Theres plenty of evidence that younger workers may face the most difficult economy since the Great Depression. The national unemployment rate is 7.5%, but its 16.1% for 16-to-24-year-olds.
Maybe when these kids [and their parents] see themselves stuck at home with shrunken prospects for advancement, they'll realize that most of what they learned in college sociology was pure bilge.
Sounds like they make the perfect slave fodder for a 1984 style society..
Precisely the opposite. They'll think it's someone else's fault.
“The percentage of 16-to-24-year-olds with a drivers license has dropped sharply since 1997, and is now below 70% for the first time since 1963. Millennials are demonstrating significantly different lifestyle and transportation preferences than older generations, declared a recent report by the U.S. Public Interest Group. Overall, it concluded, the driving boom is over.
With gas at $4/gallon in a lot of places, nobody is going anywhere they don’t have to.
It’s not just the lack of money. It’s a matter of worldview. Many millenials want to be very free: free of responsibility, don’t want to be tied down, etc. They relish experiences. Having to pay off and keep up cars and houses limits their freedom and their cash to have those experiences of travel, freedom, etc.
Most of them voted for the situation they’re in. They traded economic freedom for queer marriage, a “clean environment”, revenge against an imagined “1%” enemy and tolerance for every conceivable personal and cultural perversion. And there’s no sign they’ve changed their attitude. Well, they can just live with it.
In the last 12 years ending in January 2013, only 2,291,000 jobs were added to the U. S. Economy. Traditionally from 1965 through 2001, the average 12 year increase in jobs was 20,688,000.
When trying to figure out why those crazy millennials aren’t buying anything, this might be worthy of at least some consideration. Frankly, I think it tops the list.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3025870/posts?page=9#9
I’ve never understood the push to get somebody into a home purchase when they cannot afford it. It’s more of an anchor if you’re not in a good stable work environment. Makes it hard to just pull up stakes and move on.
Cash for clunkers was designed to eliminate the $2000 starter car. It was resoundingly successful. There are no cheap cars for kids. The cars they cag get they have no knowledge, tools, or place to repair so they can drive them. Then, there’s insurance that costs more than the car. And, of course, there’s $4/gallon gas. It costs me $12-15 just to drive my Marauder into town. (But I was able to buy a VW TDI, which gets 40 mpg. Kids can’t do that.)
All of these problems are brought to you by liberal government.
Woohoo! Freeper children buck the trend. My 31 year old daughter bought and sold her first house and banked $45,000!
The Millenials live in a virtual and connected world. They can play a round of golf, hang out with friends, watch a movie, do some reading, go to the library to do research for a paper, and go to their job—and never get out of bed.
The earlier generations look at that as a wasted day, but for them it is just a day. Why would they want to take on the responsibility for a house and yard when they can exist in a fraction of the space (think 1980’s Japan).
The world of tomorrow is one of part-time jobs, high tech socialism, and minimial materialism (except for technology, which must be cutting edge—always—for this generation).
They live in a different world than we do. Its like the 1950’s adults who had huge suburban houses, supermarkets, fast cars, and the desire to roam. Compare them to their grandparents who were born in the 19th century.
We don’t have to understand the millenial’s world because one day we’ll all be dead and they will be the middle age people of the world. And then they will wonder what motivates those weird people in the Class of 2060.
My bet is that most of them are buried in student loan and credit card debt.
Many are broke. Many have low ambitions. Many are content to live off others and vote to that end. Many now live their lives online in their own virtual world and therefore feel no need to travel out into the real world.
The future...
In their scheme the Millenials or Gen Y were supposed to be another "heroic" generation like the GI or Greatest Generation that came into their own after WWII. Well, it looks like that didn't happen. There's a precedent for that in Strauss's and Howe's scheme, though. The Progressive Generation that followed the Gilded Generation also failed to fulfill their heroic potential according to S&H.
Well duh....And most never will....
This isn't your parents America...Not even close.
I left College in 1992. In the 21 years since, the basic salary of jobs for beginning workers has not kept pace with inflation.
When I was looking at getting a “real” job that summer, I was hoping I could make $20,000 a year. That would give me enough money to live on and have some fun.
$20,000 in 1992 is equal to $33,000 in 2013 dollars.
How many kids coming out of college can expect to get a job for $33,000 a year?
$20,000 a year in terms of hourly wages is about $9.61 an hour.
$33,000 a year in terms of hourly wages is about $15.86 an hour.
It’s harder out there than many people realize.
while I think a young person should look into buying a home at some point, the RE market (despite some recent blabber in a few prominent places) remains under substantial threat (if only from the millions of defaulted properties overhanging the market). And, most young buyers take out mortgages. This means they have to feel their incomes are secure. With the Great Obama Depression rampaging on (downwards) in full force .. and with no reversal or end in sight given his anti-business, anti-jobs policies continue sans any abatement or correction, many young people (who are, mostly, far from stupid) see the world for what it is now, and are not risking major purchases with long-term repayment commitments.
Who can blame them? Despite all the fears about the younger generation, they are exhibiting remarkable rational market behavior.
... because they are 12-13 years old now!
I’m 30 and I have both. Though I purchased them in a better economy.
These problems have been caused by the solutions big GuvCo progressives of BOTH parties originally put in place.
Now, we are to trust them to "fix" those problems with more of their "solutions"???
Time to get back to where we once belonged.
And yet, how many of them love Obama, vote Democrat(if they vote at all), and feel that the country is on the right track as business and American corporations are hobbled by the new Marxism?