Deeply Unhappy Gen Z and Millennials Cause U.S. Drop in Global Happiness Ranking
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2021/09/01/who-is-the-w...
There are a lot more boomers so they had more wealth in total but when viewed per capita millennials have similar wealth at the same age.
It’s an indication of how powerful narrative is: despite the facts, folks just believe what they want to believe.
1) More than 2 in 5 adults (42.4%) have obesity in the US.
2) Wealth is very unevenly distributed compared to Europe.
Being rich does not make you much happier. At least not enough that 10% rich people can compensate for 50% poor people.
GDP per capita gives a skewed image for happiness, you have to get the percentage that struggles financially.
So organically based on your definition.
I actually know a lot millennials and Gen Z who have given up the dream of owning a home because they'd have to work a lifetime to afford one. Instead, they're living the "YOLO Instagram life" because they don't think it's worth it work like a slave just to own a home and have nothing else.
There's a few things that happen on social media that make me think this. First, there's a lot of "aspirational" content - "unboxing" expensive clothes, cars, etc. People hanging out in fancy houses or going to exotic locales. All of this is classic marketing stuff and IIRC has been linked to unhappiness in the past.
Second, there's constant political hyperbole online. Though maybe it's just the filter bubbles I hang out with. It's difficult to be happy when it seems that everyone is trying to convince you that the world will end if the next election doesn't go a certain way.
Finally, and this probably applies to younger people more, there's a flood of unrealistic body/face imagery on social media. While there were examples of this before (fashion/fitness mags) it seems harder to escape now. It's especially bad when you hear stories of people getting plastic surgery to look like the facetune version of themselves[1]. Now the aspirational image is not someone else - it's literally yourself run through photoshop.
"because they don't think it's worth it work like a slave just to own a home and have nothing else."
Too many people I knew in college partied and spent all of their money on booze, drugs, and the latest gadgets for years during college and many years after.
I saved my money and never had the latest smart phone until a few years ago. I don't think I went on a single vacation (besides some weekend trips) during my 20s.
When I moved into my first rental at 23 in 2015 in a suburb of Vancouver, the owners of the new condo were probably also millennial, just on the upper end. I was paying ~1450 CAD which was relatively very high for the time, but I couldn't find another viable place and was already by that time stuck in a monthly airbnb. They said they bought it for around ~250k. Not necessarily an extreme amount, if I already had years of income and luck on my side. Fast forward to post-pandemic, and now I have even less in absolute dollars, while the same place has more than doubled in price, and rent has probably increased by about $800/m.
Now 32, prosperity of normie standards pretty much seems out the door, so instead I'll occasionally spend a bit more on adventure, but much less frivolously than I think boomers and home-owning millennials tend to. The cost of a 2 weeker in a different continent can be less than the tax on a car. Fwiw I've also always been extremely frugal, but do now value my community more than money, because when you lose your job or face real hardship, you'll need the people you were already investing your time in.
Whether a millennial owns a home or now comes down to a few factors; what do they earn, how long have they earned it, where do they live, and did they get inheritance. If you've never lost a job, live in a LCOL area, are frugal, and got in earlier, great.
And then, what? You stopped looking at interest rates and wages? You magically became an honorary "I got mine" boomer when the real estate agent handed you the keys?
> I don't think I went on a single vacation (besides some weekend trips) during my 20s.
My reduction in consumption of avocado toast has, predictably, done fuck all for lowering interest rates or increasing housing supply.
You bought in 2013? Really? Seriously? Like, this isn't a tongue-in-cheek joke? The smugness of looking at your mortgage payment isn't enough? You just had to come here to project your "I deserve this more, timing and luck are nothing" bullshit here?
Wow, I do a decent job of detaching nowadays but I'd pay for the chance to tell you to your face, where to stick your analysis.
edit: wow, this exchange, and this thread in general is just so chefs kiss. Amazing, stunning, fabulous. If only I could be so god damn ignorant and self-assured, what I might achieve. (Or, you know, leveraging cash during an economic downturn, galaxy-brain there!).
- Inability to afford a house during their lifetime leaves them with the sole options of living with parents or renting with housemates.
- Significant artificial inflation in consumer goods, no solution in sight.
- A troubled job market: low wages, lack of employee protection or rights, no mandated paid time off, or unlimited sick leave. Attempts to unionize can result in termination.
- A challenging dating scene, influenced by numerous factors.
- Same in the political scene, where left/right, red/blue parties are irrelevant because nothing is changing.
- A decline in community engagement or lack of, with online platforms and technology playing a role, though not exclusively.
These are just a few examples. Now, take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we can see how these issues undermine the basic three levels, including the safety of shelter, employment, belonging, etc., and then you see some articles like this as if it is a surprise why it is the case.. unfortunately, the older generation screwed up and failed the new one.
- Remote work being pulled by ancient management (average age of US F500 CEO is 58) even though quality of life bump is proven.
- If kids are desired, they cost $310k 0-18 (Brookings Institute 2023) each, not including daycare and college.
EDIT: - Climate change data and early impacts being realized.
> unfortunately, the older generation screwed up and failed the new one.
This is the crux. Great comment overall. Society grows great when trees are planted whose shade we won't sit in; instead, we clear cut the place. A whole cohort is trapped in a dysfunctional socioeconomic system they didn't build, but are forced to exist in. Would you be happy?
Related: https://www.axios.com/2024/03/20/world-happiness-america-low... ("Axios: U.S. hits new low in World Happiness Report")
(20+ years in tech, ymmv, n=1, thoughts and opinions my own)
Was the testing just leetcode crap, or was it based on actually being able to get stuff done? ;)
If it's something you can share, do you remember what the salary range was roughly?
Sure, companies can and do hire globally, but at the same time managers still want most of the people to appear in the office from time to time (for whatever reason). But if IT guys demand working permanently from home, then it changes everything. Suddenly, being local doesn't cut it anymore, and the job could be done by someone halfway across the globe. Be careful what you wish for; demanding remote work is a double-edge sword which could make lots of positions way less secure.
But it's not that simple. Cultural differences, timezone differences, the inability to meet face to face all make the employment relationship less effective.
I don't put a lot of stock in this. Inflation was double digits ~10% a few times in the 70s due to the oil shocks. And the FED interest rate was >10% as well. What we have now is nothing close to that.
Where inflation has been impactful is housing/healthcare/education. Consumer goods are quite cheap thought, all things considered.
> - A challenging dating scene, influenced by numerous factors.
Those factors are largely social media. Tinder is not a good way to find a stable relationship in my experience. But online dating is considered the default for many younger people. There's also unrealistic expectations created by watching a constant stream of Instagram influencers.
New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley was famously heckled for this point.
> Dudley said said that while food prices may be rising, the cost of some other goods are going down, which evens out the overall inflation picture. The Fed's inflation estimates do not take into account volatile energy or food prices. The crowd was not impressed:
> "Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful," he said referring to Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) latest handheld tablet computer hitting stories on Friday.
> "You have to look at the prices of all things," he said.
> This prompted guffaws and widespread murmuring from the audience, with one audience member calling the comment "tone deaf."
> "I can't eat an iPad," another quipped.
https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/us-usa-fed-dudley...
https://news.yahoo.com/news/blogs/lookout/fed-official-heckl...
I understand that housing/healthcare/education has gotten a lot more expensive since then, but saying that food prices are back to where they were in the 90s is not very persuasive for the idea that food inflation is making people unhappy.
But sure, if one still wants to toe the party line that artificial inflation is necessary, that still doesn't justify all of the resulting newly created money having been given to the financial sector as low interest loans just to bid up an asset bubble and create a bunch of make-work white collar jobs shuffling the paperwork. That money could have instead been spent for deliberate purposes, like infrastructure and mitigating the societal damage from offshoring (yet another thing that would have caused natural deflation had it been allowed). But all that wealth was basically looted under the auspices of "fiscal responsibility", leaving Wall Street incredibly rich (and bloated), while continually turning the financial screws on Main Street.
Artificial inflation is what we had for the past three decades where even though resources were plentiful and things were getting less expensive to produce (eg offshoring, technology), prices were still going up a few percent per year because the Fed's mandate is to artificially create even more new money to prevent the deflation bogeyman. In other words "moving production to Mexico/China may cost us some jobs but will be made up for by lower prices for everyone" was ultimately a lie due to Fed policy making lower prices impossible.
If "Company X" is publicly saying "our prices are higher because of inflation", but you can also clearly see that their costs are not meaningfully different and their margins are higher, simply because the market has no alternative but to eat them, that's "artificial inflation".
Imagine being able to do anything useful with an iPad except buy new ones. My 3rd gen has always been and is now marginally closer to a brick
Necessary consumer goods are not.
A cynic would say companies selling necessary goods have realized that they can price gouge because people don’t have a choice about paying, and then claim inflation is the reason despite that being demonstrably false.
Then you have continued conglomeration of intermediaries which has meant while the consumer price has been increasing the amount going to the producers has been reducing. Almost like the “efficiencies” used to justify mergers are built on monopoly exploitation.
Or, you blow past that and die at 88, 93, 99 like my family seems predisposed to do. Of course with a staunch reprehension for assisted living and no means to pay for it if you wanted to.