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Lost Generations? Wealth Building among Young Americans (Gen. X and Y are financially screwed)
Urban Institute ^ | Eugene Steuerle, Signe-Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, and Sisi Zhang

Posted on 03/16/2013 10:57:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Unless you’re under 40.Today,those in Gen X and Gen Y have accumulated less wealth than their parents did at that age over a quartercentury ago.Their average wealth in 2010 was 7 percent below that of thosein their 20s and 30s in 1983. Even before the Great Recession, younger Americans were on a strikingly different trajectory.

Now, stagnant wages, diminishing job opportunities, and lost home values may be merging to paint a vastly different future for Gen X and Gen Y. Despite their relative youth, they may not be able to make up thelost ground.

If these generations cannot accumulate wealth, they will be less able to support themselves when they eventually retire. This financial uncertainty could reverberate throughout the economy,since entrepreneurial activity, saving, and investment tend to build on a base of confidence and growing wealth.

Meanwhile, the country’s budget crises and public debt burden loom large, and the younger generation could be facing much highertax bills, both in total and as a share of their incomes, than their parents.

(Excerpt) Read more at urban.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: generationx; generationy; wealth
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To: SeekAndFind

Parents need to assist their kids, and in turn when the parents get older, the kids need to assist the parents.

We plan to help our kids buy their first house....I want to maximize the overall wealth of the family, and the less money they have to pay out in rents that result reducing overall family wealth, the better....Then they can save that money in their 20s, and help us, when we are old, and they should be financially well off. That’s the way it should work. Families look out for each other...And it is no coincidence that when the government broke families apart, it increase the Federal leviathan exponentially.


41 posted on 03/16/2013 1:35:37 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: RegulatorCountry
You left out the tattoos. Got to have lots of them.

I am blown away by the $$ some of these grungers have invested in inking themselves up. Has to be in the thousands of dollars for many of them.

42 posted on 03/16/2013 1:44:36 PM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: SeekAndFind

My parents had video games, internet, deregulated air travel, smart phones, a huge variety of ethnic foods (cheeses, sushi, Chinese, Indian), hd movies in the home, recorded shows, reliable cars, air conditioning, etc. and I have less?


43 posted on 03/16/2013 2:44:10 PM PDT by LifeComesFirst (http://rw-rebirth.blogspot.com/)
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To: Starstruck

The more you are able to save when you are young the less you will need to save when you are old.

&&&
Good for you. You seem to have a lot of sense.

It is sad how many of them don’t get this simple truth that you stated.

Many of us in the boomer generation had it pretty easy compared to our parents. But for a lot of us this was the scenario: When we got married, we started out in a crummy apartment with hand-me-down furniture. We made do, scrimping and cutting corners so that we could save up for a down payment on a house. There were no fancy vacations and running up of credit card bills and we did not buy new cars. Eating in a restaurant was a special treat reserved for birthdays or anniversaries.

I see Gen-Xers expecting a house and brand new furniture right off the bat, after they have gotten married in a ridiculously expensive wedding. They get new cars, take expensive vacations, buy too much convenience food, and eat out a lot. They dig themselves into terrible financial holes and figure out what happened. A lot of this can be tracked back to the overindulgence of their parents, who always wanted to give them whatever their little hearts desired.

There are, of course, a lot of other factors at play now, I realize, but I see many couples in trouble because of what I have described.


44 posted on 03/16/2013 2:53:43 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved! -Ps80)
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To: SeekAndFind

Wealth accumulation is mostly the equity in one’s primary residence and capital gains on equity investments. Most of the difference in these charts can probably be explained by two phenomena. The first is when the individual go into the stock market via mutual funds and IRAs/401ks, and when they first bought a house.

The earlier one got into the stock market, the less impact the crashes of 2001 and 2008 had. The earlier on bought a house, the less impact the housing bubble had.

Similarly, spending habits of 20-30 year olds by generation would be useful.

Another valuable measure would be to look at the range and median salaries for various jobs and degree levels over time.


45 posted on 03/17/2013 5:50:31 AM PDT by magellan
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