan / obama / most likely biden now did bad jobs of reigning in the spending and/or increasing taxation sufficiently after recessions to get back to equilibrium, which led to the debt ballooning ever higher.
ha, really interesting quote from that northeastern article you linked to about evidence (or not) of people becoming more conservative as they age: "About 40 years ago, it used to be thought that people got more liberal as they aged. In those days, the oldest people were the people who came of age during [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt—or the Silent Generation. On the whole, the Silent Generation was more liberal than some subsequent generations. So when you just look at the relationship between ideology and age, what you find in this case is that the older people were more liberal, and the younger people were more conservative. The thinking then becomes: getting old makes you realize that liberalism is the right way of looking at the world." fascinating if true
"In those days, the oldest people were the people who came of age during [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt—or the Silent Generation."
What? This is obviously wrong. Forty years ago, the so-called Silent Generation (born late 20s to early 40s) was in their 40s and 50s. They were definitely not "the oldest people" in 1983; that would have been whatever the generation before the WWII generation was called. (The Last Victorians? Okies? Idunno, whatever.)
hmm fair enough. i think the guy maybe didn't mean the silent generation specifically whatever the technical birth date definitions, maybe rather the greatest generation who lived through great depression and WWII and may have a rosier view on role of government.
Yeah, my grandparents loved the Roosevelts and I think my grandmother saw Eleanor as a role model. My mother came to the US at 5 so she grew up wanting to fit in and she "Liked Ike"
Yeah, that seems reasonable. (Though it's worth nothing that the oldest members of the WWII generation would have been around 70 in 1983, so they wouldn't have *quite* been the oldest people around. But at this point I'm being kinda nitpicky.)
As a boomer myself (second wave, meaning that to me Fess Parker is Daniel Boone, not Davy Crockett), I want to make the slight correction that the theme of The Big Chill wasn't liberal to conservative, but idealism to cynicism. And they got back some of what they lost not through ideology, but by their connection to each other.
I am largely very skeptical of some of these analyses. I'm probably running headlong into an already written rebuttal in an article I didn't click through to, but I think idiosyncracys in each generation overwhelm any attempt at comparing generational wealth.
Perhaps it is different in the US, but at least here in the UK it is pretty much impossible for the median earner to buy a home without a partner who is also an earner. Given that the entire millennial cohort is effectively required to be earners - wouldn't a better analysis be share of GDP per earner?
Well, we can theorize all we want about what makes it harder and easier to buy a home, but the data shows that the Millennials are, in fact, buying homes.
But later. The chart shows something like a 10% point gap at age 30 vs boomers in home ownership. That's a critical age if you are planning to have children in the marry-make home-have children mode. If there has also been any reduction in the size/quality of the homes owned at each age this could even be worse than it appears. Anecdotally that is an issue. So I think this bears more scrutiny.
That's a tough graph to read, but what it shows is a modest gap *in the past*, when the leading edge of the Millennial generation was in their early 30s.
This was a fascinating article and I liked your analysis. I came away torn. As there is significant evidence millennials are doing fine. She and you are correct that the teens had significant economic recovery. This was under-discussed then and is under-known now.
Policy makers really did do a good job addressing a brutal economic problem. And the results show up in the data. Incomes caught up. Wealth almost caught up.
Correct me if I'm wrong the piece didn't analyze wealth as % of GDP. She acknowledges humans care a lot about status. If human do, then % of wealth matters and by that standard millennials are still doing worse than previous generations. Again correct me if I'm wrong that that is in the data.
But one thing I think this piece misses is you don't get a second chance for your early 30s. If you were in your early during the hardship period your ability to have kids was weakened.
And for a lot of people having kids is the entire point of life. Overall I wish there was way more analysis of fertility in the article. She may be right that it was all cultural preferences, not economic, and does not reflect lower quality of life (millennnials are doing fine).
But given the importance of fertility it really deserved way more analysis than it got. If she's right that this is all cultural and doesn't reflect lower QOL it should be elaborated on.
Personal disclosure: My views on this are colored. I graduated from law school in 09 and was unemployed for 2 1/2 years. I took a couple of years out of dating pool to get my finances back in order. Relationship feel through in mid-teens and now find myself pushing 40 with no family. Saying things are great for me at 40 economically isn't nearly as important as having things be good at 27. You have way more options at 27.
I'm doing great economically now but I would have much rather have a recession at 40 rather than 27 because my odds having a family would be better.
Homes in general have been getting larger and larger. Homes as twice as big as they were during the 60s. My belief is that Millennial dissatisfaction is mostly driven by children who were raised in upper middle class households and are surprised that they can’t have their parents standard of living in their early adulthood. And of course they are the journalists, academics and opinion makers for their generation, living in their own echo chamber.
That's probably right - I was more alluding to the GDP (EDIT: I meant generational wealth) per capita data, I think it is not as grandly unifying as it appears.
Worth noting that with today's interest rates, a $600k home is like $3500-4000/month in payments, depending on local property taxes. And that's with 20-25% down. It's a lot.
In general, I agree with the premise of this article but something is gonna have to give in the real estate market.
That sounds pretty expensive for a house that needs work. And since the house is priced at $500-600k there is clearly a market for those kind of houses, and probably amongst millennials too.
Also you moved to a house that needs work from a house in a less desirable area that needs work. That’s two completely different things. Gentrification isn’t inevitable.
If a couple with average or above average earnings are paying a lot of money for a below average house then something has changed
Either Noah or Matt Yglasius (forget which) had a whole column on UK housing and how it’s damned near impossible to build there, which is both preventing home ownership and one of the major factors behind why their economy outside of London is pretty well garbage
This is great news. Some fascinating tidbits here, such as the fact that growing old does not make people more conservative per se, whereas having children does.
I’m older - 76, white, with a BA from a state university that I acquired with no debt because of the availability of VA benefits following military service. The draft occasioned the military service, not patriotic beliefs. I got my first piece of real estate with a nothing down, low interest VA mortgage at age 22. I became an entrepreneur and never worked for an employer. I got wealthy and enjoyed what I did for work. I did many things. I owned a lot or real estate and sold it for more than I paid for it. Economics 101 - buy something, then sell it for more. One observation jumped out at me in this essay. I believe people become more conservative in their political views and their behavior when they have children for whom they feel increasing responsibility. They minimize risk. I’ve watched this behavior manifest itself repeatedly. I am a political liberal. My parents and family became conservatives because, I believe, they were concerned about providing for their children and grandchildren. I have no children, and thus no grandchildren. This was by choice. I believe that if I wanted children in my life, I should adopt those less fortunate kids who need care. I realized that people with children can never - ever accumulate enough wealth to provide them with a calmness that they can provide enough for their growing family. They fear for the future of their children and grandchildren so they continually worry about what is ahead for those generations. They try to build an estate to leave as much behind for their family as possible. They can never relax. If you want a calm older life, consider not having children and instead enjoy your life. Most of your peers will accuse you of selfishness, but when they are honest with themselves, they will admit that parenting is difficult, expensive, often thankless and can be very painful to your emotional well-being.
This is really good. But one thing that has really changed is the cost of higher ed and the degree to which it is needed to have a good paying job. 50 years ago I attended Northwestern University. Tuition went from $1800/year to $3,000. But I had a summer warehouse job at $3.25/hour and with overtime I could cover around 2/3 of my tuition and living expenses. I am not sure that is true anymore.
A second part of this which I have observed is that millennials at 22 want the same wealth that there parents have at 55 not the wealth the parents had at 22.
I’m pretty much your average millennial in that I was born in 1988. I think what contributes most to my generation’s restlessness is the combination of student debt and the recent explosion in home prices. When I graduated law school in 2014 it was a historically bad employment market for lawyers so I didn’t start making real money until about 2020. Meanwhile, my wife is saddled with six figures of debt from attending dental school. Objectively speaking we are very fortunate and well off but we are now in the process of looking for our second home (we bought a starter home in 2018) having two young kids and we can barely afford a decent sized home without having to buy a complete gut job. It’s very frustrating having done “the right thing” by getting professional degrees and still feeling like we’re behind. I probably sound a bit whiny/elitist but I suspect there are many people who have the same frustrations. I also acknowledge that younger millennials who are just now trying to buy starter homes are much worse off than we are. In sum, I think millennial distress is one of those things that’s more vibes based than fact based but vibes aren’t completely worthless.
We bought a starter home in 1998. It is a 3 BR, 1.5 bath tract home. We never moved. We paid off our mortgage. Later took a HELOC and replaced the roof, siding, windows and paid that off. We had one child so decided we have enough space, we just sometimes have too much stuff. Reconsider your space. You might take a lot of pressure off yourself if you stay in your home and just make it better.
Recently my son and his girlfriend visited with their German Shephard. Soon they will be actually staying with us for a number of months until they have gotten well ensconced in new jobs and will be looking to find a home to buy. (both are fairly recently graduated from their graduate programs, my son last year and she will be mid-May). So, I have to say an active adult GSD is very distracting-indoors and out (barking). I am considering putting up gates to limit his activity within the house and cut down on the mud/dirt tracked in etc. Also, we are going to place locks on all the upstairs doors so he (and our dog, a CKCSD as well as our 2 cats can't just barge into any room which is what they are able to do now. My hope is they are able to sign a contract by Fall and move by the end of November. Our house is similarly sized to yours. We have a basement though, which is a fine place to disappear to if needing some time without harassment from demands of pets, kids, spouses... if I don't want to leave the house. Also... our local library has study corrals that can be reserved when I absolutely need time of unbroken focus-- free of charge.
You have my sympathy. I understand the housing market there is very tough (overpriced). My MIL is in Port Saint Lucie and the prices are crazy. Our area in central NY is still very affordable currently although it has gone up d/t Covid and the upcoming Micron Chip Plant construction will probably make it rise higher. I have been looking at homes about 3K sq. ft and they are usually $300K and higher depending on if they are used or new construction in the suburbs, if there is a one or two car garage etc. We have a cold snowy winter here every year so in the Spring (now) that is when everyone tends to put their homes on the market and it is good to wait a month or two as those that are not picked up fast tend to get their asking prices decreased.
I think both this and Twenge’s article are implicitly about how college-attending millennials have caught up to previous generations’ income and wealth. For example, Twenge’s article cites St Louis Fed data showing that college degree-holding Millennials were 4% behind previous generations in wealth but non-college degree-holding millennials were 18% behind. My unsubstantiated instinct is that because 35-40% of Millennials hold college degrees, they’re a large enough cohort to drag up medians on various measures (note: yes, median). My other unsubstantiated instinct is that they probably disproportionately make up the cohort of millennial homeowners.
This is a long way of saying: it wouldn’t surprise me if the gap in income/wealth between those with and without college degrees is higher than previous generations. I’d like to see an article theorizing about Millennial politics given that context (it would be interesting because of the increasing tendency for those without college degrees to vote R)
On the Redfin housing ownership graph: The dark red line seems to indicate that 25% of 18-year-olds today own their own home? This seems incredibly unlikely to me
"How’s the U.S. doing on the civilization test? When graded on a curve against its peer nations, it is failing. The U.S. mortality rate is much higher, at almost every age, than that of most of Europe, Japan, and Australia. That is, compared with the citizens of these nations, American infants are less likely to turn 5, American teenagers are less likely to turn 30, and American 30-somethings are less likely to survive to retirement."
More serious comment: Part of the "Millennials are screwed" narrative is that millennials were promised more of an education premium for having gone to college than they actually got and this education premium was clustered in a very few occupations.
That sounds very right to me.
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-elite-overproduction-hypothesis
Were we really promised this?
I started college in 2003, and it was pretty obvious that if you got a humanities/social science degree, you weren't going to make very much.
And if you got a graduate degree in these fields you were going to both not make much money, and take on a tremendous amount of debt.
These are presumably smarter than average folks. They knew, or should have known, how it would play out.
I am thrilled by the 48 likes but the comment may have to be modified to say that humanities and social studies graduates may not have expected to make very much--but did not expect to be no better off than if they had not gone to college.
I was in law school in the late 1990s and graduated after 9/11…when we started out everyone was going to start out with $100k jobs! When we graduated you were lucky to make $25/hr.
I guess people at the time thought everyone got big law jobs where that's the case? Although it appears that the bimodal distribution was only widely noted around 2000, and it probably took a decade for it to become widely known (to the point where I, who's never been involved in law beyond mock trial in high school and college, have heard about it). https://www.lawcrossing.com/article/900049851/Is-Law-Still-a-Prestigious-and-Profitable-Business/#:~:text=Ever%20since%202000%20the%20National%20Association%20for%20Legal%20Career%20Professionals%20(NALP)%20has%20noted%20a%20bimodal%20tendency%3A%20Most%20lawyers%20either%20earn%20%24160%2C000%2C%20which%20for%20eight%20years%20was%20the%20gold%20standard%20for%20first%2Dyear%20associates%20at%20big%20law%20firms%2C%20while%20most%20lawyers%20fell%20under%20the%20%2445%2C000%20to%2065%2C000%20range.
In the two recessions from 2000 to 2009 companies did a lot of cost cutting with respect to legal costs while at the same time law schools increased enrollment due to the student loan bubble.
I would think that the education premium really varies by major and university, not just name power but access to the alumni network or the network one builds during university.
Sure, and whether the scope of the university is meant to be local or national/global is really all I would add.
Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education
The idea that you could graduate college and "write your ticket" was popular in the mid 1960/70s by the white upper middle class who all had connections. Because a corollary was "it isn't what you know, it's who you know." Plenty of us in the graduated into a horrible slow recovery post recession in the early 1980s and no prospects because everyone wanted experience and the only people who had it were those who graduated earlier than us (the late Boomers). It was hard on anyone whether they had a college degree or not. And it didn't get much better for that cohort after that but we didn't have major debt load as no one would lend us money or give us credit to begin with. So going back to school also meant you had to fit in with your full time job to keep a roof over your head and your overpriced assigned risk auto insurance paid and there were not a lot of alternative to day classes and the internet did not exist for most of us (and who could afford to buy a computer that could go "online" back in 1985? Rich people, that is who) even if online degree programs had even existed. I remember working a variety of dead end jobs, temporary factory work etc. for the life-changing hourly minimum wage of $3.35/hour - FICA.
And that was just people who have a degree...
https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-no-credential-dashboard/
Most millennials I know are terrified of the right-wing 's social beliefs. When the GOP goes hard-in on anti-trans and anti-gay and anti-drag, millenials see them as the party of oppression.
I bet we'll see millennials economic beliefs moderate, but not their voting patterns.
The GOP is totally losing the plot on abortion. And maybe gay rights - I’m not sure what is going on there. Conversely trans is likely more complicated.
Should have mentioned abortion. That slipped my mind—AMAB privilege there.
Trans is more complicated among non-millennials. And trans sports are more complicated among millennials. If the GOP made a reasonable push on trans sports, they could totally take the moderate vote.
But the GOP is going all in on trans-denial, and all the studies on millennials I've seen show it's pushing them away.
The irony of trans sports is that there are virtually no trans people in high school sports in the first place. If conservatives made a push there, their best bet would be to actually push for historically conservative legislation, meaning something giving local authorities power and freedom from being sued without otherwise making broad, sweeping legislation. But because they insist on writing broad legislation in states where there are literally zero trans high school athletes, they just end up looking like adults bullying kids.
I don’t get the sense most early middle aged people (millennials, we are that) are down with the politics of retribution that have come to characterize the modern GOP. If republicans just opposed trans activism around things like sports I agree they’d be okay, but their policies are clearly designed to humiliate and punish a class of people they detest and for the most part that doesn’t fly with my generation.
I see your point, but disagree with your conclusion that this is a key voter's issue. I'd love to see a source to change my mind if you can share one. My rationale:
A lot of millennials have grown up more "personal finance literate", or at least interested, than their parents - IMO this is due to a lot of things like broad access to information, the idolization of people like Warren Buffett, and the cost of trading stocks coming down.
As a result, I believe they are more likely to prioritize voting based on whichever party is focused on the economic issues they believe are important. I suspect many moderates would not rank niche social issues (eg trans sports) in their top 5.
From the lens, conservatives or progressives that fill up lots of air time on social issues at the expense of economic policy, cleaning up cities, or defense policy, will raise red flags for many moderates - regardless of a candidate's actual position on those social issues.
Pretty sure that trans issues are just low salience. Trans people are rare as a portion of the adult population, and something like "trans women athletes" is just insanely niche. Only a subset of people care about sports, and only a subset of those care about women sports.
I will tell you there is a certain lack of outrage for all Trans issues because most people understand them but sympathy will increase with GOP abuse. This is now much bigger than sports, it's about medical freedoms, youth medical freedoms, and the ability to live in public.
I meant to say that its low salience for almost all people - but there is a very committed minority on the left, and its rising in salience. Something like 80% of americans support protections for trans people in the workplace, so at most its a case of lacklustre support rather than ideological opposition.
The GOP is playing it like they have a winning hand.
I think its just the least radioactive thing they can deliver to the conservative portion of their base. But then again given RDS's polling, we can see how well that goes.
This will be interesting, and I think there are glimmers of this already happening. In Illinois, a comfortably blue state, the electorate rejected a progressive tax measure a couple years ago, and I’m not convinced it was all right wing propaganda - I think in high-tax blue states there is a re-examination going on about gov spending. Also, JB Pritzker is governing like an economic moderate because I do think he feels pressure to do so.
Pritzker, governing like an economic moderate? That surprised me. Mind elaborating at all on what you mean by that?
Hmm, I'd be curious of how he hasn't governed as an economic moderate, because all I've seen is a pretty boring, fiscally responsible tenure so far.
After the progressive income tax amendment went down, he has mostly focused on raising revenue by nibbling around the edges of the tax code (increasing the number of services that are taxed, etc) and doing procedural things like maximizing medicaid reimbursements.
He's been very responsible in the use of COVID funds and the increased sales tax receipts from this current inflationary period. The state has paid down it's bill backlog from the Rauner-Madigan feud, replenished the almost empty rainy-day fund to a tune of almost $2B, and have increased funding to the pension funds. It has seen increases in it's credit ratings from the rating agencies. On top of all this, there hasn't been a noticeable increase in the state workforce or any hugely expensive initiatives that I can see.
Illinois is not going to be a state cutting taxes anytime soon given the deep, DEEP pension hole (without a pension reform amendment), so Pritzker's approach seems to me about as good as its going to get for folks looking for fiscal responsibility balancing low-impact revenue increases and responsible use of revenue to bring stability to the state's finances.
That pension debt is a very good point to raise. I tend to think of Pritzker as someone who is still trying to raise taxes in the nation's highest-taxed state* and therefore someone who has to be pretty ideologically committed to tax increases given that you'd think Illinois is already pretty far up the marginal benefit curve. I have a friend (politically idiosyncratic moderate, increasingly liberal) who describes himself sometimes as a refugee of Illinois' tax and regulatory code. However, given the eye-catching hole in the state's finances, I suppose there really isn't a prudent lower-tax equilibrium in the short term.
*according to some reports, e.g. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-tax-rates-rank-no-1-highest-in-u-s/
Yeah, it’s forgotten by many, but Rauner’s big idea for fixing the pension mess coming into office, short of a pension reform amendment, was to move pension debt from the state to municipalities and then have them declare bankruptcy. So, unfortunately, I don’t think there is a lower tax solution right now, and it seems the GOP plans have been pretty crude, if you believe the state should pay what it promised state workers. It’s important to keep in mind that state workers hired 2011 and later are on a much less generous pension plan, so over time the pressure will let up on the system.
Another point in ‘Pritzker as moderate’ tally is that I read he’s really concerned about the new Chicago mayor taxing big business out of the city.
One day I decided to check out housing prices in South Chicago instead of the north or suburbs—you can buy a house with a garage for $100k. That is the only world class city in America where you can do that and property taxes aren’t high. Inglewood now has $700k houses. Maybe you can find a $100k house in Dallas or Houston but if I’m only spending $100k I can spend December and January and February in Florida or Vegas.
We don't need trans, homo, and drag. Those are the promoters of Mao Marxist Doctrine of China. WOKE=MARXISM.
This probably understates the length and psychological impact of the recession. Educated people are resilient, but spending your 20s being told to pound sand is not an easy thing to unwind, and I think the cultural residue from that is hard for people who did not live through it to recognize.
I think this is true, and also that it creates a knowing through experience how much luck impacts people's economic situation. I also wonder what this looks like if you separate out the portion of millennials that entered the labor market 2007-2012 from the entire generation.
"In 10 or 20 years when the Boomers die" My goodness, what will happen to Gen Xers (me) when that happens!? Society will expect us to be the responsible older adults because there is no one else! Also there will be no one to resent for thinking they invented pop culture!
Gen X will possibly not have a President. Boomers to millennials.
Obama was an Xer.
1961? No way. Late boomer.
No, Gen X starts in 64 or 65. Obama is really Generation Jones, 1955-1964. Culturally, Boomers are really 1939-1954, give or take a year. Look at when the Beatles and Stones were born. Ken Keasey and Owsley Stanley, icons of the counter-culture, were born in 1935.
I see what you're getting at, but the phrase "baby boomer" as initially conceived has a pretty specific meaning: someone born during the period of spiking birth rates that followed the Second World War. So it kind of doesn't make sense to include people born before, say, 1945 in that cohort.
It's also worth noting that a given generation's cultural icons are often of the generation prior. Silents loved Frank Sinatra, who was born in 1915. Many of the famous hip-hop artists beloved by millennials are Gen-Xers. Kurt Cobain was an Xer, but a lot of the famous alt-rockers from the 80s and early 90s are actually late Boomers. Etc.
That’s where the problem start. The Baby Boom generation was named strictly on the basis of the shape of the birthdate curve, and then stereotyped the generation based on what happened to the first half of the curve. I was born in 1960, and never had the option to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” I was seven during the “summer of love” and never eligible for the draft. Instead, we in the second half of the birth rate bulge got two oil embargo’s, and stagflation during our high school ears and graduated into the 1981 recession. That’s why I like to break us out as Generation Jones.
You were "born a little late" https://susanwerner.com/music/#lyrics_296_3
I was four years old in nineteen-sixty-nine
When everybody had their thing and I had mine
There were some people smoking weed, there were some others doing speed
But I was way big into raisins at the time
...
(A song I know because the lyrics were quoted in Douglas Copland's _Generation X_)
That's fair. Though as an older millennial, I'd say the same thing about me and someone born in 1995 who barely remembers 9/11 and got a smartphone in high school. There's a strong element of arbitrariness to this entire exercise.
All you're doing is pointing out how ludicrous it is to place everybody in these arbitrary 18-year time slices and think it tells you something meaningful about them. It only allows you to make gross generalizations in aggregate terms. People towards either end of the slices are always going to feel like they are culturally different from each other. Most people probably feel that their age cohort extends about five years on either side of them.
And besides which, stereotyping people is a bad idea, period. I did have the option to turn on, tune in and drop out, but I did none of them. In no way does this define me.
Yes. It’s hard to see the Beatles as from the silent generation.
Wasn’t the Silent Generation skipped as well? Or they had 1 Prez?
Seems that being part of a big generational cohort helps for the Presidency (and vice versa).
Biden is Silent, Trump was borderline.
Trump, Clinton and W Bush were borderline - they were all born in 1946, which is kind of wild when you think about it.
That means there's still time for Al Gore to give it another run.
Hey, he's younger than Biden and Trump.
My parents- Dad - 1938 and Mom -1943- Silents. They both hated Nixon. However, we passed the hippies hitchhiking to Woodstock on the move upstate. My Dad was a bank manager and was getting transferred up to Central NY from Long Island when I was about 3, I had a baby brother and my mother was a housewife. They divorced in 1973. But neither of them were turning on, tuning in or dropping out of society. Thank God they were both spared Trump. Their new house in central NY cost $20K-- 3 BR, 1.5 bath tract home. My father's salary was $85/week.
Yeah, Boomers' kids are Gen X -- people born in the 40s and 50s already had their kids before the mid to late 80s. The inheritance will have to go through our hands before it trickles down to the Millenials.
My millennial children live in house worth twice mine, have kids, and show no signs of drifting right politically, the one who was a radical Marxist in HS and is now a finance professor--he's now a social democrat.
Are they twice as successful as you? Or more than twice as successful?
Because I'm in a similar boat, I make way more than my parents and live a better life but I also am 3-5x more successful.
My friends who are the same level of success as my parents are financially fucked. 0 savings, no way to save since their entire paycheque is gone before they get it, etc
It's easy to be Marxist when you're well fed and have a roof over your head.
either that or dirt poor and exploited. maybe that's why they are called extremists lol
I mean, academia is now heavily selected for leftist politics - unlike a private sector job, it's harder to keep your head down and your mouth shut if you disagree with the prevailing politics. Also, most professors these days don't make very much compared to people working much more ordinary jobs, although I grant that a finance professor may be an exception.
Why do you think so?
Why do I think so about what in particular?
I think Millennials could become increasingly right-wing on economics, particularly their own tax bill, as their incomes grow with age while maintaining liberal views on social and cultural issues. Recent polling by Pew shows that the majority of Americans under 65 believe they pay more than their fair share in taxes. [1] For 18-29, 53% express that view as do 60% of those between 30 and 49.
Americans in general have had a fairly strong aversion to paying more in taxes since Reagan. And we’re now at the point where even Democratic politicians have to promise no tax increases on anyone earning less than $400k. Seems this trend will continue with Millennials.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/07/top-tax-frustrations-for-americans-the-feeling-that-some-corporations-wealthy-people-dont-pay-fair-share/
"Americans in general have had a fairly strong aversion to paying more in taxes since Reagan." a bit harsh to put that on Reagan no? has there ever been a period where people didn't have a strong aversion to paying more taxes? especially rich when speaking about a country that was founded from a revolt about paying taxes. If Reagan increased that aversion I'd like to see some evidence.
You see this period from 1932 until 1982? See how government spending as a percentage of GDP goes up and up? That’s because people wanted government to do more and voted in politicians who increased taxes and spent more. For a long time there the “low tax” GOP party couldn’t get a majority in either chamber of Congress. From 1932 until 1980 the Democratic Party was the majority in both chambers 44 out of 48 years. And remember we mostly ran balanced budgets back then. So there was broad support for more taxes from FDR to Reagan.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
hmm. so first of all the chart you linked to is net federal outlays. outlays = spending, it's actually the exact opposite of taxes. Confusing the two is a bit of a problem. If the two were similar we wouldn't be fighting over tax ceiling at moment.
this chart shows federal receipts https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S
I struggle to see the Reagan effect (well i mean it's visible, but just noise in grand scheme of things). Basically things have been flat since end of WWII. The increase you are seeing in your earlier chart is exclusively attributable to ever looser restraints on debt-funded spending.
ditto from this other chart that shows total federal income by type https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/include/usgr_chart3p24.png it's from this article https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history
at the state and local level taxes have generally increased over time, but no reagan effect there obviously these taxes actually increased noticeably during his presidency. Worth noting that local+state taxes add up to a very substantial portion of total taxation, so the overall increase / burden on taxpayers has been quite real.
https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/include/usgr_chart3p25.png and https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/include/usgr_chart3p26.png
all I see is combination of great depression + WWII followed by cold war drove both a need for much more government spending (and taxation) as well as public willingness to support such measures (and of course in reality politicians spent well beyond that level of willingness, through incurring debt), and as these things usually go once you build up the apparatus to spend lots of money it's impossible to ever go back, so you just reach a new plateau until the next big crisis forces you to level up to next one etc.
Interesting data thanks. What really looks like to me is that the willingness of the government (and the populace) to run deficits started to increase during the Carter/Reagan era and then never really went away. Clinton famously balanced the budget but it wasn't enduring, mostly due to an unexpected increase in tax revenue if I recall correctly.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSGDA188S
sorry but I really struggle with your interpretation of the data. I mean look at your own chart.
- Carter was president from 77-81. In 1976 year before he came in federal deficit was -3.9% of GDP. It narrowed to 2.6% in 1980 last full year he was president, and 2.5% in 1981 if you want to count that year as well on the theory of delayed impact of his policies.
- Reagan was president from 81-89. In 1980 year before he came in federal deficit was 2.6% of GDP. It widened all the way to 3.0% in 1988 and 2.7% in 1989.
Color me not impressed by these numbers. Of course reality is more complicated, GDP goes up and down and may cause a denominator effect, these presidents may have set in motion movements that only manifested later etc., all am saying is I struggle to draw conclusions you are drawing based on the data you are presenting. as far as I can see fiscal discipline went rather out of window during recession of mid-70s, i.e. during the Ford administration. But of course he was such an insignificant president nobody bothers to tar his legacy.
If you read some of the literature, scholars do agree I believe (not an expert in the area, have just read tidbits here and there) that Reagan was nowhere as much a tax hawk as popular imagination represents him.
Lastly yeah, the balanced budgets during Clinton era were mostly (i say mostly because he did try to reign in spending as well, with mixed effects) bullshit mirage effects from internet bubble, similar to all the big state budget surpluses seen in 2022 due to fed spending induced asset price bubble, but that politicians e.g. in California couldn't commit fast enough to new spending initiatives as if it was going to be forever sustainable income.
replying to myself here but another way to look at it is that while it's probably normal/healthy for government to run deficits during/right after recessions (and wars), in the past once the crisis is over one tries to go back to surpluses, or if that is not possible at least balance the books so that there is more room for manoeuvre the next round of bad times comes around. And yeah on that basis, and only eyeballing the chart you linked to, it appears carter / reagan / obama / most likely biden now did bad jobs of reigning in the spending and/or increasing taxation sufficiently after recessions to get back to equilibrium, which led to the debt ballooning ever higher.
ha, really interesting quote from that northeastern article you linked to about evidence (or not) of people becoming more conservative as they age: "About 40 years ago, it used to be thought that people got more liberal as they aged. In those days, the oldest people were the people who came of age during [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt—or the Silent Generation. On the whole, the Silent Generation was more liberal than some subsequent generations. So when you just look at the relationship between ideology and age, what you find in this case is that the older people were more liberal, and the younger people were more conservative. The thinking then becomes: getting old makes you realize that liberalism is the right way of looking at the world." fascinating if true
"In those days, the oldest people were the people who came of age during [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt—or the Silent Generation."
What? This is obviously wrong. Forty years ago, the so-called Silent Generation (born late 20s to early 40s) was in their 40s and 50s. They were definitely not "the oldest people" in 1983; that would have been whatever the generation before the WWII generation was called. (The Last Victorians? Okies? Idunno, whatever.)
hmm fair enough. i think the guy maybe didn't mean the silent generation specifically whatever the technical birth date definitions, maybe rather the greatest generation who lived through great depression and WWII and may have a rosier view on role of government.
Yeah, my grandparents loved the Roosevelts and I think my grandmother saw Eleanor as a role model. My mother came to the US at 5 so she grew up wanting to fit in and she "Liked Ike"
Yeah, that seems reasonable. (Though it's worth nothing that the oldest members of the WWII generation would have been around 70 in 1983, so they wouldn't have *quite* been the oldest people around. But at this point I'm being kinda nitpicky.)
As a boomer myself (second wave, meaning that to me Fess Parker is Daniel Boone, not Davy Crockett), I want to make the slight correction that the theme of The Big Chill wasn't liberal to conservative, but idealism to cynicism. And they got back some of what they lost not through ideology, but by their connection to each other.
I am largely very skeptical of some of these analyses. I'm probably running headlong into an already written rebuttal in an article I didn't click through to, but I think idiosyncracys in each generation overwhelm any attempt at comparing generational wealth.
Perhaps it is different in the US, but at least here in the UK it is pretty much impossible for the median earner to buy a home without a partner who is also an earner. Given that the entire millennial cohort is effectively required to be earners - wouldn't a better analysis be share of GDP per earner?
Well, we can theorize all we want about what makes it harder and easier to buy a home, but the data shows that the Millennials are, in fact, buying homes.
But later. The chart shows something like a 10% point gap at age 30 vs boomers in home ownership. That's a critical age if you are planning to have children in the marry-make home-have children mode. If there has also been any reduction in the size/quality of the homes owned at each age this could even be worse than it appears. Anecdotally that is an issue. So I think this bears more scrutiny.
That's a tough graph to read, but what it shows is a modest gap *in the past*, when the leading edge of the Millennial generation was in their early 30s.
This was a fascinating article and I liked your analysis. I came away torn. As there is significant evidence millennials are doing fine. She and you are correct that the teens had significant economic recovery. This was under-discussed then and is under-known now.
Policy makers really did do a good job addressing a brutal economic problem. And the results show up in the data. Incomes caught up. Wealth almost caught up.
Correct me if I'm wrong the piece didn't analyze wealth as % of GDP. She acknowledges humans care a lot about status. If human do, then % of wealth matters and by that standard millennials are still doing worse than previous generations. Again correct me if I'm wrong that that is in the data.
But one thing I think this piece misses is you don't get a second chance for your early 30s. If you were in your early during the hardship period your ability to have kids was weakened.
And for a lot of people having kids is the entire point of life. Overall I wish there was way more analysis of fertility in the article. She may be right that it was all cultural preferences, not economic, and does not reflect lower quality of life (millennnials are doing fine).
But given the importance of fertility it really deserved way more analysis than it got. If she's right that this is all cultural and doesn't reflect lower QOL it should be elaborated on.
Personal disclosure: My views on this are colored. I graduated from law school in 09 and was unemployed for 2 1/2 years. I took a couple of years out of dating pool to get my finances back in order. Relationship feel through in mid-teens and now find myself pushing 40 with no family. Saying things are great for me at 40 economically isn't nearly as important as having things be good at 27. You have way more options at 27.
I'm doing great economically now but I would have much rather have a recession at 40 rather than 27 because my odds having a family would be better.
Homes in general have been getting larger and larger. Homes as twice as big as they were during the 60s. My belief is that Millennial dissatisfaction is mostly driven by children who were raised in upper middle class households and are surprised that they can’t have their parents standard of living in their early adulthood. And of course they are the journalists, academics and opinion makers for their generation, living in their own echo chamber.
That's probably right - I was more alluding to the GDP (EDIT: I meant generational wealth) per capita data, I think it is not as grandly unifying as it appears.
Well, I didn't show GDP per capita in this post. I did show median income, which is a median, not an average!
Apologies, I meant generational wealth per capita.
(In the US, outside of the handful of super expensive metros on the coasts).
Are these people who can’t buy in normally desirable areas earning an above average salary. If so then that is different from the past.
Worth noting that with today's interest rates, a $600k home is like $3500-4000/month in payments, depending on local property taxes. And that's with 20-25% down. It's a lot.
In general, I agree with the premise of this article but something is gonna have to give in the real estate market.
That sounds pretty expensive for a house that needs work. And since the house is priced at $500-600k there is clearly a market for those kind of houses, and probably amongst millennials too.
Also you moved to a house that needs work from a house in a less desirable area that needs work. That’s two completely different things. Gentrification isn’t inevitable.
If a couple with average or above average earnings are paying a lot of money for a below average house then something has changed
Either Noah or Matt Yglasius (forget which) had a whole column on UK housing and how it’s damned near impossible to build there, which is both preventing home ownership and one of the major factors behind why their economy outside of London is pretty well garbage
This is great news. Some fascinating tidbits here, such as the fact that growing old does not make people more conservative per se, whereas having children does.
I’m older - 76, white, with a BA from a state university that I acquired with no debt because of the availability of VA benefits following military service. The draft occasioned the military service, not patriotic beliefs. I got my first piece of real estate with a nothing down, low interest VA mortgage at age 22. I became an entrepreneur and never worked for an employer. I got wealthy and enjoyed what I did for work. I did many things. I owned a lot or real estate and sold it for more than I paid for it. Economics 101 - buy something, then sell it for more. One observation jumped out at me in this essay. I believe people become more conservative in their political views and their behavior when they have children for whom they feel increasing responsibility. They minimize risk. I’ve watched this behavior manifest itself repeatedly. I am a political liberal. My parents and family became conservatives because, I believe, they were concerned about providing for their children and grandchildren. I have no children, and thus no grandchildren. This was by choice. I believe that if I wanted children in my life, I should adopt those less fortunate kids who need care. I realized that people with children can never - ever accumulate enough wealth to provide them with a calmness that they can provide enough for their growing family. They fear for the future of their children and grandchildren so they continually worry about what is ahead for those generations. They try to build an estate to leave as much behind for their family as possible. They can never relax. If you want a calm older life, consider not having children and instead enjoy your life. Most of your peers will accuse you of selfishness, but when they are honest with themselves, they will admit that parenting is difficult, expensive, often thankless and can be very painful to your emotional well-being.
This is really good. But one thing that has really changed is the cost of higher ed and the degree to which it is needed to have a good paying job. 50 years ago I attended Northwestern University. Tuition went from $1800/year to $3,000. But I had a summer warehouse job at $3.25/hour and with overtime I could cover around 2/3 of my tuition and living expenses. I am not sure that is true anymore.
A second part of this which I have observed is that millennials at 22 want the same wealth that there parents have at 55 not the wealth the parents had at 22.
I’m pretty much your average millennial in that I was born in 1988. I think what contributes most to my generation’s restlessness is the combination of student debt and the recent explosion in home prices. When I graduated law school in 2014 it was a historically bad employment market for lawyers so I didn’t start making real money until about 2020. Meanwhile, my wife is saddled with six figures of debt from attending dental school. Objectively speaking we are very fortunate and well off but we are now in the process of looking for our second home (we bought a starter home in 2018) having two young kids and we can barely afford a decent sized home without having to buy a complete gut job. It’s very frustrating having done “the right thing” by getting professional degrees and still feeling like we’re behind. I probably sound a bit whiny/elitist but I suspect there are many people who have the same frustrations. I also acknowledge that younger millennials who are just now trying to buy starter homes are much worse off than we are. In sum, I think millennial distress is one of those things that’s more vibes based than fact based but vibes aren’t completely worthless.
We bought a starter home in 1998. It is a 3 BR, 1.5 bath tract home. We never moved. We paid off our mortgage. Later took a HELOC and replaced the roof, siding, windows and paid that off. We had one child so decided we have enough space, we just sometimes have too much stuff. Reconsider your space. You might take a lot of pressure off yourself if you stay in your home and just make it better.
I have two kids, a 100# german shepherd and work from home so unfortunately staying in my 3/2 1400 SQFT house isn't really an option!
Recently my son and his girlfriend visited with their German Shephard. Soon they will be actually staying with us for a number of months until they have gotten well ensconced in new jobs and will be looking to find a home to buy. (both are fairly recently graduated from their graduate programs, my son last year and she will be mid-May). So, I have to say an active adult GSD is very distracting-indoors and out (barking). I am considering putting up gates to limit his activity within the house and cut down on the mud/dirt tracked in etc. Also, we are going to place locks on all the upstairs doors so he (and our dog, a CKCSD as well as our 2 cats can't just barge into any room which is what they are able to do now. My hope is they are able to sign a contract by Fall and move by the end of November. Our house is similarly sized to yours. We have a basement though, which is a fine place to disappear to if needing some time without harassment from demands of pets, kids, spouses... if I don't want to leave the house. Also... our local library has study corrals that can be reserved when I absolutely need time of unbroken focus-- free of charge.
I live in the "Free State of Florida" so I don't have a basement or even a garage. We're packed in like sardines!
You have my sympathy. I understand the housing market there is very tough (overpriced). My MIL is in Port Saint Lucie and the prices are crazy. Our area in central NY is still very affordable currently although it has gone up d/t Covid and the upcoming Micron Chip Plant construction will probably make it rise higher. I have been looking at homes about 3K sq. ft and they are usually $300K and higher depending on if they are used or new construction in the suburbs, if there is a one or two car garage etc. We have a cold snowy winter here every year so in the Spring (now) that is when everyone tends to put their homes on the market and it is good to wait a month or two as those that are not picked up fast tend to get their asking prices decreased.
I think both this and Twenge’s article are implicitly about how college-attending millennials have caught up to previous generations’ income and wealth. For example, Twenge’s article cites St Louis Fed data showing that college degree-holding Millennials were 4% behind previous generations in wealth but non-college degree-holding millennials were 18% behind. My unsubstantiated instinct is that because 35-40% of Millennials hold college degrees, they’re a large enough cohort to drag up medians on various measures (note: yes, median). My other unsubstantiated instinct is that they probably disproportionately make up the cohort of millennial homeowners.
This is a long way of saying: it wouldn’t surprise me if the gap in income/wealth between those with and without college degrees is higher than previous generations. I’d like to see an article theorizing about Millennial politics given that context (it would be interesting because of the increasing tendency for those without college degrees to vote R)
On the Redfin housing ownership graph: The dark red line seems to indicate that 25% of 18-year-olds today own their own home? This seems incredibly unlikely to me
America Fails the Civilization Test:
The average American my age is roughly six times more likely to die in the coming year than his counterpart in Switzerland.
By Derek Thompson The Atlantic
This has some insights into the generational life spans and how Americans fare by age to the modern democracies. Age 20- 40 is pretty sad.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/america-mortality-rate-guns-health/673799/
"How’s the U.S. doing on the civilization test? When graded on a curve against its peer nations, it is failing. The U.S. mortality rate is much higher, at almost every age, than that of most of Europe, Japan, and Australia. That is, compared with the citizens of these nations, American infants are less likely to turn 5, American teenagers are less likely to turn 30, and American 30-somethings are less likely to survive to retirement."