What Happens When a Whole Generation Never Grows Up?
wsj.com
wsj.com
> Median wages for full-time workers ages 35 to 44 are up 16% between 2000 and 2024, from $58,522 to $67,652 adjusted for inflation
- 2024 Median house price $402k
- 2000 Median house price $119k (or $216k in 2024 inflated dollars)
16% wage bump for a near-doubling of house prices? It seems like maybe the simplest explanation was right.
Hence the popularity of comparing distributions by using quintiles or quartiles.
That whole premise significantly misleading though. The median size of a single family home in 2000 was over 300(!)sqft smaller than the median size of a sfh in 2023. In the same period relative property tax outlays (pegged to constant valuation) have decreased. The housing market is in undeniably a bad spot, but median price vs median wage is such a misleading metric given how little of the picture it really provides.
Every 20 something parrots the "myth" that their parents could buy a house for say $70,000 or something vs $400,000 now. That myth is just false and lazy. In 1984 the median home price was approximately $90,000 nominal (rising to over $230,000 in 08, a similar increase as '00-'24) and the average interest rate was 13.88%. In 2024 those numbers were $400,000~ and 6.8%.
On an equivlent 30-y bill that works out to the following
- 2024 ($400,000/6.8%): $2405 (Nominal), $2405 (Real)
- 1984 ($90,000/13.8%): $1072 (Nominal), *$3246 (Real)*
Shockingly real prices of homeownership are cheaper in 2024 than in 1984. Tax & insurance rates have risen notably in that time so that full all-in difference is more marginal than the $841 here, but its still a remarkably counter-intuative fact. Only difference is in 2024 much more of our money goes into equity, while in the 80s and 90s it went to the bank.
Every time I read something written in the WSJ, I wish I could un-read it because it deliberately tries to mislead people
The "conventional path to adulthood" they reference required massive public investment - the GI Bill, FHA loans, strong labor protections - which WSJ consistently opposed. Now they blame millennials for failing to thrive in the hostile economic environment their ideology created.
The article's focus on individual choices ("high expectations," "choosing less traditional paths") deflects from the core issue: the deliberate dismantling of public goods and social safety nets that made the postwar prosperity possible. When 30-somethings say "instructions don't work anymore," they're describing the collapse of institutional supports, not personal failure.
The WSJ's perspective represents the interests that profited from privatizing public goods while downloading risk onto individuals. Their "tough economic luck" framing obscures how these outcomes were policy choices, not accidents.
"I’m sick of partying. I did that already."
whether or not you are right about the impact of policy choices, you still can't ignore personal responsibility as well. if you party your way through school to get a useless degree, then double down for a law degree you don't (or can't) use for unspecified reasons, i don't see how any policy is going to have a different outcome.
the idea that if all you did was get a college degree, didn't matter in what, and you were on "easy street" hasn't been true for at least 30 years before he graduated, probably never was.
If he wanted to work in academia I think it’s a very reasonable choice.
Frankly, I think these opinion-lite pieces come from the problem how we have moved on from having unified culture and trend setters. Everyone has so many options, possible hobbies, interests and etc. to explore that conventionalism is frowned upon. Even if individualism has been promoted in North America for the past century, there was still things most people agreed on. We just don't have that over here anymore. And nowadays, almost nowhere. Committing to something or someone results in bigger opportunity losses than ever before, so ever chasing the dopamine rush from trying new things is more acceptable than ever.
I don't even know if it's right or wrong. I'm morally conflicted when I think about it. Same as having multiple kids, these topics will only come up more and more as literally every country is diving further into plummeting fertility rates.
When housing became a vehicle for investment instead of a place to live, it all fell apart. The only way forward is to discourage multiple property ownership through very draconian measures.
If you fix housing, you fix commitment, increase birth rates, and improve general happiness.
People, especially women, have other things they can spend time on instead of giving birth to 3+ kids.
I agree with you that other factors, such as cheap international travel and constant bombardment of people's highlights on social media, make it less attractive to invest in having a family.
Still, housing is a huge problem for Western Mediterranean Europe (Spain, Portugal, and Italy) and most of Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia).
Also for the record, in the US the birth rate per woman was below 2.1 for about 50 years.
So this is not really a new problem, it's just that there were enough young people back in the day and people didn't have the same life expectancy.
I do agree that it would fix a few problems, but I don't think the birth rates will meaningfully increase. It would have a bump, but overall that ship has sailed, people just don't want to have a lot of kids (if any) in today's world.
(Not disagreeing with you that the WSJ is evil, but I doubt throwing money at people will make them have more kids at this point)