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Millennials Set To Earn Less Than Generation X (bbc.com)
Reader AmiMoJo writes: Millennials are set to become the first generation to earn less than their predecessors, new research suggests. The Resolution Foundation found that under-35s earned 8,000 pound ($10,600) less in their twenties than Generation X workers. If wages for millennials follow the same path as Generation X, average career earnings will be about 825,000 pound ($1.1m). That would make them the first generation to earn less than their predecessors over the course of their working lives. Research found that some of the pay squeeze was due to under-35s entering the job market as the recession hit, but it also concluded that generational pay progress had ground to a halt even before the financial crisis struck in 2007/8.
Strange thing is that the people whom are the most positive to it are the ones with the most to lose and the ones with the most to gain. In the middles is us old folk whom already have a place to live and pension all set to go.
That's ok...as long as everyone gets a trophy for trying....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The generation after the long IT boom inaugurated in the early 1980s and finishing off in about 2001 is going to earn less than their predecessors. Color me unsurprised. We squandered the fruits of that on peak socialism. Now the long slide since 2008 will continue until some disruptive element creates economic opportunity. I'm not exactly holding my breath.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
They are bitching and protesting instead of working.
But what really matters is standard of living. Sure, they might make less money, but in the 1980s a cell phone cost thousands and barely worked, compared to what you can get for a few hundred bucks and $30 a month. Earning less money != worse life.
Im not surpriced. We live in a globalized world where the pay is vastly different depending on where you live, and then with the development of better software, AI and robots, you end up with a winner takes all economy. Fortunately if we can keep our democracy function for the next 20 years enough people will lose their job to globalization and automation that we will have a majority of people which will support some kind of UBI or negative income tax. There is no way around it. It has already begun.
...America is in slow economic decline.
Most kids today have few if any marketable skills and are in piss poor physical shape and are unable to keep up with a demanding work environment.
Sad but true... the current generation is fucking worthless.
I was just thinking that. The entitlement generation getting LESS than anyone else! That's unpossible! Create YouTube videos! Flood Reddit with Hashtags! #Millennialincomesmatter
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is plenty of money to be made if young people would stop squandering their youth.
Generation X had to learn how to make the things that the current generation just consumes today.
Having a computer in the early 90's or late 80's meant you had parents who cared about technology and spent a huge portion of their income to get it.
Despite the amazingly cheap and plentiful access to technology today to learn anything for almost nothing, the current generation spends the majority of their time watching YouTube and Netflix.
And they wonder why their income is low.
Gen X isn't dead yet. If you'd rather watch YouTube and be useless, we'll happily make buckets of money that you could be making as well.
Work Safe Porn
IMHO, these are the big issues causing this"
1) The wealth gap today is close to what it was in the "Roaring Twenties". /rant
2) College is in a bubble due to government subsidies; raising the cost of college for everyone
3) Entire industries are no longer being created like they used to (Railroad, Oil, Automobiles, Planes, Computers, etc...)
4) Technical innovation is just "Uber-izing" everything. Jobs that can be automated, will be. Companies of the future will just be a CEO and a CTO. Everyone else not creating or automating things will earn less and less income.
5) Globalization is feeding the wealth gap more so than ever before. The wealthy ruling class are turning governments into corporate oligarchies.
6) The career ladder is more about where you were born that what you can do. Meritocracy, to a large extent, is becoming more and more of a myth. If you were born in a rich neighborhood and go to a private school.
maybe if they stopped staring at their phones and catching cartoons instead of working, they would earn more
Absolutely agree, if only they used monochrome CRT tubes to stare at usenet they would have made so much more money.
When I grew up in the 80's I seem to recall hearing numerous times that we would be the first generation in history to do worse off than our parents. Perhaps due to gas prices hitting astronomical levels by now.
The money has been squandered on a perpetual war that began in 2001. As of 2013, the combined costs of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were estimated at $4 trillion. That money equally divided amongst all Americans amounts to roughly $1000 / person / year.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
It's because of global warming.
Cause and effect: they only sound entitled to assholes like you because they're actually getting screwed and complaining about it! Jeez, it's like Oliver fucking Twist around here!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Make no mistake, this didn't start with the Millennials. We started firmly down this path in the 1930s; WWII saved our grandparents, the cold war saved our parents, and the advent of the "Computer Age" saved Gen-X.
Unless the Millennials can pull a similar rabbit out of their hats, should it really surprise us that FDR's pyramid schemes (yes, plural) have finally run out of new suckers and can only head one way from here?
We not only earning less, we are being taxed up to two times more
Study?
True for at least half.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is the exact reason Brexit happened and why Trump will probably win. Living-wage jobs have been methodically destroyed on both sides of the pond by the greed-pig class. The result has been both the Oxbridge toffs and the Koch Brothers have completely lost control of the rabble they so easily roused over the last decade, paving the way for unhinged pricks like Farage and Trump.
To protect their ill-gotten gains, the neo-cons have also prevented natural inflation from occurring at the rates required to maintain that progression in earnings; since the recession a decade ago there has been an effective deflation of the USD.
The Resolution Foundation found that under-35s earned 8,000 pound ($10,600) less in their twenties than Generation X workers. If wages for millennials follow the same path as Generation X...
It sucks to reach adulthood during a deep recession. Not sure it makes sense to use that as a predictor of the future though.
Hopefully future administrations will realize that an economic boom is always followed by a bust. You aren't helping the country with bubbles like the stock market and housing ones that were set off in the 1990s.
...your music sucks and you dress like idiots!
Now get off my lawn!
I imagine there was a time when the word gifted was used to describe only children who were above average,
the term gifted is now applied to any student with more brain wave activity than a glazed doughnut.
Those two data points appear to be converging at an ever increasing rate.
All those jobs will be automated.
The real minimum wage is $0.
But why are you getting less? Too many Grievance Studies majors? Companies seeking skilled labor, from developers to the skilled trades, are still see labor shortages, so why the disparity? Too few skilled workers? Too much immigration?
The UK in particular had a huge wave of immigration, which may have destroyed the ability to make a living wage from unskilled labor, and put a lot of pressure on semi-skilled workers. Is that the problem?
Or maybe we have a generation that never learned to stick it out through adversity to get to the goal? Maybe. Point is, everyone thinks they're getting screwed, but only losers rest behind "the man is keeping me down, and there's nothing I can do".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's time to stop blaming this directly on politics and realize the nature of the economy is evolving, and that past economic patterns are probably dying.
Earning and employment problems are plaguing almost ALL "mature" (industrialized) nations, not just the socialistic or capitalistic nations. Switching to be more socialistic or more capitalistic is not solving it, at least not in terms of wages and job growth.
I believe a combination of automation, and easy access to cheap educated 3rd-world labor via the internet is the main culprit.
We may have to experiment to find solutions rather than keep fighting over doctrine. These experiments include but are not limited to:
1. Tariffs on "lopsided trade" countries to encourage them to normalize their currency and/or allow more local consumption. Dictatorial countries favor employing their population (so they don't riot) and disfavor consumption and/or outside products. We gotta push them harder, or they won't budge. Tariffs are not to start trade wars, but encourage balanced trade. Crank the tariffs up slowly, if they don't comply, to avoid market shocks.
2. Tax the rich to either provide subsistence for those without good jobs, and/or to stimulate the economy by putting more cash in consumer pockets.
3. "Helicopter Money", which is essentially printing more money and giving it to regular folks and/or spending it on infrastructure. Inflation has been lower than expected, suggesting there is enough spare capacity in the global economy to absorb more cash in an orderly fashion. (QE, a cousin of HM, mostly trickled into the rich, not down.)
4. "Make work" programs, such as cleaning up trash, landscaping, day-care, etc. Make-work programs, in part because of inefficient/outmoded office practices, have kept Japan's employment rate high, although arguably have stagnated economic growth: people in Japan can buy less, but at least have jobs. There may be a trade-off between jobs and stuff.
Most conservatives say that "less regulation" is the key. That's doubtful.
States that have tried it, such as Texas and Kansas have had very questionable results. While their unemployment rate has remained relatively strong; wages, infrastructure, medical, pollution, and education have suffered. They get slightly more employment but gut their state in exchange.
They are essentially competing with the 3rd world by becoming more like the 3rd world. I hope that's not our only option.
The problem is that calling something an "experiment" is political suicide. Voters want "decisive" leaders, not tinkerers; it's one reason why Trump has risen: "Mr. Do-it". But sometimes the right solution involves first admitting you have no ready answer.
Table-ized A.I.
The economy has been growing quite steadily over this period, including since 2008. If that new wealth was divided up among American workers in the same way it was in the 1980s, then millennials would be better of than previous generations.
So the problem is not that we need a disruptive source of economic opportunity, it is that the existing disruptive sources of economic opportunity are generating wealth that is simply accumulating among current holders of wealth, to the exclusion of new workers.
Incidentally, such an in-equal wealth distribution could not - by definition - occur if the USA was the socialist country you seem to think it is.
But why are you getting less? Too many Grievance Studies majors? Companies seeking skilled labor, from developers to the skilled trades, are still see labor shortages, so why the disparity? Too few skilled workers? Too much immigration?
Another term for 'labor shortage' is 'salary increase', and nobody's seeing that happen.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Or its because rather than working hard to EARN more than the last generation they are busy complaining about it. I am a millennial and and currently making more than my very successful parents were making when they were my age. But I worked my ass off to be where I am and have never complained about that work. My "friends" went to college but then screwed around at work and had no drive to do better. They don't work long hours to get ahead and they are stuck in the same spot 5 years later. Then they complain and think that if only we taxed the "rich" more and redistributed it then everything would be better. Some are public servants and think they are worth "more". I have to remind them that they make well over the poverty line and that they are the taxpayers - (it won't be redistributed to them).
I started with long shitty hours (but nothing compared to my parents). I have the same / similar degrees as both my parents (MBA), from the same state university. Yet somehow I have managed to do better than them and work less hours, as a millennial. I know this doesn't fit the narrative. Probably because people like me don't bother to get up and talk to the media to complain about how well we are doing.
Even making this post is an insane waste of my time other than I feel the narrative needs to be corrected. We are doing just fine. We just want the same exact things our parents had. The things they spent 30+ years earning. And we want them the day we walk out their door.
It really is not KSP. It is easy shit to understand.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Corrections:
Re: Most conservatives say that "less regulation" is the key.
Should be: "Most conservatives say that less regulation and smaller gov't are the key."
Re: "While their unemployment rate has remained relatively strong..."
Should be: "While their employment rate has remained relatively strong..."
Table-ized A.I.
What a coincidence! I'm seeing a shortage of Maseratis. I'm certainly not going to pay the six figures that entitled car company thinks their car is worth, so I'll just buy a Tata instead.
It's funny how many people think that labor is somehow exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Oddly, the people who think they shouldn't have to pay more to get more labor never seem to get called "entitled", despite the fact that they've come to the bargaining table with a set number in mind and immediately whine to the government when there's nobody willing to take their peanuts.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I see a lot of "grumpy old man" posts (I'm 40 for context...) on this subject blaming entitlement and other reasons for this. I don't see it that way...I haven't run into any of the stereotypical Millennials with a capital M that the media describes -- remember, Generation X were supposed to be "slackers" in the 90s also. So, I don't think it's the people. I think it's the work environment. Work is very different from the golden age of the 50s through the 70s in the US...
- After WW II, a family could live comfortably on a single income, and there was a reasonably good chance someone could keep their job for life and/or be promoted from within and gain success that way. And this is any family -- from the janitor to the CEO (relatively speaking of course.)
- After the great corporate downsizing wave of the 90s, it was still possible to graduate from any college, with any degree in any field, and still find entry-level work. While it was less possible to do the single-income thing and required lots of sacrifice to do so, the opportunity existed.
- Now, entry level tech jobs don't exist or are done offshore or by H-1B labor. The economy has fully adjusted to two-earner families, so it's basically impossible to be a single-earner family unless you live in a really cheap part of the country (where, consequently, there are no jobs anymore.)
So, don't blame the Millennials. They're in a tough spot. I was very lucky in my early career to be able to work my way up from an entry-level support job to where I am now...that opportunity is much harder to come by now.
There are many statistics about the Millennials being less likely to go to college. I think that's a contributing factor. Gen-X is probably the most educated generation.....this would be reflected in their salaries, too.
Socialism is the participation trophy of life.
Or, you could buy two and have a pair of Tatas.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That means that less money can be made by businesses doing sales in the US. Now combine lower wages with a persistent inflation that is high enough that the public never gets a real number on the rate of inflation and in effect they are saying this new crop of workers will live and die in poverty. Are we having fun yet? Is the US the new Mexico?
Be warned, this is LONG, but it's not a rant, it's a summation. I've tried to edit it down, but I'm my own worst editor, I tend to write (and speak) long. So please bear with me.
OK, here's the deal: Some of you will think this belongs on infowars, or breitbart, or whatever the paranoid-consipiracist right-wingnut site du jour is. Others will think this belongs in motherjones, or huffpost, or whatever the paranoid-conspiracist left wingnut site du jour is. And I'm sure there's people who wrote "WHY IS THIS HERE?!@?!!", I just can't see them since I have no mod points today I'm reading at threshold=1.
Sad truth is both sides are playing us. This story is so whack it could pass for a legit Onion story!
The short of it: This guy Powell -- a Democrat, who served on the boards of 11 big companies wrote a memo in 1971 basically saying Academia was mounting an attack on Free Enterprise. This memo was sent to his buddy, the Director of the US Chamber of Commerce, Eugene Sydnor. Then Powell gets put in the Supreme Court by Nixon.
The result of the memo - which was kept secret from The People for a while - was the rise of Neo-Liberalism, that is, de-regulation, free-trade, and turning our economy from a production economy to a "services" economy - which really means "Financial" economy. Yeah. Banks rule us, and they crashed mightily in 2007-2008, and are still trying to put the pieces back together.
So this Powell memo becomes one of the factors that created the corporate culture we have today. Republicans and Conservatives get the blame, when the idea and first motions were from a Liberal Democrat.
Essentially, the result was the manipulation of media and Academia - through grants, through favors, through good old-fashioned cocksuckery - to shift the thinking of the People to thinking that Free Enterprise was a good thing, that Government shouldn't meddle with business (de-regulation). A number of think-tanks were established, that were pro-business and anti-socialist.
At the same time while all those pieces were put together, Nixon un-hitched the dollar from the gold standard, the 1973 and 1979 energy crisis happened, the economy tanked, and the rest of the 20th century was spent in a downard slope.
This neo-liberal foundation helped shape the Reagan economic policies, the whole trickle-down thing, the reduction of corporate taxes, etc.
By the 90's it looked like the slope had stopped, but in the early 00's it fell off a cliff and it's still doing so.
So yes, people - we got robbed by liberals, democrats, conservatives and republicans combined. But somehow the blame has been shifted to the conservatives, as if it is their fault for breaking the US.
Sources? Citations? Do your own reading. Start with the Powell Memo itself, then some Chomsky, and your own examination of the event past half century. Find out what think-tanks were created and what the spout. Find out what rules were taken out to let business "flourish." This is all out there, in the open, from sites and books that are both conservative and liberal. This is not a one-sided thing, folks.
It'll turn your stomach, it will, doing that kind of reading.
We got played, by both sides, but the foundation was a liberal foundation, upon which most of the economic policies of today were built on.
I don't believe any of these people. Not a one. Especially not Billary, and especially not Trump.
What do we do? Suffer quietly, England-style? Revolution? We're trapped, folks. And what happened here spread to other countries, so emigration to say, England, is not an option, things over there and in Europe are also whacked.
I think we're going to have to let this take its course. Let it burn, stand back and just let it burn. People already are hurting. People already have lost jobs and are having no luck in getting something like what they lost. And we're going to have to let it burn, and once it's all ashes, we'll build it again. But
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
but that at least looked like work.
Time to offend someone
Debt is at the heart of it all.
Costs are usually determined (housing included) by "whatever the market will bare".
That "market" has been steadily corrupted by easy to get large loans people can't afford. As a result, prices for things (like houses) go up. Because most money is made off debt, the incentive is to continue down this path. However sooner or later... Stagnant wages, increasing cost of living, debt growing. Well, something will eventually give.
To be fair...I've tutored some very gifted glazed donuts. doughnut
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
What we have, despite you feeling entitled and being the special snowflake and superior to everyone coming after you (typical for people of the current generation), is for the first time, the next generation (which will also think that the generation after her will be lazy, whiney, overconfident and not knowing what hard work is) will be earning less than you.
They will also have some of the highest costs for food essentials, property/housing etc in generations (outside of a war or the great recession).
Except in Tunisia & [insert many other places that are clearly worse by comparison] the perception is that "the man is keeping me down, and there's nothing I can do" is actually a true statement.
The entire idea of the word "loser" is simply a pejorative we use to signal a contrast between the less successful and ourselves. In some cases: we do so to indicate that we are more virtuous, and in other cases: the justice of that distinction doesn't even occur to the individual as a consideration.
The "just-world" fallacy would have us all convinced that simply believing you are the master of your own destiny in-fact increases your control over your fate.
This is a popular idea because "ideas" are equally subject to the forces of "natural selection" as organisms. It follows that the popularity of a belief reflects on it's utility to have a positive impact on the person who holds it close to their heart, but not necessarily on it's truth. For the successful: this belief confirms their good fortune is well-deserved, and for the unsuccessful: this belief gives a sense of purpose which offers an escape from despair.
Unfortunately, it can be easily demonstrated through the use of statistics that this popular idea is not an accurate reflection of reality. As a consequence, it is a dangerous assumption to conclude that every individual who believes in the futility of attempting to improve their lot in life, has forfeited their entitlement to believe the contrary without good cause. The danger lies in the weight on your conscience of discovering your rush to judgement has exacerbated the bad fortune of an individual who has been impoverished through no fault of their own, and as a result: the conviction of their faith that their destiny is under their own control has been catastrophically compromised.
Some people, when met with far more evidence than would be necessary to destroy my own resolve that I control my future, rise to the occasion and earn our admiration. Other people are crushed by much less than the storms we could have weathered ourselves. Our understanding of the brain suggests that the distinction here between the two individuals may still be out of our hands, implying a certain amount of Calvinism.
Now, here is an idea that is equally true as it is unpopular:
-Every single individual on this planet can be broken down in to a hollowed out shell of a person.
-Every fiber of their resolve is made of weaker stuff than the many horrors of life that we choose to look away from to avoid being overwhelmed by fear and anxiety.
-It isn't a question of "If" that resolve can be broken, it's a question of "how much pain" is required to get there.
Something to think about the next time you look in to the eyes of a vagrant. (I do every time I see one right before I laugh at their misfortune... daring god to deprive me of my own control over my fate) I'm not advocating kindness(it won't protect you). I'm suggesting that unjustified arrogance only makes a fall from grace more painful when you hit bottom.
The moral of this story is: sympathy and compassion won't save you from the wrath of chaos. When the last barricade shielding you from "shivering naked in the cold" falls, you will no longer be seen as a compatriot by those in a position to help you.
You'll either find the strength to take back your dignity, or you'll be lost to society. Your continued existence serving as a grim reminder of what happens to those who don't work hard enough to escape a similar fate. That is what distinguishes survivors from prey.
I'm not a survivor. I was rescued. Some interloper decided to save me due to an attribute I possess as a birth-right rather than as a question of free-will. Now I haunt society dressed in the fabric of success, too comfortable to make another attempt at digging myself out of a grave created by myself to provide an opportunity to convince myself I deserve what I have.
Burma-Shave
Oh, and by "we", I mean "baby boomers". I'm gen X and wasn't old enough to vote when all this shit really started in the 80s.
I'm a boomer - but I voted against pretty much all of this stuff. And campaigned against it, too. Virtually nobody I ever voted for was elected.
As for the political institutions: The generations before ours held onto power until quite recently (and have bequeathed it to individuals who are their ideological colleagues among later generations). Their crooked lock on the voting process has kept them in power. Look at the ages of the congresscritters and presidents. Even Bill Clinton was a pre-boomer - conceived DURING WWII, and growing up in a cohort where children were scarce and pampered, rather than a flood to be "channelled" into government-approved career paths (by threat of the draft during the Vietnam adventure).
Don't fall for the "blame the boomers" line: It's another instance of the power elite playing divide-and-conquer, to cut you off from potential allies.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
How are the minnelials worse off?
They don't have these burdens compared to the previous:
They don't have to pay for long distance calls.
They can email, text, tweet, or communicate with people all over the world. They can share your opinion instantly with many people at the same time.
THe Nintendo of 1985 sucked compared to the current Xbox One.
You can rent or watch nearly any movie at home you like instantly online (don't have to rent a VHS tape).
You have access for FREE to everything you need to master any subject, including all the coursework to get degrees for top universities like MIT and Stanford.
Just about any fact can be looked up instantly.
The violent crime or murder amount and rate is drastically lower.
AIDS is not going to melt from their insides and make you die.
They have better access to healthcare.
How are they worse off?
It would have been more surprising if an growing population had an unlimited growth of wealth in a finite environment...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Worth mentioning that the economy should be looked at as a global whole, not one country in isolation.....the global reduction in poverty and inequality has been dramatic. It's true that some industries in the US and England have suffered (textiles, for example), but overall the world has benefited tremendously.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The issue I described is not unique to millennials but is true across society in general. It's not that millenial salaries aren't increasing, it's that salaries in general are not increasing.
That being said, I'm doing well for myself, making more than the median income. I'm not really motivated to earn more because that would only worsen income inequality, which I'm opposed to.
Also, generation X did none of the things you suggest. Instead, they financed their generation on debt, which subsequent generations will now be paying off. The hypocrisy is strong here.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Another term for 'labor shortage' is 'salary increase', and nobody's seeing that happen.
Obviously false, as salaries are going up in some fields.
But we're looking at an average across a large population. Are fewer people going into fields that pay well? Is there less need for highly skilled workers? Are low-paying jobs paying less, and that's dominating? (I think that's true.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I doubt most baby boomers paid as much for tecom services per month as your average cell phone/home internet connection costs.
IIRC when I was younger my parents were paying something like $10 a month for phone service that's $30 in today dollars (assume 1980 for CPI calculation).
Today a family can easily spend north of $200 a month providing a cell phone + home internet. Skimping it might be possible to get that for less, but i'm betting most families spend more than $30 a month in telcom services. Sure they are getting more service, but having internet access is even more critical today than having a phone was in 1970...
Technical innovation is just "Uber-izing" everything. Jobs that can be automated, will be. Jobs that can't will be outsourced to contractors.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Sure, let's take a look at how "fine" salaries are today. Here's some numbers.
So, over the last 47 years, we've got a whopping 21% growth in the median salary. That's a roughly 0.4% annual growth rate, on average. That's all we've gotten from widespread automation, swapping out typists for software engineers, etc.
If these remarkable advancements in technology are only giving us 0.4% annual growth in salaries, is it even worth it? Society sure seems to get more than 0.4% more complicated every year. Work seems to get a lot more than 0.4% demanding every year.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
For the last 47 years, we've averaged a 0.4% annual growth rate in median salary. See sibling post for citations.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Indeed it could be the case that the gap between "industrialized" countries and "3rd-world" countries is narrowing due to communication technology evening out the playing field: we are stagnant while they grow.
But, rather than being a zero-sum game, I feel that with more stimulation of some sort, the tide will rise for both boats (rich and poor nations). Now that machines and 3rd-world labor are able and willing (at least able) to make more stuff, if we collective pour more cash and/or stimulus into the economy, then our natural desire for more stuff and services will juice the world economy as a whole.
For example, custom cars, landscaping, and interior decorating are in demand in "mature" nations. If the economy gets strong enough, more people will have money to purchase such local services. We'll be analysts, coordinators, and liaisons; while machines and the 3rd world labor do most of the repetitive and grunt work (perhaps remotely).
Table-ized A.I.
Here's a few:
1. Education is more expensive, and yet easier to get a loan for plunging young people into deep debt.
2. Job opportunities for all these graduates aren't there.
3. Healthcare is far more expensive than it used to be.
and also why the definition of "millenials" gradually expanded from people born in the late 90's all the way back to anyone born after 1975.
You make a good point, and one that has bothered me for a while.
It seems every year that goes by Gen X gets a smaller "range in years".
To me Gen X is anyone born in the 60's or 70's.
Others have wildly different ranges.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Seriously, food, housing, everything costs more than ever, but wages are stagnating and/or dropping... they have good reason to complain
My response was specifically targeted to industries with labor shortages. Your original message made a claim that labor shortage != salary increase, so I tried to address it. To bring in aggregates of the entire economy is a red herring.
If these remarkable advancements in technology are only giving us 0.4% annual growth in salaries, is it even worth it?
You are mixing up statistics. Lack of growth in median salaries does not mean lack of growth in salaries. Skilled workers have seen plenty of salary growth. Low skill workers (including the median) have seen little growth. Unskilled workers have seen a decline in income. So is automation beneficial? For skilled workers, it certainly is.
Spoken like someone who finds life to be a game rather than a matter of survival. An attitude mostly held by people who have never had to worry about the bills.
There are many statistics about the Millennials being less likely to go to college.
Millennial men are less likely to go to college. Millennial women are more likely to go. Women are more likely to get worthless degrees.
Totally valid point, glad someone already modded me down.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I'm a 34 year old political refugee from Poland, but I suppose being opposed to income inequality and actually choosing my actions to be consistent with my stated beliefs makes me a millennial SJW? Could you please explain how that works?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I doubt most baby boomers paid as much for tecom services per month as your average cell phone/home internet connection costs.
Maybe, but I doubt that it's really that far off. And for the difference, you're getting much, much more capability.
That "something like $10 a month" you think your boomer parents were paying was probably just the unlimited local calling portion of the phone bill, before taxes, fees, maintenance charges, extended area service charges, touch-tone charges, and all the other miscellaneous things the phone companies used to charge for. I'm pretty confident in saying this, because I'm a boomer and I remember what I used to pay. In 1986, the national average for a private, single-line touch-tone service was $49.25 per month. $49.25 in 1986 dollars would have been $107.77 in 2015.
I regret my past post in this thread because it is inadvertently offtopic. However, I have seen no evidence that salary growth has been strong in any particular skilled trade. One might argue that some automated-away trades are replaced with new skilled trades, and that this results in an overall larger number of skilled workers and a corresponding increase in income, or that the newly-created skilled labor positions pay better than the previous median skilled labor positions did, thereby driving up the skilled labor median... but that any given skilled worker has seen plenty of salary growth? Not relative to overall market growth, no.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I didn't say "stagnated" for TX and KS. Being "gutted" is not necessarily "stagnated". An extreme example would be a bustling 3rd-world town that has a lot of economic activity and jobs, but full of dirt roads, leaky infrastructure, bad schools, and is highly polluted. "Bustling" and "good" are not entirely the same thing.
But there could be tricky trade-offs between employment rate, infrastructure, and the ability to afford consumer goods. It may not be possible to optimize all 3 at the same time. Politics is the art of trade-off management.
However, the Japan suggestion was one of multiple. The other suggestions could perhaps reduce the down-sides of that one. It's like having several slider knobs: by setting the right level for each of the sliders, we could come reasonably close to optimizing all the typical metrics.
(Please note my nearby "corrections" reply.)
Table-ized A.I.
After the 2008 shitstorm, a big trend in companies (including the one I work at) is to hire new hires as contractors rather than full time employees. They can work them just as hard but pay them less and deny benefits like health insurance. You may ask "how do they get away with that?" and the answer is simple: the job market sucks, and a shitty job is better than no job. I've been working as a contractor at a company in the tech industry for nearly 5 years now, and its not uncommon for this to happen here.
I think the main problem is that people are going into jobs that there isn't any actual demand for. For example, I've actually met somebody who majored in History and then complains that he can't make a living wage. And I've seen many more art majors who think that the world is going to hell because not enough people care for the moronic crap art that most local art districts produce.
The same is true for some majors that actually paid a lot in the past, and otherwise may still pay a high hourly rate, but there are so fucking many people in that career that your odds of finding steady work are crap. Case in point, lawyers.
Meanwhile there are lots of jobs that pay no less than $20/hr that can't be automated and have plenty of positions that need filling: HVAC, plumbing, auto and aviation mechanics (good mechanics can easily pull a 6 figure sum, by the way) construction workers, electricians, landscapers, maintenance contractors, and many more.
I personally went to community college to become a network engineer, and I didn't borrow a cent for school either.
Oh, and by "we", I mean "baby boomers". I'm gen X and wasn't old enough to vote when all this shit really started in the 80s.
Its ok man. We will get those boomers back by putting them in shitty elderly care facilities and never going to visit them.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
How are the minnelials worse off?
They don't have these burdens compared to the previous:
They don't have to pay for long distance calls.
They can email, text, tweet, or communicate with people all over the world. They can share your opinion instantly with many people at the same time.
You have access for FREE to everything you need to master any subject, including all the coursework to get degrees for top universities like MIT and Stanford.
Just about any fact can be looked up instantly.
... which allows many more jobs to be shipped to foreign countries, and also means employers are no longer limited to locals for in-country labor.
THe Nintendo of 1985 sucked compared to the current Xbox One.
You can rent or watch nearly any movie at home you like instantly online (don't have to rent a VHS tape).
... but at least we have something to do while foreigners work our former jobs.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
think the main problem is that people are going into jobs that there isn't any actual demand for.
Partially because demand for human labor relative to overall market size is decreasing. Some call this "increasing productivity".
For example, I've actually met somebody who majored in History and then complains that he can't make a living wage. And I've seen many more art majors who think that the world is going to hell because not enough people care for the moronic crap art that most local art districts produce.
I both agree and disagree. I studied math, EE, CoE, and CS. Not because I'm pragmatic, but because I've been a science/technology nerd since I was little. My fiancee did philosophy for her undergrad, something even less pragmatic for her masters. Today, she makes as much as me (working in a field totally unrelated to any of her education), despite being 5 years my junior.
The same is true for some majors that actually paid a lot in the past, and otherwise may still pay a high hourly rate, but there are so fucking many people in that career that your odds of finding steady work are crap. Case in point, lawyers.
Excellent example. Can't really argue against this.
Meanwhile there are lots of jobs that pay no less than $20/hr that can't be automated and have plenty of positions that need filling: HVAC, plumbing, auto and aviation mechanics (good mechanics can easily pull a 6 figure sum, by the way) construction workers, electricians, landscapers, maintenance contractors, and many more.
Going from lawyers to mechanics isn't exactly a huge leap forward. That's the point, that there is no labor shortage, not in the labor market overall. There is a shortage of demand. Some fields are doing okay, like the blue collar trades that you mentioned, largely due to the fact that they're both harder to automate and relatively immune to globalization-related concerns, which helps keep demand high. Other fields, not so much, because if there was, you'd easily be able to point to evidence and say "See, they really can't find people to do $job! They're offering ludicrously high salaries and still these positions go unfilled!", much like you just pointed to those trades, which account for only a tiny share of the labor market, and as such are more the exception than the norm.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
The billionaire ranks are swelling by the day. The Apples of the world hoard hundreds of billions. They just don't know what to do with that much money. It is unspendable.
Here's the misleading thing about surveying incomes of the under-30 crowd: a lot of them are students. As millenials are being encouraged, even more than Gen-X, to get a college degree, or advanced degrees, or just go to school for something, a lot fewer of them are earning any money. Today. Presumably, those college-educated kids will, eventually, have better income potential than their floor-sweeping, landscaping counterparts, so please hold off on the panic until you're sure you're comparing today's apples with yesterdays apples.
Your solution to income inequality is to stunt success by refusing opportunities to earn more, as if that makes anything better for anyone. So someone else will come along and profit from those opportunities, likely a person less qualified if those options genuinely would have gone to you. This means less quality/productivity in general.
Further, how does stunting your own success do anything at all for the lower end of "income inequality"? Are you just gambling that a left-handed lesbian eskimo woman will end up making the money you are passing up instead of a hard-working, privilege-ridden honky? Or, if it's pay increases you are not pursuing, you are only enriching your employer in the name of social justice. Obviously you may be working for one of the few worthwhile non-profits or have some other unusual situation happening, but without that info yes, your OP comes off as SJW nonsense.
Millennials in a few years will need to be content with their virtual worlds and rich online social circles. Think how nice it will be for them to each have their own special virtual private island and mansion.
One "study" from the Resolution Foundation established in 2005 which "aim is to improve the standard of living of low- and middle-income families."
I think I can explain that.
Selfishness and greed are, in their eyes, the only "rational" attitudes. You need to put your own needs first if you want to win the evolution game.
They see concepts like 'integrity' and 'concern for others' as irrational. They believe that no rational person would put others ahead of themselves. They believe that those nasty selfless actions can only bring about the end of humanity as it unnaturally allows the weak to survive and prosper, when they should suffer and die to make way for those better fit. Though they sometimes believe that if the lesser are of any use, they could be allowed the minimum needed to survive, but should not be allowed to reproduce.
The only groups of which they're aware that dare to promote those detestable values are Millennials and SJW's. They think Millennials qualify because kids these days are nothing but a bunch of lazy and entitled leaches on society. (Not unlike how previous generations viewed Gen-X'ers and Boomers.) They've already forgotten what SJW means, but they're pretty sure it's a bad thing. All the same, the important thing is they think those groups want to promote equality as it's in their best interests as they're nothing but a bunch of lazy bottom-feeders.
Can you think of anything more disgusting to people like the parent poster than equality? Their worldview demands that there are strong and weak, fit and unfit, winners and losers. (You can talk about advantages and disadvantages outside an individuals control, but they deny those are significant factors in an individual person's success. Oh, in case you didn't know, success is defined entirely in terms of income and/or accumulated wealth.)
As only Millennials and SJW's would dare to suggest that disturbing things like 'equality' and 'integrity' are actually positive attributes, you must be among them.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Whilst it is true that WESTERN millennials are getting paid less than than parents generation, across the whole world, the opposite is the case. The raising of hundreds of millions from poverty in Asia and to a lesser extent Africa and Latin America means that the truth is far more complex. And this helps reveal the problem; given that increased competition from these areas exists, it is not a surprise if workers who are, in effect, in competition with these masses get to be paid less.
Which doesn't mean that our own people don't have a problem, but any explanation which focuses on it as an unalloyed BAD THING is defective. Yet that is the message that is being presented by Trump and echoed to a lesser extent by Hilary. The result could be nasty.
Women are more likely to get worthless degrees.
Only if you're one of those oddballs that think "college" should be synonymous with "trade school".
Required reading for internet skeptics
you missed 'Does upper management keeps more for the shareholders
Total earnings of all publicly held corporations in the US are roughly 7% of total salaries in the US, so they're keeping roughly 15% for shareholders. That hasn't changed much in the past 30 years. Harder to say for small businesses, but then it's harder to separate labor form capital there.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Because.. Earth population at the time GenX were in their 20s - 6500000000. The consumption though didn't go up that much - much of that new population is in places like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Vietnam, North Korea, Guatemala, Malawi, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Burma, Morocco, Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire, Tanzania, Iran, Yemen and to some extend China and South Korea and Japan - most of them (except Japan, South Korea and China) poor-ish to really poor places. Earth population is beyond the point of optimal utilization and employment, hell it is even beyond the point of sustainability.
Hmm.. /. are some of my post ..
Earth population at the time GenX were in their 20s less than 3000000000
Earth population at the time Millenials are/were in their 20s more than 6500000000
I'm in the leading edge of GenX and the world population hit 4e9 when I was in grade school and hit 5e9 in my early 20's.
They don't have to pay for long distance calls.
that'll make up for not being able to afford a house ever.
They can email, text, tweet, or communicate with people all over the world. They can share your opinion instantly with many people at the same time.
Great, so they can blog/tweet/swipe right about not being able to afford a house.
THe Nintendo of 1985 sucked compared to the current Xbox One.
that will give them something to do while they're stuck at home with their parents due to being unable to afford a house ever.
You can rent or watch nearly any movie at home you like instantly online (don't have to rent a VHS tape).
See previous point.
You have access for FREE to everything you need to master any subject, including all the coursework to get degrees for top universities like MIT and Stanford.
No you can't and a first degree is not enought to master a subject.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I will caveat this by saying that I hate to generalize and that not all millennials are the same, some are hard working corporate shills just like their parents and some are feckless hippies just like their parents, and others are the opposite of whatever their parents were just because. Which makes them no less diverse than their predecessors. Anyway this is just my experience working with literally dozens of new college grads and interns over the last several years.
Now then: You are all missing the point. I personally note a "general trend" in millennials in my line of work to not work as much or as hard. It isn't because they are lazy, it seems to be a conscious trade between having free time and having money. So this whole question of money being equal to success is a red herring. They do not all see success the same as their predecessors. Many seem to be happy if they can make 80% of full salary and have every weekend be a 3 day weekend (and still avoid 10 hour days).
I'm going to be nice and imagine that they saw your phrase "not motivated to earn more" and misinterpreted it as "not willing to work hard".
plus automation. That really is all there is to it. The Baby boomers had the advantage of the cold war keeping factories from moving overseas. I can't compete with Cancer Villages and people who lack food security. When I try my wages go down. Who know?
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This "The problem with Millennials is they're not constantly being berated for every failure" narrative that the right wing think tanks love so much? Educators. Real Educators who have studied how to improve people independent of whether the improvement increases some companies bottom line have found that children need lots and lots of positive reinforcement. In the absence of that they get conditioned to failure and start making unconscious decisions to sabotage themselves in order to bring their perception of themselves as failures with reality.
This encouragement (everybody gets a good star) is expensive and difficult, so you're run of the mill right wing think tank doesn't like it so much (since they're primary goal is to cut taxes, and most of this sorta thing goes on at public schools). But the outcome, while not as beneficial for the ruling class is _very_ beneficial for the working class.
Probably without realizing it (and probably completely in jest ) you're repeating a right wing talking point that's part of a larger conversation aimed at defunding public schools. Please, think before you post. The spread of this sort of uninformed nonsense is tearing down some of our most valuable institutions and puts guys like Trump in the forefront of our national politics...
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"Starve the Beast". It's part of a larger right wing conspiracy to defund public programs so that taxes can be cut. They're not even hiding it. I do wish crazy people hadn't cooped the word "conspiracy" because when a real conspiracy is going on (two or more people working together to do something bad) nobody will believe you. You don't even need to make a straw man. It's like there's one for you already...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
right here.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That is called a "safe space" now.
Learn Newspeak while there is still time.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
if I could be guaranteed a job. A Buddy of mine once moved to one of those cheap places with lots of jobs (redacted for privacy reasons). He came with a job lined up. That job went away. No harm, no foul. He just grabbed the paper to get another job. Turns out all those job offers were different listings for the same few jobs (most were gov't contract jobs that were basically social programs, and after 30 years of tax cuts were few and far between).
Places like that are fly paper. You come in, put down a few roots and blamo, you're trapped. Now you've got a house a mortgage and kids in school. You can't just up and move. You try to sell that house but find out it's basically worthless because there's lots of folks with the same idea as you.
So if by "where it's at" you mean "reliable gainful employment" then yeah, everybody wants to live there.
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it's not even the boomers buying up the housing (not that it helps). The reason housing prices are skyrocketing is we're out of cheap, already developed land. You see, house builders don't run water lines, power lines, phone lines roads and Internet lines. That's all been paid for by that Tax Payer. Then they swoop in, use cheap Mexican labor to throw up a few houses and net a massive payday.
Well we've been cutting taxes and infra structure spending for decades. Since Reagan and that damn Laffer Curve crap with his voodoo economics. We're out of cheap land. The home builders aren't going to develop that land without the taxpayer footing the bill. So nobody's building (hardly anyway).
Behind every billionaire in the world is a whole mess 'o socialism. Dog eat dog capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
But don't be fooled into think gov't subsidies are what's making college a bubble. It's how the subsides are awarded. Instead of directly funding public Universities we guarantee expensive loans issued by the 1%.
Meritocracy has always been a myth. The fact is very few poor kids can make it without a _lot_ of outside help. Poverty doesn't motivate to escape, it crushes all in it's wake. Don't let the occasional genius freak of nature of random success story fool you there...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I was just thinking that. The entitlement generation getting LESS than anyone else!
The entitlement generation got MORE than anyone else, but thankfully they're retiring about now. Hopefully they'll be freeing up the property market soon as they die off.
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But why are you getting less?
Because previous generations got too much.
First, there was the post-war boom, then women entered the workforce, then there was globalisation, the dot-com bubble, and easy credit. Millennials are getting less because we've run out of things to exploit to feed our demand for exponential growth. It was inherently unsustainable and had to stop some time. Now is that time.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
IIRC when I was younger my parents were paying something like $10 a month for phone service that's $30 in today dollars
Your parents paid per minute for anything outside of a couple neighboring towns. It was called "long distance" and carried a premium.
Today a family can easily spend north of $200 a month providing a cell phone + home internet.
Because you want unlimited everything. If you used your cell phone as little as your parents had used their old land line, you would easily get by with $7/month for your phone service. Your parents also spent most of their life without cable television. They just watched what was broadcast over the airwaves. But you think cable television is somehow essential. $200 - $7 = $193. If you are paying $193/month for home internet then you are a complete idiot.
"His name was James Damore."
I thought everyone knew by now that the MIT open courseware site has all the coursework and lecture notes and videos for many degrees and Stanford courses are available too on iTunes and wherever else. You can do the courses, but obviously you won't get the piece of paper with your name printed in a fancy font, nor will you get to ask the professor questions but you have all the lecture notes to gain equivalent knowledge. And that's assuming you don't want to use google.
Possibly the fact new people dont wa t to work for peanuts compared to the privilaged generation ?
Last place i worked they started machinists at 17 an hour. The "elders" working for 30 years making 45 to 50 an hour. With yearly wage increases of about .13% how long (for the math genious') would it take a new rmployee to get to 45 an hour ?
After watching the "elders" sitting on their asses doing nothing and lieing to the boss about what they are doing while the younger people do all the work. I can see why younger people are getting pissed off.
Less economic opportunity == worse life. All the trinkets in the world mean nothing if you can't buy anything.
In that regard, less money does mean a worse life.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It was true in the past that a college degree was the gateway to a well paying white collar job. But that was only true because not everybody was getting a college degree. There are fundamental supply and demand forces working against this generation of graduates.
Going from lawyers to mechanics isn't exactly a huge leap forward. That's the point, that there is no labor shortage, not in the labor market overall. There is a shortage of demand. Some fields are doing okay, like the blue collar trades that you mentioned, largely due to the fact that they're both harder to automate and relatively immune to globalization-related concerns, which helps keep demand high. Other fields, not so much, because if there was, you'd easily be able to point to evidence and say "See, they really can't find people to do $job! They're offering ludicrously high salaries and still these positions go unfilled!", much like you just pointed to those trades, which account for only a tiny share of the labor market, and as such are more the exception than the norm.
I think they're more in demand than most people realize. As for myself in particular, I went to become a network engineer, and I haven't had any difficulty finding work at all. Hell, I got laid off earlier this year and when I got hired at a new place only 60 days later my salary went up by about 60%. Aircraft mechanics can easily make more money than I do (about $80k/yr.) Dental hygienists easily make more money than I do. And all three of these are jobs where once you have the training, it's stupid how easy it is to find a job. You'll easily make more than $70k/year in even the lowest wage areas after you have 1-2 years of on the job experience in any of these, and none of these require a four year degree, rather all of these can be acquired from community college level training.
Only if you're one of those oddballs that think "college" should be synonymous with "trade school".
College should provide you with a broad education. It should ALSO provide you with skills needed for employment. If you are a college graduate, and your job is "Uber driver", then you messed up.
No the reason why is because of outsourcing and process engineering with automation.
In 1980 1,000 accountants and book keepers making $80,000 a year in today's dollars were needed to run a fortune 1,000 company. Today, about 8 or 9 in India making $10/hr with excel and great plains accounting and Oracle can get the job done. Accounting majors start at Walmart where they are worth more.
Indians are for those with MBAs and 10yeaes experience for those expensive $15/hr jobs.
Robots can do manual labor cheaper. Websites can automate web page design cheaper and the coders for the glue can be in India to cut costs further.
So why should companies pay more? The US government has a whole department to help you outsource and will reward you with a tax break as an incentive to screw their own citizens.
http://saveie6.com/
Underwater basket weaving's worthlessness goes beyond vocational applicability.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If they could form plurals correctly perhaps they might get paid more.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Oddly enough as a real engineer I've seen my pay increase every year since 1998, except for two years after the gfc. Now, I do have to negotiate that pay rise,and I imagine the shareholders would rather I didn't get it, but if I didn't get an increasing number of beer vouchers each year I'd go and work for someone else.
So pay rises do exist, at least for some mechanical engineers.
They sewed everything up for themselves nicely. Get the next lot to come along and work for fuck all. Smart. Well done.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I didn't suggest a solution to income inequality, as I have no illusions that the problem is one that could be solved by a single individual. Nor did I suggest any way to make "anything better for anyone". I only mentioned, in passing, that I'm not motivated to earn more than I already do, and that one of the reasons for this is that I have no interest in contributing further to income inequality.
I never suggested that stunting my own success would "do anything" for those on the lower end of the income spectrum, though I could posit at least one way in which it might. It would decrease supply of labor, thereby creating positive pressure on wages. Whether this impacts someone on the income spectrum directly, by allowing one of them to take the vacancy created by my absence, or indirectly, by allowing someone in the middle of the income spectrum to take "my" job, then someone else below them on the income spectrum taking their job, etc., etc., the result would still meet your broad "do anything" criteria.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
That would be a sad indictment of our society.
I hope you're not right.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
And are you sure those salaries are significantly higher than they've been in the past, accounting for inflation?
I suspect you may be mistaking a very normal demand for labor as "more... than most people realize" because so many other fields have been suffering from low demand and stagnant wages.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
By salary increase, I didn't mean salary increases related to increasing experience, nor nominal salary increases related to inflation.
A labor shortage would be associated with a broad and significant increase in market labor rates in a given sector. This would have nothing to do with individuals negotiating pay raises, or even with individual performance on the job at all, but would solely be a consequence of market forces. And that's not something that is corroborated by any published employment statistics.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
What do you think caused the crisis?
That's a microaggression against my degree in environmental science.
Many seem to be happy if they can make 80% of full salary and have every weekend be a 3 day weekend (and still avoid 10 hour days).
And this is how you become unemployed. Say what you will, but the reason people work as much as they do is so they don't get laid off or replaced. I too would love to work four 6 hour days a week. It's just not going to happen unless I solely do contract work, and then I'll spend as much time tracking down additional work to keep me working. Like it or not, employers require a minimum of 40 hours a week for a reasonably paying job, at least anywhere I've been.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I assume you are just trolling, as most of that list is entirely superficial. Not being able to instantly stream the entertainment medium of my choice is NOT a burden! I'll argue that these items are true burdens that the baby boomer generation doesn't have to face to the degree that subsequent generations do:
- The cost of a college education can saddle graduates with decades of debt.
- Cost of living is far outpacing wage increases and career advancement opportunities.
- Graduates are no longer certain that they'll be able to find a stable job in the career path of their choice.
- Families are finding it impossible to maintain their standard of living on a single income (meaning spouses often hold jobs instead of staying home to raise kids).
- Health care / insurance costs are skyrocketing.
- With all the baby boomers retiring, there is more pressure on Social Security to provide money that was promised to this generation... and this money comes right from the paychecks of the current workforce.
- I won't even get started on the shifting cultural attitudes of fear and xenophobia that lead to a "nanny state" mentality that tells me I cannot raise my kids in the same carefree manner that I enjoyed as a child in the 80's... no, I have to constantly worry that my kid might get expelled for holding his chicken nuggets the wrong way.
all of those jobs are in industries that have spent decades shitting on workers and subcontracting to subcontractors... There is no shame in trade job, but the money people keep saying is there, isn't.
Cheap storage VM.
yeah, these wages are relatively high, but still stagnant. They are also feast or famine industries.
Cheap storage VM.
As an X'er, my observation is that Millenials are at a disadvantage because of much of the competitive training that I got as a child, was lacking in their upbringing. Competition when I was growing up, was celebrated, grades were there to see how you compared to your peers, I wrestled, and played football. Parents took pride in producing a "strong" (read resilient) young person. They didn't try to save us from every bruise and scrape (300 stitches before 12 yrs old). And my Mom used to tell me to be back home in the Summer by the time the streetlights came on.
Now, I know I sound like an old codger waxing nostalgic, but we were expected to make it on our own, so we do. No one owes anyone crap in this life, you have to go get it. However that lesson is achieved, it seems like a generation may have missed that message.
Just my $.02. YMMV.
Microaggression is one thing but wait until we start seeing nano- and picoaggression.
From my experience and observation, Generation X-ers work Harder than Millennials. Millennials will settle for less. Maybe that focus, or dysfunction, or desire, or "self-esteem", or health, or greed, or something else.
Note to Millennials: a degree in Bio - Engineering may give you more return on investment than a Biology degree.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
Those may be too small to see.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
Income inequality is a reflection of sellable skills inequality.
Boo fucking hoo. No one asks to be born, and if your parents are dicks, we'll that's the hand you're delt. Spend 1/2 as much effort bettering yourself as you do bitching, and you'll be fine.
You get what you pay for.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I would say they are approximately snowflake size.
That others have benefited is a reality that should be talked about appropriately. In a Christian influenced country, presenting this as a moral challenge to which we should all rise is valid. The problem is finding people who've been hurt by the economy to preach it; those of us who are comfortable will struggle to be credible. Yet the reality that both parties platforms are based on what they will do for those voting for them is, ultimately, unhealthy. It should be better than that.
Income and wealth inequality are non-trivial. The danger is that you kill the goose that lays the gold eggs of growing prosperity in much of the world. And certainly some income differentials are valid. If I'm someone who does earn my employer 5 figure sums, expecting me to accept five figure pay packets is unreasonable. Similarly it is the prospect of birthing a unicorn that makes people take the risk of setting up a new enterprise. Those unicorns are of real value to the wider world; however much we may disdain Microsoft, HP, Facebook and Google, they have objectively improved the world by the things they offer which weren't there before. OTOH destroying monopolies and taxing LAND - as opposed to buildings - as something that individuals shouldn't be able to bid up the price of, is a strategy we should recommend more.
You may have missed this, but I was actually defending millennials. I'm one of those rare gen xers who, due to circumstances (child with a disability, which has a bunch of consequential problems such as being a single-income family and being unable to relocate for work) missed out on all the alleged wealth.
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If you're finding it hard to pay off credit card debt, you're the beneficiary of tax revenues more than you're a contributor to the general fund.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Actually no, as I never mentioned my own age. (In 20 years time, my children will probably complain about their own kids, how whiney, lazy and overconfident they are and not able do do hard work. And I'll tell them to get off my lawn.)
The employee who dies with the most obscenely rich CEO wins.