I'd Love to Move, but I Can't
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
While there are safety nets in society they often exclude the years when someone is most likely to take economic risks - for example, in the US a minimum free medical coverage is provided to those people under 18 or over 65.
Personally, I'm thinking that if people knew they couldn't incur permanent damage to themselves or their futures, they would take more risks. As falling out of health insurance when you have a chronic condition (which is likely genetic and not the person's fault) in America is one of those situations, people stay in crap jobs that go nowhere, and aren't out there creating new businesses.
Some people find themselves trapped on benefits, and it's hard for them to move back into work.
An oversimplified (too long!) rundown:
Some disabled people incur extra living costs (for either transport or for care) just because they are disabled. This is covered by something called Disability Living Allowance. In theory you can get DLA whether or not you're working. (But sometimes the work you do will be used to reduce or remove the DLA you get.)
DLA isn't particularly controversial. But recently there's been disquiet about the way it works. It's strictly about "how disabled you are, how much support you need". When you realise that you can accept that an adult that has just lost a leg will need more help and support than an adult who has been without a leg for a few years - they've got a prosthetic and learnt how to move and got workarounds sorted out. This situation suddenly came to light when a bunch of soldiers with amputations suddenly had their DLA reduced from high to medium. From their point of view they still only had one leg.
The more controversial disability benefit is "Incapacity Benefit". (which is being replaced). (And various older benefits.)
People can have a disability and still work. Recent disability equality laws make this easier. Recent improvements in support for finding work for disabled people and supporting them while they're in work makes this much easier. Recent research showing that people (especially with mental heath problems) are better off in work helps too. But those improvements are trying to work with an old system of benefits and sub-optimal medical advice. "Bad Back" used to be 'untreatable', people would be given advice to lie flat on their back with a board under a firm mattress and to not get exercise. In areas of high unemployment (and little prospect of employment returning, eg mining towns) many people lived their lives on disability benefits. We now know that advice for bad back was terrible. We now know that mild to moderate depression responds really well to CBT (just 12 weeks!) and medication. People who used to spend years not working can now have a short amount of time away from work, and then get back in.
The controversy comes because benefits are so Political. People are not trapped in a system and need help to get back to work; they are lazy feckless scroungers stealing from the tax payer.
The other controversy comes from testing for the new benefit regime. This can be brutal for people with MH problems; who often don't have great medical support. Clinicians don't know how to work the bureaucracy, so even if a bunch of doctors think that Fred shouldn't be working for a few months it's not help to Fred.
The old benefits are being replaced by "Employment Support Allowance". In theory it's more compatible with modern attitudes to work and incapacity. In practice the UK needs a progression of gentle changes across everything (tax laws; support structures for disabled people entering work; employment laws; benefits offices; job seeking offices; clinical and vocational support for disabled people (especially those with MH problems) rather than huge disconnected changes in small areas.
Surely if people knew they couldn't incur permanent damage, it wouldn't be much of a risk? I don't think people's risk aversion has changed, I just think things are (or at least seem) more risky at the moment.
The problem seems to be that if you fall off the "middle-class bandwagon" in the US, it's very difficult to get back on. Since medical emergencies or the like can easily do this to you, people who might be willing to take a reasonable risk become more focused on minimizing the risk of a really bad outcome than on maximizing expected outcome.
Doesn't help that the paranoia about safety nets results in demands everyone pay for and get premium nets, and then come to believe they cannot get by without such ideal services.
Suck it up and step out. You're going nowhere if you don't.
Other safety nets are counterproductive, though. My country has very high firing costs, which means less jobs, and job security is very highly tied to years in the job, so in my case, leaving my dead-end but decently paid job for a better job is a very significant gamble (I basically give up all my unemployment rights for a time if I change jobs voluntarily)
You're not. The tax structure encourages this kind of behavior, but the day I quit my job 5 years ago I started cutting a check for my own health insurance. If people actually looked into the cost of catastrophic coverage with a high deductible (the point of "insurance" in the first place), they'd see that it's not as expensive as they think. It's getting more expensive thanks to government interference, but all insurance is affected similarly.
Pay cash for regular visits. Save money instead of buying toys, and magically you don't fall into the trap of "I have to choose between food and health coverage."
Anecdote time.
Last month I called up a dentist's office who I had never visited before. The conversation went as such.
Me: Hi, I'm a new patient. I'd like to make an appointment.
She: What insurance company are you with? If it's backed by, or affiliated with, the state we aren't accepting any new patients at this time.
Me: I'll be paying cash.
She: How does tomorrow at noon sound?
They happily gave me breakdowns of all costs, made decisions based on price (oh, we could give you this other xray but you don't really need it), and pretty much bent over backwards to make me happy. This isn't abnormal. The same thing happens at the doctor. I pay through an HSA for tax purposes, keep the insurance for major issues, save money in the process, and generally get better service.
Private insurance is cheaper than group coverage for a reason. The insurance company has no intention of paying benefits for e.g. cancer patients, and they'll drag out the process in the hope that you'll just die first. Assuming you live long enough, you'll probably have to sue them to get anything out of them.
Frankly, this article looks like it's full of over privileged cry-babies sad that life isn't working out as perfect as they hoped. I say it's time for them to pivot on life and stop the damned whining.
But these are people who grew up doing the "responsible" thing and listening to the advice of teachers and parents. They made good grades whether or not they learned, did extracurricular activities whether or not they enjoyed them, and otherwise put aside any sort of personal decision-making for 21 years, in the idea that a college degree would get them "success."
Given that, it isn't enough to just say "get a job, bum." They need some new, concrete picture of how life works. With ideas like, do things you enjoy and practice hard to get better at them, not to impress other people. Or, work hard even at things you don't like, if it gets you the money, time, or skills you need to do something else later.
And then the question is, how would you arrange a family or a school that produces people who have these ideas naturally? Probably there'd be a lot more opportunities for kids to do meaningful work/play, apprentice learning a trade, and less focusing on getting into a prestigious school.
In their minds, they did the "responsible" thing. They got good grades, went $100k+ plus in debt, and are waiting tables at age 28. The problem is, they didn't do the responsible thing -- they used alot of someone else's money to learn a skill of very narrow utility. Now they need to pay the piper.
People lack a critical eye. It's amazing to me that people advise high school kids the way that they do.
Frankly, I don't know how people do it. My wife and I make a good buck, own a modest home and drive one 5 year old car. We don't owe anyone anything, and we save alot, so we're "broke". I don't know how people fit a $400 student loan payment in, while living a non-frugal lifestyle.
To be honest, every generation has had to do this, including the baby boomers. Getting a high paid manufacturing job with a pension and benefits right out of high school is a myth as far as I'm concerned, because it only happened for a few years in a few towns that happened to have factories in them.
But it isn't these people's fault for thinking so, they spent twenty years of their lives working "hard" (for the wrong definition of hard) and being told this lie.
Didn't think so.
This is the trend I've seen from my friends (even before Gen Y)
Parents came from middle class, work their ass off to provide for their kids. The idea is to give their kids the opportunity to do what they love instead of having to run the rat race.
For the parents that succeed, their kids end up picking something they love, but pay absolutely crap. But they're happy right? Well, not really. So now the friends' kids are growing up in a family where money IS an issue, and they learn to work hard for things. They don't necessarily get to do what they love, but they'll work for pay. One day they'll grow up and provide for their kids so their kids can do what they love.
This ends up being a moving sine wave where each generation repeats what their grandparents did. I'm not really sure if there is a better way.
>You think factory workers or fast food employees all love their jobs (without being a little brainwashed)?
They are all trained and required to act as though they enjoy their jobs when on-the-clock, yes. In current days, they are often not hired without showing some enthusiasm for the prospects, yes.
Strangely, it gets even worse when you move into well-paying fields like software, engineering, finance, etc. "Passion" is the hiring watchword.
Kid enjoys something that pays well? You'd think it would be the best of both words, until you realize the companies are filtering for passion for the company mission, a quality not usually found in actual human workers anywhere.
I hope they won't make that mistake again, or to quote Twain: Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
They might be wrong, but you haven't made a single point that contradicts this, nor have you made any constructive suggestions.
We're all lucky -- if your chosen profession (and, say, one that you invested 8+ years of expensive American college to get into) was an industry that had the air sucked out of it in 2008, you might not be so condescending.
I do get what you're saying, and I think there definitely is a type of person you're describing, but you're oversimplifying a measurably more complicated problem.
I was unemployed about 5 years ago before the recession had really dug it's teeth in and even then it was tough.
Spending days applying for every posting I was vaguely qualified for online and also physically hitting the pavement and handing out my CV to every business on the street.
Also having to make decisions about whether it was better to get my suit dry-cleaned so as to be more presentable if I ever got an interview or whether I should eat next week.
After a few month of this I get all kinds of people telling me I should "try harder" and "If you really wanted a job you would have one". Well what exactly do you expect me to do? I applied for hundreds of jobs and for the most part heard absolutely nothing back, I would try and call up and inquire about my application but whoever answered the phone generally had strict instructions to get rid of people like me ASAP.
Personally, I won't say to a candidate you SUCK or you did that thing the wrong way. I'll just apologize that another candidate took the position.
Advice from someone who was there: Go and build a network. Get the job from the network.
Regarding presentation, I was always washed, wore the best suit I could afford and paid attention to body language what I was saying to people. Not sure what else I could have done, it's not like you can suddenly become a handsome , charismatic person on a whim.
There was also the issue that many jobs wouldn't accept a CV and would simply direct you to an online or paper application where everything had to be filled into discreet boxes and provided little opportunity to make yourself stand out.
Of course the networking advice is good, most of the jobs I have had have been through networking with people I knew and getting in that way. This is easier in some places than others of course, since I was living in an industrial town in england there was not exactly a thriving tech scene. More a small collection of freelancers and satellite offices from larger companies.
The majority of people there worked for the government in one way or anther too, where the only way to get those jobs is to fill out the application form.
It is not always obvious as to how to get an "in" if you don't already know people.
If it's really as you say, perhaps a "safety net" is the last thing this "stuck" generation needs.
Basically as manufacturing declined the government stepped in and opened up many of their bureaucratic departments here. I think something like 60%+ of the jobs around here are for government of some form (either local or national).
We also have one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe. Combined with the fact that there is not really much of a tech scene here (most people have few qualifications at all) it is quite difficult to land development work.
My point is more that relocating or starting a business would require more resources than a typical recent college is likely to have access to.
I disagree that failing to get a job in 3-4 applications represents a problem with your resume/presentation/etc in all circumstances. While there are certainly times that's true (if you're an engineer in the current market, for example), there are many industries where there are simply too many qualified people applying for too few positions for getting a job via a cold application to be anything other than a complete crapshoot. (which, again, only emphasizes the importance of having a network to support your search).
The majority of people do not want to be entrepreneurs so their only option is to work for someone else where you are faced with more external forces. When you're in that situation, most people want to do the minimum and earn the maximum which we know rarely works. Let's face it, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. It's a lot of work and responsibility; something the majority of 20-somethings can't handle.
>Another quipped about a living wage
I would feel discouraged too if I was only being paid $15 an hour after going to school for 4 years.
I agree with you, there are definitely things you can do to ameliorate yourself and improve your chances of finding a job. You don't seem to have the "average person" mentality of doing just the minimum to achieve your goals, so I sense some disconnect there. I could just be reading into it too much.
Even for say doing some freelance programming which has low costs since all you need is a computer and some open source software. As soon as you start your business you will be cut off from government benefits so you will not have any income until you get your first payment.
Since most companies interested in hiring you for a job will not want to pay you up front since as a new business your going to be seen as pretty high risk your going to need a way of covering your living costs for at least 2-3 months most likely.
If your fresh out of college and already riddled with debt the chances that you have those kind of savings in the bank is pretty minimal.
I don't believe its beyond the capabilities of mere mortals today to do.
What people dislike about entrepreneurship is the search for something to sell to people. On the otherhand, many would prefer working for themselves if it could pay, and they had a clearly defined role to slip into.
Even small software companies now have the risk of Apple etc completely removing their distribution channel on a whim or a larger software company (or open source project) just replicating their entire product.
Agreed for products that are specific service, but if your product is driven by a users(facebook and twitter for example), it's damn near impossible for other companies to push you out of the way and achieve the same results once you reach a large enough user base. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, especially between generations of software, but usually not concurrently. (google+ vs facebook?)
It's a go big or go home type game and requires a fair amount of risk. It's not really a career choice in the same way as doing a trade would be.
At least now adays, we don't have to worry about wolves.
There's always some kind of work to be done for those willing and able to identify a market.
It's easy to forget that software is probably the least capital intensive industry that's open to a lone entrepreneur. Think about someone wanting to start, say, a basic small bakery operation. My wife did this, and the capital costs necessary to just get started and make that first batch of sales - ingredients, packaging materials, special implements like decorating tips - could easily be enough to deter someone who has little capital to work with. (And we already had a good kitchen with the majority of tools one would need). It's one thing to risk a month of time when you're otherwise idle, it's another to risk next month's rent payment as well.
Savings plays a huge role in flexibility. When you are in your 20s without family, it is eminently possible to bootstrap enough savings from a really crappy jobs and even temp jobs to have the flexibility to move if you need to and still live an okay lifestyle even in a new city. Been there, done that. Very modest but comfortable. You would not want to live this way forever but it is only a bootstrap. It also instills good habits toward not buying a lot of "stuff" once you have a good paying job.
I will add that this same pattern applies to people with very good jobs too. I know people making six-figures that swear they are just getting by, paycheck to paycheck, with no savings. Their definition of "absolute necessity" gets stretched to the breaking point but they literally do not know how to live on less money. I do not have much sympathy in cases like this but it is also part of a larger pattern of people militantly refusing to live below their means.
It's rather the definition of the slump we're in: the economy as a whole is spending less and taking fewer risks. So no matter what they do, there are only so many jobs. No matter how many of them start their own businesses, there is only so much spending going on.
And while it's obvious and correct that perspective- and attitude-adjustments can only help and that whining and blaming never does, to think that a run of life like that won't have eroded people's attitude and outlook is something between naive and crass.
Let's assume, for this discussion, that what you say is true, and that many people are stuck by perceived not actual problems. That's not good for them, or for the economy.
What would you do to help them move forward with their life? How would you help them break out of this cycle? What changes would you make?
Or is it really as simple as telling them to "man up"? To "get on their bike"[1]?
[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Tebbit)
> *"I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking 'til he found it."
So, I agree that "woe is me" won't get you anywhere, but also everything is fucked-up and on fire. Thank goodness for software, though I doubt this ride will last much longer either. Someone will find a way to cut our cost out of the equation for good.
So I agree. These people sound foolish. It is entirely possible to move but that means getting rid of shit and people do not want to get rid of their shit. It's a bit sad really.
I also would expect some sort of tipping point: "Oh, you can't afford to live in the city because you can't get a job in pharma too? Wow, our generation is having a tough time."
I'm 30, own about 15% of a home and have a wife and kids. I've never been unemployed. I attribute this to not expecting the world to give me anything, like a living wage, student loans, cheap mortgage, etc.
Plenty of people in my peer group are also successful, but there are still those who 'fail' and go from scheme to scheme trying to get a high paying, easy job.
At the end of the day, life is not a video game and you are not the hero. If you're lucky, you might might be a middle manager on the death star construction team.
Let's have some perspective - when kids decide whether and where to go to college, and agree to take on its debt, they are 17 and know nothing about the world, about job markets, about mortgage rates, about growth industries and dying industries. They are told by their parents and other adult influencers to study what they are passionate about because in America you can be whatever you want to be if you try hard enough and if you go to a good school. So the dumb 17-year-olds of this "whiner" generation went to college during a strong economy and played along with all the adult assurances that they would do great, and they graduated to a world with no work and especially not for most people who studied something they were "passionate" about.
It's such crap to scorn people for regretting decisions they were led into when they were clueless. People need to take responsibility for their own success, but our society needs to be thinking long and hard about how it has failed this generation and how to avoid failing the subsequent ones.
All this combined with the student loans situation and the stagnant real wages since the 1970s is going to be a big problem. You can see it very starkly in the university system, but it applies everywhere. When the mass baby boomer retirement comes social security and health systems will be put into stress while the Western world is still in fairly deep debt. However, the baby boomers will still be dominant in politics as they will retire later there, and they will still be voting in retirement anyway.
On the long horizon graduates will then be fighting with a new generation of kids with cheap online education and more modern skills and middle class BRIC teleworkers. Non-graduates will, as has been the case for a long time, also be competing increasingly with the rising BRIC workers. While there is potential for full-automation to bring a lot of manufacturing back to the West in the next few decades, that's not going to mean that many jobs. "Motherboards now made in the USA again!" will be the cry... but by an automated factory supervised by a handful of Ivy league engineers and some cheap maintenance workers and self-driving trucks bringing in supplies. Amazon, Walmart and the like will continue to clean up "mom and pop" shops, drugstores with skype video connections to pharmacists in India to confirm prescriptions, even some restaurants going for more automation. Farming is already down to a tiny percentage of the population and the rest will be immigrants (illegal and otherwise) and perhaps some robots too.
In this situation it's insane to go into 60-100k commercial debt for a philosophy or fine arts degree given there are already distance and online study options for these at insanely low prices (the "hobby/cultural enrichment" argument is valid, I think society would be poorer without this influence, but it doesn't need expensive on-campus study or a brand-name). Those prices are only going to go down.
Things are going to get tougher.
Medicare may be considered suckling on the govt teat but uh getting old is ridiculously expensive. I expect it would still not be enough depending on age and severity of medical conditions.
This is the kind of stuff scares me about the economy moving forward. For those that are not familiar with student loans, one cannot their shed student loans under bankruptcy protection. (I do not think one should be able to back out of a student loan, because unlike a house which can be foreclosed on and resold, it's kinda hard to repossess knowledge and as the loan holder resell it... but moving on) Anyways, in order to get away with not paying them or having your wages garnished, you have to die and that of course has it's own problems. There are programs that are set up to help those having a hard time, but that's not helping the situation in aggregate.
Last year, US students borrowed $100 Billion[1]? The weight of student loans is going to cripple this country over the next 10-20 years. It is unsustainable.
[1]-http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/college/story/2011-10-19...
Maybe the boomers will offer good money for healthy organs, or maybe selling a kidney will just get some surplus MREs from WWIII to eat as people huddle around the campfire in the badlands. Ok the last part's a joke, but it's not a brilliant scenario.
Perhaps also with more automation it will get to the point where costs for a comfortable lifestyle become so low, that it is trivial for the government to support a huge welfare base.
We desperately need good alternatives to current universities, indeed... the current default path of getting a degree by taking on enormous debt is just not viable in this economic environment.
But I also understand the cynicism of a couple responses. I have a few facebook friends in their twenties, and often enough, I read status messages like "I'm so broke and can't find a job (Posted from my IPhone)" or "I just spend two hours applying for ten jobs, will probably not hear back from any of them" (yes, most likely). Also - probably in part due to the large debt occurred to get their specific degree - some fresh graduates seem unwilling to expand their job search beyond their chosen field.
(a) they need to develop their professional networks more and (b) they just need to man up and move to South Dakota.
Before you start commenting with an easy solution, you should stop and think: if everyone did this, what would happen?
In the case of everyone networking better, it would simply recreate the current situation but biased towards those who are inherently better at networking. Well-written resumes aren't themselves valuable: they work as a signal of someone standing out from the crowd. But if everyone does that, it just shifts the equilibrium.
In the case of everyone moving to South Dakota, you'd end up with an unemployment rate of 30% in South Dakota. More than that, even: the number of unemployed in California is currently 2 million, which is more than double South Dakota's total population, let alone workforce, even ignoring the heap of infrastructure issues and mass destruction of social capital that would be involved in that kind of movement.
Instead, look at issues of public choice, broken institutions, and the system as a whole. Do not bother trying to blame (or excuse, for that matter) the individuals involved, unless what you're interested in is furthering a persona of being a hard-ass concerned with individual responsibility and tough love (or, on the other side, a persona of someone who is exceptionally sympathetic and caring toward others). Because whatever state individuals are in now as a result of their choices, as a whole those same individuals, made of the same stock and character and making the same general choices, were better off 6 years ago. What's changed, and how can we reverse or modulate it to improve overall outcomes?
Ah, but that's what people are actually interested in!
The cost of living seems high, but it pays off. Wages are higher, for one thing. What money I lose because of higher rent I gain in that there are awesome things happening all over the place just a short bike ride from my house. That's worth the price of admission alone. But also I don't have to pay for a car, and many other expenses of the suburbs just don't exist.
Of course, now that I'm here I would not love to move. I think I might be a homeless bum before I moved somewhere else. I'd like to travel, but I can't imagine staying anywhere else as a permanent resident.
The modern, British means of surviving an economic downturn without going crazy seems to be doing a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course somewhere far away and interesting.
We seem to have this attitude here because you can just read a "ruby in 10 days" type guide online and start hacking away.
This just isn't true in many other industries or professions where you would need to either incur significant costs or have completed an apprenticeship in order to practice.
In my imaginary boarding house, you wouldn't get to "have it your way," you'd have to sacrifice some individual liberty out of deference to neighbors. To throw some random examples out there: your lease would not renew past 2 years (not meant to be permanent), maybe there's some work-trade to keep costs down, no music after e.g. 10, no guests after e.g. 11, perhaps locked front door from 0000-0530. The point of that sort of thing is a) to keep stuff under control so it doesn't become a party flop-house (e.g. "this is not your college dorm") b) keep people focused on their mission while there (to find a job and improve their situation) and c) to give people a strong incentive to move out.
I'm thinking of the boarding houses of ye olden days: it was cheap, frequently temporary, you had the amenities of a home (sleep, bathe, perhaps food), but it wasn't "your house" and you weren't entitled to treat it as such.
I think this'd be a great way for recent graduates to move to a big town like Boston or SF to look for work with much less stress & economic demands (in exchange for less "personal freedom"). My hat goes off to cletus's NY friend who "lives in a garage for $300/mo" but this isn't really scalable and most people can't find such a situation.
Anyway this is just a brainstorm about how I wish there were cheaper living options for new arrivals in BOS.
I have two responses here:
A) In Boston, it would never be allowed. Boston-Cambridge municipalities have LOVED the boom in rental values from both the growing student populations and their low unemployment rates. Why would they ruin a good thing by allowing new building, let along ugly, high-density boarding houses that resemble nothing more than student housing? And everyone official in Boston who isn't a student despises students.
B) I've thought of starting just this, but it WOULD be your college dorm (or at least, in the style of my old college dorms). Checks on room conditions every so often, eviction for damage or partying too much, month-to-month tenancy. You're missing an angle here: many people like the dorm/boarding-house lifestyle better than the apartment/house lifestyle. Many people enjoy not owning very much and having the majority of their life be "out there".
C) That fact leaves us with the opportunity to create a social environment for the long-term residents and to branch off into things like supplying network access or food-service.
In short, this is an amply viable business model (works for all the damn colleges!) that never gets used due to municipal and cultural biases against it.
There are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of households across America in the exact same position. It makes me pretty bitter at the policies of Fannie and Freddie 10 years ago in that "everyone should own a home" now appears to have been a disastrously bad idea for so many reasons.
You put in your downpayment and a year or two of mortgage payments and even in the market goes down a bit you still have enough equity to avoid being trapped. You can sell or rent and move elsewhere.
The other problem is money: when you are dropping > $500/month on student loans, you have to have a job before you move.
I remember being graduated in 2006 with a BSCS and so broke I could not move without a relocation benefit. I was debating hitchhiking to Seattle or SF and bumming around with a laptop looking for coding work, but I wound up not having to.(Answer to this problem: save about 3K or so and don't ever let go).
Basically, prices are so high because that is where building supply is constrained.
This book http://www.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005... explains the nationwide economic consequences of constraining housing supply (and thus rising prices) in the most economically productive areas.
Still, a see some problems in this article. Like "I graduated with a philosophy major in 2008". Bzzzzt. Sorry, you made choices. People need to realize that college is an opportunity that comes with a significant cost (real and opportunity). You may want to major in South American literature but you need to have a plan for what you're going to do in the Real World. Or at least question whether the cost of college is worth it.
As for state residencies, depending on the state it may only take a year to establish residency in a new state. This can mean the first year of college is expensive but then it gets cheaper (IIRC California works this way) or it means you move there and flip burgers or whatever for a year.
The second thing I picked out was "there are no jobs in my area". I have no sympathy for this. Either you didn't think about this beforehand or your area is just hard to get into. Doing a degree in that area doesn't entitle you to a job. Get a job. Any job. Jobs are like social proof. It's far easier to get a job when you have a job.
The third thing I picked out was that it's expensive to move. No it isn't. You can get from pretty much anywhere in the US to anywhere else for under $500. What's that? You want your stuff? Ok, that's the real problem.
I think back to Fight Club: the things you own end up owning you. You basically need little more than a bed to sleep on. I think back to that photo of Steve Jobs from the 80s sitting on the floor of his apartment with just a lamp. He basically didn't own anything.
I can tell you from experience it's incredibly liberating to just get rid of your stuff.
If you want to move to New York City (as one example) to find work, it's not expensive. Bring yourself, some clothes and a laptop and you can get here for maybe as little as $100. Find a cheap town in the commuter belt and find temporary accommodation (eg I know someone who works in Manhattan but lives above a garage in Long Island for $300/month) and just come in to the city when you need to go to interviews.
And the beauty of NYC is you can get rid of that car too. Oh you want a car? You can have one... when you can afford it.
Oh you want a social life? And a furnished home where you can "entertain"? You can have those things... when you can afford them.
EDIT: let me clarify one point. I was careful to say you "need a plan" for the real world when it comes to college. That phrasing was deliberate and different to treating college as some kind of vocational processing plant. It means if you spend 8 years studying history at top schools and rack up $200,000 in debt then you probably made some bad choices. But if you studied philosophy at a state school and worked part-time such that you have little or no debt, then you've made far better choices.
Who spends hundreds on drinking glasses when they're financially strapped? That mindset percolates outward.
I think a good part of this outlook comes from kids who came from upper middle class backgrounds, went to good schools, and expect to repeat the success of their parents and live accordingly without much sacrifice.
Full disclosure: I fit that description. And like you I was laid off in 2001 and looked for other programming jobs to no avail for months... I remember my mindset well, strongly that of the victim. I was paralyzed to do anything other than cold call companies/recruiters, spruce up the resume on monster/dice, and feel sorry for myself over and over again on a daily basis. It only happened that a friend was working at a company I had an offer from in '99 and they were happy to give me a job. "Yes, dodged a bullet, got lucky!" And that's all it was, luck. I certainly didn't make it happer for myself. I've been working at that company for 11 years and for the most part it's been a ho-hum experience; I am actively working to move on to something better by doing freelance work on the side for cheap to build up a portfolio. I wonder how my life would have turned out if that safety net hadn't been there.
When I was in my 20s and poor, I think the most I ever spent on drinking glasses in total was a few dollars, and I moved many times. I managed to actually save a modest amount of money making terrible wages in an expensive city without a particularly poor lifestyle but I only occasionally spent money on toys that I did not genuinely need. It made it possible for me to bootstrap myself to a very good job and to develop good saving and spending habits.
The trait of rich people that I try to emulate (not always successfully) is that they tend to purchase assets that appreciate in value. Toys are paid for with highly disposable money and not the nest egg.
The trait of poor people that I try to avoid is purchasing depreciating assets, usually on credit ensuring that you'll be poor until that lotto ticket hits big (i.e. forever).
Most assets depreciate. Here's a non-exhaustive list: furniture, kitchen supplies, food, electronics, and vehicles.
It seems like it'd be hard if you're poor to avoid having a large chunk of your income go towards things that depreciate immediately you touch them.
The overall point is this. If you say that you're poor, but you have a cable connection, TV, cell phone, data plan, multiple cars on finance, large student loans for that lib arts degree, and eat out at restaurants, then you're poor by choice. It's fixable via a change in priorities. I'm not claiming that everyone is in this situation, but many people fall squarely into this bucket.
???
My (non-retirement) portfolio began with $1000 weeks before the 2008 crash. Despite the horrific timing, those shares are now up 6%.
Overall (with continued intermittent investments and zero attempt to time the market, though a couple times I got a little lucky), my shares in a couple mutual funds and a few individual stocks are up almost 34%.
This doesn't count dividends, which I automatically plow back in to purchasing more shares, and which have basically added ~12% to the overall value of my portfolio.
Any idiot with $1000 could start doing the same thing I did. Sign up with an online broker, and pick an S&P 500 index fund to dump some money into. If you can afford a little more, put some of it into a reputable small cap mutual fund.
Ummm... I bought new drinking glasses when I was moving out, because otherwise I'd have nothing to drink from.
Look: You can get a job by making choices that HR departments like or you can go and carve out an economic niche for yourself. Your degree isn't important in the latter so much as your ability to think critically. Perhaps humanities degrees (including a philosophy degree) really shine there.
It put me in a very interesting position when applying and interviewing because (apparently) nobody ever sees that degree or combination and they always ask about it. I was able to wax eloquent about how I love writing, debating and clear communication. How I have a firmer grasp of logic because of my (more technical) philosophy courses and how it has allowed me to relate better and communicate more effectively.
Good communication and writing writing skills, as well as a willingness to write are I think (and many have seemed to agree) in short supply in the computing fields and I think that almost any humanities degree would add an enormous amount of value to a person, provided they can do the computing parts of their job as well!
[1] This means that I completed all of the requirements to get either degree, but didn't have the sheer credit hours to literally get two pieces of paper. My diploma could just as easily read "Philosophy and Computer Science" instead.
We have a nice couch, but they sell nice couches in CA. I can pick up Ikea dressers off Craigslist for the cost of renting a pickup truck for an hour. I'm ditching clothes that don't fit or are outdated - I didn't wear them anyway. While my family is preparing to come join me, I'm living in a rented room for dirt cheap and loving it.
You are so right about your things owning you. Right now, I'm owned by my laptop, a Nook, and a closet sparsely filled with a few clothes I actually like to wear. I think I'd enjoy a chair so that I don't have to sit on my bed or the floor to work, but there's no rush.
There's even more competition for the shitty jobs than for the good/specialized ones.
Factories clamor for skilled workers. The pay isn't bad either. IIRC, 60-80k/year is not unusual. And if people are willing to move to ND and join the oil shale rush, apparently unskilled workers can pull in low six figures.
I recall an anecdote of a truck driver who lost his job. He entered some program which would teach him some skills to make him marketable (something like welding).
He quit midway through because he said it didn't fit his lifestyle of freedom (ir something to that effect).
It kind of struck me as odd and somewhat selfish. I mean, I recall taking on really crappy jobs (like at oil change places) when I could not get anything better. I didn't like it. Yeah, it cramped my style, but it helped me get thru college and eventually university.
The problem is that we've been told all of our lives to "follow our dreams," because "being happy with what you're doing is more important than financial gain."
It's a nice sentiment, but when you're 18, you've never lived in the real world and you simply cannot appreciate the trade-off you're making. This is to say nothing of student loans.
This is to say nothing of people who picked an industry that just blew up. Nobody entering college in in the early aughts knew the economy would wither in 8 years.
"You can get from pretty much anywhere in the US to anywhere else for under $500. What's that? You want your stuff? Ok, that's the real problem."
Before you can sign a lease, very often you need two months' rent and a security deposit. This amount will vary wildly, but in the above case, call it $1K altogether. Maybe you can find a roommate but uh now you have nproblems++.
You also need to find the right financial trade-off between living somewhere where a car is necessary vs. not. Maybe NYC is the exception to the rule, but cheaper places also trend towards less safe and less convenient.
You still need to pay for food, utilities, and continue to pay rent while looking for a job. Tack on a car payment and gas mileage if the only place you can afford is far or public transportation sucks. If you went to college, tack on a student loan payment or two.
The fact is that you must save up a non-trivial amount of money to go... somewhere... for some as yet undefined quality of living and no guarantee whatsoever that you'll find a job. Oh, and you won't have any friends or family, either. Maybe you guys are all people who make friends easily, but I am emphatically not. I'm highly sympathetic to people's unwillingness to leave behind their support networks.
Remember, what provoked this was an article shaming these kids for not moving. In response, they're voicing perfectly reasonable objections. They made the rational economic decision not to move because it's a lot of work and money for uncertain gain.
If we want to shame them for making sensible financial decisions instead of living up to baby boomer standards (or whoever's), I don't think the problem is on their end.
And why exactly do you need a whole house/apartment? Sublet. Find a room on craigslist. These options require far fewer upfront costs and are far more flexible (you tend to be able to leave with notice from a few days to a few weeks).
> Maybe NYC is the exception to the rule
I would say that for American cities it is. You can live many decent places around NYC without a car for not much money at all. Sure you'll have a 1.5 hour train ride into the city but you can move... when you can afford it.
Car payments, maintenance and insurance are expensive. That alone in many places when added to your rent will allow you to move to a substantially better place.
> You still need to pay for food, utilities, and continue to pay rent while looking for a job.
These you need to do anyway.
> ... no guarantee whatsoever ...
What, precisely, other than death has a guarantee?
If you want to see if you can live with your parents into your 40s being a bum or live off welfare, OK. If you want to get on your own two feet, it's probably going to require you to take some risks and make some sacrifices.
That means getting rid of the car, cable, cell phone, etc, buying cheap clothes and feeding yourself inexpensively.
this is my overall problem with the complaints in the article: the subtext of entitlement. "No jobs in my field", "I've spent hundreds of dollars on drinking glasses alone", etc.
There's what you need and what you want and it's important to separate the two.
> In response, they're voicing perfectly reasonable objections.
But they're not reasonable. It's tantamount to "I can't move without giving up stuff".
Unless you need to break the lease on your apartment, which is typically two months' rent - which typically tacks on another $1000, minimum.
I don't have much sympathy for the mindset displayed in this article (I've moved 5 times, ~4k miles total, on near minimum wage salaries), but you are making the same kind of assumptions these kids do.
A lot of people have struggling parents who aren't able to provide a free ride. Some people just have shitty parents.
It's easy to assume there is always a place to call home when you have it. Be glad you do.
(Some more context - I was long past college when this happened, and got a job offer in New York where I live now.)
I remember some time ago I was out for a drink with a number of students who were completing a course in film study (studing film as literature rather than the practical business of making film).
I asked them what their plans were after they graduated and almost all of them said "go back, get my masters and then try and get a job lecturing".
Well it doesn't take a genius to figure out that unless there will be an exponential growth of students interested in studying film every 5 years or so that this is a pyramid that will collapse very quickly.
In fact I'd argue the opposite: that college bound students and their parents have the wrong expectation that going to college is merely a job preparation strategy.
This may be culturally specific to English-based colleges, but often for a US-based 4-year degree, you spend half your time literally learning the same stuff as all other students, regardless of which degree everyone is trying to get. And then, even when you are in your final year and taking more specialized classes, they are still integrated with all sorts of knowledge from across the board.
Some of my favorite memories from college were things like that Anime appreciation film class, a stage acting class, and a couple singing classes. And in the end I got a degree unrelated to my current profession.
Let's stop trying to turn the liberal arts into something it's not, a trade school.
Also I think people who did these kind of courses were more likely to come from richer backgrounds and therefor have better connections for gaining employment.
There is a big difference between the UK and the US in that when you do a degree in the UK it is all focused on one area. You usually get very few options to study anything outside that area and if you do it will be a couple of modules in your final year.
I for one would actually prefer a more US style system although arguably we have the variety for 16-18 year old and call it A levels.
Personally, I've made 4 major moves: first from my hometown in Washington State to Chicago, then to Raleigh, on to London, and now I'm in Oslo. Each time I decided to move, it was because I felt that the new location would yield better opportunities in the long run. --Even Raleigh, despite being too southern for my tastes.
Major moves aren't easy, but for me they've always been worth it in the long run (I never want to live in Raleigh again, but if I hadn't decided to try it out, I probably wouldn't have made it to Europe). I'd recommend that people take the chance.
Lots of places are hiring - we are, in the middle of inner nowwhere Midwest. I hear there are jobs going begging in North Dakota, in the oil fields. Not the most pleasant of jobs, but 3rd shift on a rig pays better than not working at all.
I have found it interesting how many people I knew who went off to college and moved back into the same county or even small town where they grew up, after a few years away after college. We are perhaps not as mobile as we'd like to think.
Too much of society believes the prolific promises happiness and comfort without effort (and vote accordingly). Reality doesn't work that way; figure it out fast or a world of hurt will arrive.