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Comment by honkycat | Hacker News Reader

The US is a gerontocracy. We are going to end up exactly like Japan, a whole generation of young people passing on kids due to economic and environmental stress with no-one to replace them.

The stats tell the story. Young people are the largest part of the workforce[0], but we work for lower wages and have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1].

The number of my friends who are hamstrung by massive student loan debt is sickening. The US is bleeding my generation dry.

0: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/11/millennials...

1: https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-versus-boomers-w...

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Chiming in to say: This is me to a T! I cannot afford children (or, more accurately: I cannot give children the life I want to give them). Houses are far too expensive to even dream about, and uncertainty in continued employment incentivizes me to just save all the money I can while living as cheaply as humanly possible.

It's not the best life, but at least I have some cash to fall back on when my at-will employment is terminated for no cause and I can't find a job for a couple years. Or maybe my carpal tunnel syndrome will drive me out of the (extremely competitive) job market.

Either way, I'm not going to spend more money than I need to so I can have at least some semblance of "stability". And I sure as hell am not raising another generation of wage slaves. This terrible way of life ends with me.

> [we] have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations[1].

This is 100% true, especially compared to the home ownership rate of past generations at younger ages, 25-35.

The home ownership rate among people 25-34 and 35-44 now is significantly lower than a few decades ago.

[1]: https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-rate-us-housin... (from 2016 so could be a bit different, but still relevant) [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeownership-eludes-million...

The degree to which housing restrictions create costs that fall disproportionately on the young is also important: https://www.nber.org/papers/w21154

Using a spatial equilibrium model and data from 220 metropolitan areas we find that these constraints lowered aggregate US growth by more than 50% from 1964 to 2009.

Most of the "income inequality" discourse in the U.S. is really a gloss on what should be housing discourse.

No we won't. The only people not having kids is the educated class. There are plenty of poor minorities with many kids. Japan does not allow widespread immigration like the us does.

exactly. go to any poor, inner-city neighborhood. lots of young people

So the economic situation in the US is not as amazing as it was before. So what ?

Compared to the rest of the world, people in the US have it easy.

Heck, in many places in the western world, people can't even afford to buy an apartment , which many in the US own or will own houses.

You're definitely right, but it doesn't change that, at least from the inside, the parent comment seems to be accurately describing the cognitive dynamic. I'm married and in my 30s. We aren't planning to have kids, we have no assets, my wife still has student debt (epidemiology is a bad field if you plan to work in the public sector), and with my "good" insurance, I can't afford dental work that I need related to growing up in poverty.

Despite this, we have super comfortable lives, as you say. We've jumped from trailer park, meth country poverty to truly living like we're in the middle class, something I think is way harder to do in other countries. But kids? No. That looks like a ticket right back to where we started.

Look at tax/insurance burden in all these developed and aging countries. Most of that money is going towards paying off the older generations, their ailments and their debt, and it's still not enough, debt just keeps growing.

Then look at the tax/insurance burden of developing countries. Sure, these people earn nominally less, but they often live relatively better lives. They're living lives closer to what our boomer parents lived.

Real estate prices are a distraction. These are high because interest rates are low. It's probably not a good idea to buy real estate even if you can afford it.

People in Pakistan and afghanistan can legally be in debt bondage to their landlords.

US citizens have it on easy mode.

That's true for the established wealthy (and generally white) population but the US is bolstered by strong birth rates in minority populations and among recent immigrants so it has a much healthier demographic future than somewhere like Japan.

You’re welcome!

The millennial generation has made terrible decision egged on by the previous. No one needed all those degrees to begin with. Most are useless to the larger economy. That along with the choice to stay single longer has doomed this generation.

The millennials also made the terrible decision to enter the workforce during the worst economic crisis in a generation. And then to continue working for stagnant wages while costs of housing and healthcare skyrocket.

Millennials are forced by law to buy over priced healthcare that subsidizes the dying boomer generations. They are forced to pay into social security,but they will likely never see any of the returns.

I will say that I got a useful degree ( computer science ) from a university I could afford and have already paid off my debt.

I mostly agree, I don't know what people were thinking what was going to happen when they majored in underwater basket weaving.

I don't pretend know why people chose to go so deeply into debt. I do know a lot of smart people I respect made this decision, so it is more complicated than simply saying "screw the millennial."

However: There is now a mess that is damaging our society. When there is a fire going on, one does not stand around pointing fingers trying to figure out who started the fire. We put the fire out and figure the rest out afterwards. Millenial student debt is stifling their ability to build wealth, participate in the economy, and damaging their quality of life to the point they choose not to have children. I think this is a problem worth solving.

> underwater basket weaving

Do such smart people really still think this of subjects that don't have a pre-drawn straight line to a comparable paycheque to their own?

The fact that kids go for art in a state school that isn't renowned for their art program says yes.

There's nothing wrong with going for underwater basket weaving if you know and have a plan to do just that. The average college student just associates that student loans == "worry about it later!" && Student loan == "I'll get a 50-60k job out of college no problem!"

So pedigree is both important and not important?

I'm sorry, but I disagree in so many ways. Do you know how a school becomes renowned? Even then, there are countless people who have thrived without pedigree, without renown, and taken a path less cut-and-dried. I dread a world where such a narrow path is prescribed and must be adhered to. Reminds me of the puritans.

The entire purpose of an arts education is exploration of humanity. Thank god people still naively pursue that endeavour.

To me it sounds like the problem actually lies in the systems of student loans, not people's spirit for venturing into the unknown of whether or not it will financially benefit them.

I would argue a traditional education in the humanities with the internet era is a moot point. You can do that without going into debt slavery via college loans. Instead of learning from a professor, watch some guy on youtube. Practice a lot. Make stuff. Join the literally endless communities that do the stuff you're doing.

The reason kids go to college is to get a good paying job. I hate to say it but if you're a kid who does not have affluent parents or don't live in an area where there actually are legitimate jobs in that field, it's 100% on you for doing that. I mean the opinion that those jobs don't exists isn't a stereotype for a reason. Students can get those jobs, but there most definitely aren't where they went to college typically. If you live in LA, Chicago, NYC; sure those could very well be viable career paths. In the middle of Idaho? Maybe you should reconsider who in Idaho is going to hire an artist outside of the small town that is their capital.

Sometimes reality needs to bite people who are incapable of making goals long term.

> I would argue a traditional education in the humanities with the internet era is a moot point. You can do that without going into debt slavery via college loans. Instead of learning from a professor, watch some guy on youtube. Practice a lot. Make stuff. Join the literally endless communities that do the stuff you're doing.

I would argue this is proof that you don't understand the nature of an education in the humanities. (For the record, I say this as an English major dropout who's working as a software developer)

> The reason kids go to college is to get a good paying job. I hate to say it but if you're a kid who does not have affluent parents or don't live in an area where there actually are legitimate jobs in that field, it's 100% on you for doing that. I mean the opinion that those jobs don't exists isn't a stereotype for a reason. Students can get those jobs, but there most definitely aren't where they went to college typically. If you live in LA, Chicago, NYC; sure those could very well be viable career paths. In the middle of Idaho? Maybe you should reconsider who in Idaho is going to hire an artist outside of the small town that is their capital.

I went because I wanted to learn something and dig a little deeper into life that wasn't available or remotely present in my rural working-class community, or from my non-affluent parents. I didn't finish so I don't have the pedigree, but I did live and learn a great deal, and it's paid dividends. I'm, oddly, precisely your example, but of a mode that you say doesn't exist.

It's also dishonest to propose that the only pursuit of humanities is to try and eek life out as an artist alone. I mean, I'm sure you value historians.

I have to admit I'm confused by the arbitrary limitations you're imposing on the way one must live out their life. A degree in a given field is not a declaration of intent, it's a mark of study. You can do whatever you want. Some roads have prerequisites for taking them, others don't. And sometimes still, there are roads that are yet uncut.

Maybe what you're really talking about is how easy or hard a given path might be and then associating that with some kind of right or wrong. Efficient path navigation is not the purpose of humanities study or works. It's about discovering what we do not discover through science. Not even science is the end, just another method of discovery. The tangents are the purpose, and reflecting on those in any number of ways is the meaning... leaving the path navigation efficiency algorithms to slime mould.

> egged on by the previous.

This. All I heard growing up was "go to post-secondary." Zero concern for what the actual degree would be. Any degree would do.

Now, I'm a big believer in education and post-secondary. 100%. The top earners across the board are more educated than the lower half.

BUT: It depends on the degree. So many of my friends are still paying for degrees that went nowhere, and I'm in my mid-30s.

I've got 4 kids and my message to them is to keep their options open, figure out what kind of work they want to do for the rest of their lives, and get the right education for that. If they want to be an engineer, fantastic. University it is. But so many degrees lead to poor job prospects or low wages that do not in any way justify the cost. It's crazy town.

If the type of work you want to do doesn't pay especially well, that's fine. There's more to life than money. But don't go into debt over it.

> we work for lower wages and have a TINY amount of the wealth in comparison to older generations

Not to detract from the point about student debt, which is absolutely on point, but isn't it expected than younger people would always hold less wealth and have lower salaries on average than older people who have been working for decades longer and have that much more work experience?

Wages for equivalent experience have held steady or declined for many Americans over the past 40 years. Women are making more (but more are part of the workforce, plus efforts to ensure equal pay). Top earners are doing better. But the average has seen stagnant wages while major costs (such as homes) have been going up faster.

So a 25 year old, today, doing the same job as their 25 year old parent/grand parent in 1980 is worse off at the same point in their career. This doesn't bode well when people like my parents and grandparents were relatively easily and affordably able to acquire homes and actually start building wealth, while the current generation of young workers are unable to build wealth.

It's not about a comparison between the youth and the now older workforce (which would be a moronic comparison). It's about comparing the youth to what the older workforce had 40 years ago. Or even 30.

Yes, but the disparity has been growing and the amount of wealth held by young adults is a much smaller percentage than previous generations had.

Right, I'm not disputing that. I just think that pointing to the raw numbers might paint a misleading picture in the sense that the disparities aren't necessarily an ageist injustice, but rather that the gap increase might be better explained by factors like increasing amounts of student debt, bad minimum wage raise policies, etc - many of which are factors that are actionable at a government level.

this! i have always thought so too. especially since quality of life has risen so much since..population has doubled globally in my lifetime and i have seen the world change...internet, smart phones, eradication or reduction of poverty, disease, illnesses, better health, more equality, all things hedonistic. the world is a better place. much much better place. i am grateful for every single day and i hope it becomes better.

the previous generation did so much with so little. with current attitudes, i dont know how life would become better in the next hundred years. is the defeatism due to not ever having to 'truly' struggle? if people had given up after ww2(or after any of the world's catastrophes), where would we be now?

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