The future of millennials and gen z

[J J]

Hi, everyone,

Lately, I have been worrying about the future of us, young adults, especially concerned about those who "should" be becoming parents, owning a house, having a stable career, etc. Note that I said "should" referring to the fact that we are getting close to 30 yo and beyond, not that this is what we have to do. Times have changed, thankfully. 

I'll like to add that I have been doing pretty well, honestly, so this is not a post about self-pity or some kind of projection due to personal frustration. Also, I live in the Basque Country, so in where you're from, things could be otherwise.

The issue is that in these last 4 month or so, I've been observing around me, and it is the case for the vast majority of my friends around 25-30, that they're still living with their parents, and plan to do so for quite a few years, still. 

Salaries are at their lowest. The average yearly income in 2019 was slightly above 24k €/year, and the most common was of about 18,5 k €/year. All of that before taxes, of course. (https://elpais.com/economia/2021-06-22/el-18-de-los-trabajadores-cobraba-menos-del-salario-minimo-justo-antes-de-la-pandemia.html). Again, this is the case where I live.

I have not a single friend making over 2k €/month, most of them not even close. But, as an example, an average 80 m2, three-bedroom house, costs between 200k € - 350k €.

And when we talk about it, millennials and gen z, the atmosphere is not pessimistic. In fact, this situation has come to acceptance. We have normalized it; to be 30 and living with your parents, to be a wage slave, paying first necessity stuff like electricity and gas at outrageous prices, and not becoming a parent because simply it can't be afforded.

And when talking to boomers or gen x about it, they can't grasp how significant this is. They think that it happens because the younger generations are not as ambitious as they were, or that they're just lazy.

I mean, I'm from Spain, a first (???) world country, from the EU... It's just unbelievable that we can't afford a decent living and independence. 

What do you think is the root cause? And how do you think is going to escalate? I don't think that's sustainable.

Thanks a lot, and love to y'all.

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by J J
Wrong title spelling

[Radu97]

I live in London as well. I have a decent salary here and can even save around 900£/month and still live alone. But in order for me to save I have to live "cheaply" in a way not spending too much. Just spend on rent, food, training martial arts in my free time and sometimes going out. Other then that not much. Everything got so much more expensive lately from food to electricity, transportation in the city. Even my flight back home to Romania...last year I went on vacation and paid 100£ for the flight including 20 kg luggage...now I paid for the same flight 250€ ?

 

We have to adapt and keep moving forward, find solutions. I'm not the type of person to complain about this situation but these are the times this generation lives in and we have to find solutions to move forward.

[LastThursday]

House prices are a real problem. I'm in the UK in the South East of England. Over the road is a three bedroom house with garden, which is selling for around £600k (~700k euro). I rent, next door the one bedroom flat/apartment is going for £200k (no outdoor area). I didn't realise things are getting expensive in Spain too.

It seems to be for several reasons here in the UK. Land is incredibly expensive, because there is limited land to build on. The cost of labour and raw materials is also expensive. If you could buy some land you could probably build a three bedroom maybe for £300k. 

Also there is the British dream of home ownership, everyone wants their own home. I think for example in Germany it's a lot more common to rent. So there's a cultural element to it. But this creates a pressure on the housing market.

There is also population pressure, the density of people in the UK is relatively high compared to other European countries. This creates demand outstripping supply. 

Lastly, reading between the lines, it seems like the house building industry here likes higher prices because it makes for higher profits. So it artificially creates a supply problem which keeps the prices high. It works because of the London effect, where wages are quite a lot higher than the rest of the country - and those workers are able to afford the artificially inflated prices (and commute from the South East into work), which keeps the market buoyant. Also the government doesn't really seem to want to address the root cause of the problem by making more land available. There's a lot of talk about building affordable homes, but no real action.

Saying that, house building has increased a lot in the last ten years here.  I see building going on everywhere, but all at highly inflated prices that us normal people can't afford.

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by LastThursday

[Pavement]

Whilst prices have continued to rise and wages remain low, I don't think that's the main cause.  Even in the olden days if a weekly wage was 10 pounds, and a house would cost 30,000 that was still unaffordable to many people (I'm just making up a random number I don't know the exact costs) 

One issue is down to the way boomers and gen X have parented. They might say us millenials aren't as ambitious, but they were the ones who raised us.. they wrapped us in cotton wool and didn't encourouge us to be independant from a young age!  

Some other things I've noticed..

People are in school longer:  the amount of people who go to university now compared to in earlier generations. In previous generations university was for people who could afford it, or you would only go if you really needed to, for example being a doctor or a lawyer.  But now everyone can go by getting a loan and some parental support.  I'm not saying going to university is a bad thing, it of course depends what you are going to do there. The problem is when almost everyone is going.  Sooo many choose to study something that they don't end up getting a job in, but they just chose it because they didn't know what else to do, so then all these people are dependant on parents and running up a debt until they are 24/25.

Not enough people learning a skill/trade upon leaving school: people don't learn any life skills, working skills or trades that can earn them a living, instead they will continue schooling into their 20s. Then you have a huge amound of people going into the job market with degrees upon degrees and they can't get a job.  Then they end up settling for a minimum wage job because they can't keep being supported by their parents.

Earlier generations or working class people usually get a job upon leaving school and do apprenticeships and learn skills so they will always have something to make money from which they can fall back on. 

Life skills: The amount of people in their 20s and even 30s i have met who don't know how to cook and clean is crazy.  They are used to having a parent do everything for them.

Harder to get a well paying job in your chosen field:  Because there are so many people searching for the same types of jobs, fresh from university, employers need to ask for more and more experience and you really have to be able to stand out.  Just having been to university is not enough anymore, because there are millions of other people who got the exact same degree as you so you aren't special.

You need to do a lot of work for free just to get some experience.  So again people are kept in low wage jobs because there is too much competion/not enough options in chosen field.

So all these things combined leads to people still being like children in their 20s, so no wonder they aren't ready for children until mid to late 30s.  it seems now that mid to late 30s is  when people start to become an adult.  It used to be "ok your'e 18 now you are an adult. early 20s, get married have a kid by 30"

But yeah, these are all just things i've noticed.  It is so hard to save money on low wages and also be independant.  I don't really know what the answer is except do your best to learn a skill that can make you more money and decide you are going to be an adult asap lol.

 

 

[Yarco]

I'm in the middle of the Millennial age range. I bought a home at the end of 2017, otherwise I think I'd be pretty screwed and unable to afford a house if I had waited even just a couple more years. In 5 years it's now worth 2x - 3x what I paid for it. It's not possible to save a down payment now when the price of houses goes up $100k every 6 months or so. It's not just EU, it's a global problem at the moment.

Even owning a home that's rapidly increasing in value doesn't get me ahead. It just pegs me at the market price if I ever wanted to trade up to a slightly nicer home. Although that's better than having no option but to rent.

If you're in your 20s, I don't know if there's an easy option right now.

I think "The Great Reset" is coming but not in the way it has been portrayed. We're at the start of a bad and unavoidable recession that might become a depression. Everyone from the poor to the upper class is going to get wiped out by inflation, and set back on an even playing field. Only the elite will maintain their wealth, and then they'll probably buy up everything after the crash for pennies on the dollar.

You can try to maintain your current wealth from inflation with Bitcoin or gold, so you can buy after the crash, but even this is a big risk to take as somebody without much who's just getting by.

Prepare to suffer for the next 5 years or so until things start to improve again. It doesn't matter which politician gets in next, things too powerful are in motion now and things will just have to play itself out. This is a cycle that has to happen. So take the most pessimistic approach and look at what skills and techniques helped people survive during The Great Depression. If you have that knowledge you can survive in any situation. If things don't get as bad as I'm predicting, you'll still be more independent and in a good spot.

Realize that money is only 1 of the 8 forms of capital.

If you aren't in a position where you can get financial capital right now, there are 7 other kinds of wealth you can build:

Learn a valuable skill. Network with people in your community and build relationships.

Focus on just surviving and getting by for the next couple of years. I just bought 10 lbs of potatoes for about $6 and I'm currently letting them sprout under the sink for the next month. Then I'm going to plant 30+ potato plants in my backyard so I'll have 100+ lbs of potatoes to store next fall when things are even worse than now. Biden is telling you that food shortages are coming. World leaders don't make statements that pessimistic unless they have to. Don't think he's bluffing or exaggerating. You probably have another 6 months where the stores are full and prices aren't through the roof. Even if you have a limited amount of money, start buying a couple extra packs of ramen or cans of vegetables for harder times that are coming.

In the meantime, learn at least 1 valuable skill so that you're already in a position to start earning a 6-figure income (or post-inflation equivalent) once the next golden age of prosperity comes. It will be dark for a while but the sun always comes back through. Ideally learn a few skills, because we might be in a totally different paradigm and it's hard to say what skills will be of most value.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Yarco

[Gesundheit2]

1. Overpopulation.
2. The diminishing of the middle-class.
3. The increasing life standards.

[DocWatts]

Millennials and Zoomers get to be the guinea pigs for what happens to society when an entire generation is pushed out of being able to afford a home and denied opportunities to build wealth that they can pass on to the next generation.

Perhaps a gestalt shift towards housing as a basic human right might be the result of this, but it's going to be long, difficult road to make it to that point.

Edited March 31, 2022 by DocWatts

[Lyubov]

44 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Millennials and Zoomers get to be the guinea pigs for what happens to society when an entire generation is pushed out of being able to afford a home and denied opportunities to build wealth that they can pass on to the next generation.

Perhaps a gestalt shift towards housing as a basic human right might be the result of this, but it's going to be long, difficult road to make it to that point.

Yeah, it’s kinda crazy to see how boomers were able to buy a house in a decent area with a high school education and some easy factory job. It doesn’t keep me up at night but I really do wonder if I’ll ever own a flat and have a huge nest egg when I’m older or will I be renting and on a month by month then. I figure something drastic will have to change cause I don’t see just a whole portion of the population just living in poverty, would be pretty awful. At least in democratic societies I could see some sort of welfare system for people who are old and can’t work anymore. Oh wait, doesn’t the USA have that already and it’s been dismantled?

[DocWatts]

2 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

Yeah, it’s kinda crazy to see how boomers were able to buy a house in a decent area with a high school education and some easy factory job. It doesn’t keep me up at night but I really do wonder if I’ll ever own a flat and have a huge nest egg when I’m older or will I be renting and on a month by month then. I figure something drastic will have to change cause I don’t see just a whole portion of the population just living in poverty, would be pretty awful. At least in democratic societies I could see some sort of welfare system for people who are old and can’t work anymore. Oh wait, doesn’t the USA have that already and it’s been dismantled?

We can thank a corporatist political platform that the Boomers voted for for that. One that systemically dismantled the very support structures that the Boomers used to achieve thier middle class lifestyle.

[Boethius]

On 3/30/2022 at 5:10 AM, J J said:

What do you think is the root cause? And how do you think is going to escalate? I don't think that's sustainable.

I will answer the questions one by one, from an American perspective since that's what I know best:

• Decades worth of policy decisions that benefited the Boomer generation most especially, and had little regard for future generations.
• It's already been escalating, for the past few years, with all of the political instability we've been experiencing.
• No, it's not, but the Boomers won't be around forever either....

[J J]

Hey, thanks to everyone for sharing your views on this topic.

Yes, I think it is a complex phenomenon and it depends on many factors. But I can see how this middle-class you @DocWatts mentioned is disappearing around me. Upper- and middle-class boomers and x's are raising poor millennials and z's. These new generations may be able to afford a house or be able to live a comfortable life, but only with the support of their parents, that is, absorbing others' wealth, not creating any. If they invest intelligently, by the time they are 60 they may be in a comfortable financial state, even being able to retire, but, man, that's a whole lifetime.

I don't see, not even close, the same opportunities they had in the 60s-70s, even in the 80s, nowadays. 

At first, I thought it was due to, well, not laziness exactly, because people did not have a strong motivation or any willingness to get outside, to the "real world" and build something great, meaningful, to take risks and try to succeed. And although it may be the case sometimes, I see that the problem is more systematic. Our society has completely changed. 

I've seen people trying way, way harder than me, obtaining more degrees, masters, PhDs even, working long, long hours to just get by. Being the same age, or even older, their perspective is to achieve what I have (owning a house and building a family; do not think that I'm some sort of a millionaire) in 10 years or so, by age around 40. (I am not bragging, that's a fact; I just become lucky and found a very well-paid job. If I didn't, I don't know where I'd be). These cases, they're not just anecdotes, they're the norm.

I've come to believe that it has to do with capitalism. This system is designed to increase the wealth gap between the rich and the poor more and more. It started in the 1600s, so could it be the case that the system is getting obsolete? 

As a society, we are more prepared than ever, almost everyone is going to college, but wages are at their lowest, the rich are getting richer and the poor, are poorer. 

I'm not saying we should pursue socialism, but maybe the current capitalism needs to be fixed or rethought.

[Arcangelo]

On 3/30/2022 at 3:10 AM, J J said:

What do you think is the root cause?

Raging Stage orange capitalism.

[soos_mite_ah]

Ngl, I do every now and then go through phases of pessimissim because everything is expensive, wages have been stagnant, the world is slowly melting, there is a pandemic happening outside, and of course, right wing political extremism. Sometimes it's just like... welp tf do I have to look forward to? What am I working towards if nothing is promised or guranteed? I often feel burnt out by the way I have been working on things academically and professionally because I don't have that much time to myself. Even though I am working hard, there is a part of me that is afraid that it won't pay off and that I'm just going to be a wage slave anyway. Worst of all, becoming a wage slave at a dead end job with a decent salary that can have you affording basic shit that won't overwork you is the best case scenario compared to shit like the gig economy and having 5 side hustles to the point where you have monetized anything and everything that brings you joy just to make ends meet.  

And don't even get me started on having kids. Personal reasons aside, I don't want to raise kids in a world like this. My peers and I sometimes joke about making plans with this notion of if there will even be a future because in roughly 10 years or so, climate change is going to get REALLY bad. It would be along the lines of "well when I'm in my 30 *insert thing to do in your 30s* that is if there is even going to be an Earth then lmaooo." And even though it is a joke, there is this part that is actually serious in the sense of again... what do we have to look foward to?? These jokes were made prepandemic btw so shit has gotten worse since then.