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According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve who were reviewing the data to prove that Millenials weren't "cheap" or choosing to live a lower-cost lifestyle. Instead, they found they were just broke compared to Baby Boomers and Gen Xers in the same timeframe of their lives.

Here is the paper: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2018080pap.pdf



Some analysis:

https://slate.com/business/2018/12/millennials-are-the-brokest-generation.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/stop-blaming-millennials-killing-economy/577408/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/millennials-spend-less-because-theyre-poorer-federal-reserve-says.html

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672103209/why-arent-millennials-spending-more-they-re-poorer-than-their-parents-fed-says

What the researchers do find is that millennials—who they define as Americans born between 1981 and 1997—are relatively broke. The average net worth—assets, minus debts—of a young adult household in 2016 was 20 percent less than baby boomer households in 1989 and 40 percent less than Gen X households in 2001. The deficit is driven in large part the by the fact that millennials are much less likely to own homes and much more likely to have student debt. (It’s also in keeping with another Federal Reserve study from this year showing that millennials are trailing far behind previous generations on wealth accumulation, even though they have comparable savings habits.) Income is a somewhat more complicated picture, but after controlling for age, education, demographics, and other factors, the paper finds millennials who work full-time earn less than boomers and Gen X did. It’s really not a stretch to call this generation overeducated and underpaid.

So, I guess these kids today......?????

The situation is the same in the UK. I believe that part of the reason, is that the government incentivises higher education, forcing most young people through universities, which creates debt. The vast majority either don't perform particularly well, or study fairly pointless degree which don't translate to suitably paid employment. The apprentice scheme, something which used to set people up for employment was gutted in favour of the push for higher education mentioned above, and hand skill trades and engineering jobs are looked down on despite being very well paid. The end result is a generation of over 'qualified' under experienced youth, who all have degrees worth basically nothing, and very few workplace transferable skills.

And yet there's another sting which is that many employers often won't look at CVs unless there is "some degree" on there in some form. Even for staff moving up within the company there's been many passed over in favour of an inexperienced person who has a degree.

Partly its because employers have a wealth of applications to pick from so the can afford to be really picky in their criteria. When you get hundreds of applications all the time the lack of a Degree is often a quick way to dump some in the bin fast before moving on.



Honestly most of the issues come down to the job market being oversaturated with workers and under supplied with open jobs. Of course some regions are better and worse than others.

I would say that the problem isn't that millennials are overeducated and underpaid but that education is overpriced. When people are in their 20s and finished with higher education they should be able to find a job and that job should be able to provide them with a decent standard of living and disposable income because people in their 20s typically have the fewest responsibilities/costs because they only have to take care of themselves. Unfortunately, higher education today leaves the majority of graduates saddles with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt and paying down that debt reduces their income for years. Everyone is always at the low end of their earnings spectrum at the start of their career and when you couple that with owing larger amounts of bad debt than previous generations it's no wonder they have less disposable income. Wages could be in line with previous generations but with significantly higher student loan debt net earnings are lower but that doesn't mean they're underpaid, just that their degrees are overpriced. At least when you buy a home you gain equity with every mortgage payment you make. You don't become any more educated each time you make your monthly student loan payment.

I can totally attest to this. Spent most of my 20's living paycheck to paycheck, even with a masters degree. Nobody wanted to hire or promote young people, and damn sure nobody wanted to actually *pay* anything. Of all my pals through high school and college, and looking at people in my social circle now in their late 20's to mid/late 30's, almost nobody owns a home, and those that do typically had major assistance from parents. Lots of pals from college are still living in places where there's 4 of them sharing a rented house.

Fun fact, at a previous employer, our ceo/president decided that our flagship software product didnt need a project manager, he literally just didnt want to pay a salary for the position so just made the other project managers do it. I was qualified and inerviewed along with a dozen other people, they just didnt want to pay someone. Needless to say, the product suffered, and management couldn't figure out why.

My opinion of Boomers in management roles is...not high from my experience in the workplace.

Also, don't graduate from college in 2008, that was a poor life choice

Edit: also, Millenials are this point are no longer kids, as a society we need to start mentally autocorrecting "millenials" to "adults under 40" to put these things in better context

Thing is Baby boomers bought a lot of properties and still hold onto them for the rent. On the flipside there's also been a lot of instability in the job market so many younger people don't even want to hold onto a property because the next job could be hours or even at the other end of the country. All that conspired to make a very lucrative rental market. Of course once someone has a few rental properties its not until they die and death duty taxes kick in that they are often forced to sell them.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I can totally attest to this. Spent most of my 20's living paycheck to paycheck, even with a masters degree. Nobody wanted to hire or promote young people, and damn sure nobody wanted to actually *pay* anything. Of all my pals through high school and college, and looking at people in my social circle now in their late 20's to mid/late 30's, almost nobody owns a home, and those that do typically had major assistance from parents. Lots of pals from college are still living in places where there's 4 of them sharing a rented house.

Fun fact, at a previous employer, our ceo/president decided that our flagship software product didnt need a project manager, he literally just didnt want to pay a salary for the position so just made the other project managers do it. I was qualified and inerviewed along with a dozen other people, they just didnt want to pay someone. Needless to say, the product suffered, and management couldn't figure out why.

My opinion of Boomers in management roles is...not high from my experience in the workplace.

Yyyyyyyyyup.

 Overread wrote:
Thing is Baby boomers bought a lot of properties and still hold onto them for the rent. On the flipside there's also been a lot of instability in the job market so many younger people don't even want to hold onto a property because the next job could be hours or even at the other end of the country. All that conspired to make a very lucrative rental market. Of course once someone has a few rental properties its not until they die and death duty taxes kick in that they are often forced to sell them.

Yeah. I was kinda lucky that I wasnt particularly academic and ended up joining the forces as a technician. At 25 I was earning more than most of my pals who went to uni, wihh disposable income to save due to having cheap service accommodation to live in Now I'm lucky to own a property which pays for its own mortgage in rent, and when I leave I'll be able to sell for enough profit to put down on a permanent house for my family. But I'm one of the few. Most people my age are doomed to rent forever. This is why I think the higher education meat grinder is flawed. They should be taking a more active career management role at younger ages to determine those who may not be suitable for higher academics, and suggest more vocational trade training for those people.

I'm a recent grad, and I can 100% agree with what Vaktathi has said. Even with work study programs, Uni generally doesn't properly set up you post-grad for anything other than further academia, which is saturated to the gills as it is. It really highlights that uni at this point is more concerned with just throwing out people degrees so they can keep the money train going, especially for international students, who pay exorbitant fees just for even one year. At least at my uni, they refer to students as GUI (general units of income), so it kinda shows where their priorities are.

More often that not, people that succeed in careers do so in spite of university, not because of it.

Not only is student debt an issue, but cost of living in areas: I’m 33, make $70k+/yr, and have an apt. $1350/month (cheap, where I live), plus cell bills, insurance for my wife and me, student loans ($350/month), food, electricity, gas, etc, and it’s tough to build up cash. I make good money, especially for my age. But cost of living plus loan bills equals a hard time.

Grimskul I know several uni lecturers who are annoyed that they are basically teaching academic courses and can't adapt the structure to be more career focused. They realise that they've got to branch out, but its so heavily established and I think academia is just easier to mark, grade and put into league tables that its sort of stuck.

IT does mean that many who leave uni systems can research and write essays; but they often have a poor understanding and little to no skills (barring the 1 or 2 they used for their dissertation) to actually go into the working world.

It is a system stuck in the past at many places; back when it was geared for academics and the number of people who went to uni was FAR fewer and, if not elite, it was at least more selective and limited.

Don't get me wrong its great that everyone now has the opportunity, but its also devalued it in the world and also made it something it shouldn't be. Going from an extra to almost a required standard for many places

Wait, people born in '81 who are now in their late thirties are young adults? Wtf? I mean, I was born in 79, and am basically the same generation...

It is the same thing here. Biggest cause are ridiculous housing prices, along with the fact that banks have become much more stingy with loans. This makes it extremely difficult for young people to buy property, which is what makes up most of the wealth of a standard middle-class household.
Difficult job markets and high tuition costs (and the resulting debts) aren't exactly helping either.

It is wrong to call people overeducated though. More people get high-level educations nowadays than in the past. This means that having a high-level education has become pretty much mandatory for being able to get a decent job. Without university-level education you simply have a much lower chance to land a job since you will be competing with people who do have a university-level education. Society nowadays just demands more education than in the past.

Also, on a completely different note, what the hell is "1981-1997" for generational bracket? It makes no sense. It should be either 1981-1991 or 1981-1999.
Although I guess the ten-year period is a better option since people who grew up during the 80's and early 90's have little in common with people who grew up during the later 90's and 2000's. Someone born in 1981 is already 37 while someone born in 1997 is only 21. That is a pretty big generational gap.

Anyways, I am afraid that my generation (I was born in 1999) is going to have it even worse.

 Overread wrote:
Grimskul I know several uni lecturers who are annoyed that they are basically teaching academic courses and can't adapt the structure to be more career focused. They realise that they've got to branch out, but its so heavily established and I think academia is just easier to mark, grade and put into league tables that its sort of stuck.

IT does mean that many who leave uni systems can research and write essays; but they often have a poor understanding and little to no skills (barring the 1 or 2 they used for their dissertation) to actually go into the working world.

It is a system stuck in the past at many places; back when it was geared for academics and the number of people who went to uni was FAR fewer and, if not elite, it was at least more selective and limited.

Don't get me wrong its great that everyone now has the opportunity, but its also devalued it in the world and also made it something it shouldn't be. Going from an extra to almost a required standard for many places

For sure, and it sucks since I did have a great time at uni, but as you said, due to it being so widely available now, it's the standard expectation to have a bachelor's degree and you need a lot more specialism or hands-on experience to even warrant getting noticed in the field you're interested in. Currently, I'm deciding whether or not I should go to college just to get training for Early Childhood Education or Adult Education since I want to go into student advising, which to me feels a little extra given that I've already finished a bachelor's degree.

Well......duh.

Seriously. In the U.K., we face artificially suppressed wages, artificially inflated rent and house prices.

And all because the Baby Boomers never really learned to share.

Along this line, I present a visual aid:




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, lets look at millennial depression"

Media talking heads: "Millennials are suffering high degrees of depression and despair, I wonder why?"

Millennials: We have almost no real hope of ever getting a good job we can work at 40 hours a week and make a decent living, we have almost no chance at having a house of our own, corporations are forcing us to work longer and longer under more and more odious conditions, we start out with a massive college debt it will take us decades to pay off, the ecosystem in collapsing, we're going to de stuck with a huge national debt, we'll probably never be able to retire and now things are so bad nazis are coming back.,

Media talking heads: It must be because they feel entitled, and because of facebook.

One of the worst bits about job seeking is how many companies don't reply or only ever reply with a very basic rejection and no constructive feedback. Because most of the time you either just were outdone by someone more experienced or there wasn't anything wrong there were just so many names in the hat and you didn't get the lucky draw. It's demoralizing because at least if you do something wrong you can work and improve on it for next time at the next job. Whilst if you appear to be doing it all right and still failing it builds a significant amount of frustration

 Grimskul wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Grimskul I know several uni lecturers who are annoyed that they are basically teaching academic courses and can't adapt the structure to be more career focused. They realise that they've got to branch out, but its so heavily established and I think academia is just easier to mark, grade and put into league tables that its sort of stuck.

IT does mean that many who leave uni systems can research and write essays; but they often have a poor understanding and little to no skills (barring the 1 or 2 they used for their dissertation) to actually go into the working world.

It is a system stuck in the past at many places; back when it was geared for academics and the number of people who went to uni was FAR fewer and, if not elite, it was at least more selective and limited.

Don't get me wrong its great that everyone now has the opportunity, but its also devalued it in the world and also made it something it shouldn't be. Going from an extra to almost a required standard for many places

For sure, and it sucks since I did have a great time at uni, but as you said, due to it being so widely available now, it's the standard expectation to have a bachelor's degree and you need a lot more specialism or hands-on experience to even warrant getting noticed in the field you're interested in. Currently, I'm deciding whether or not I should go to college just to get training for Early Childhood Education or Adult Education since I want to go into student advising, which to me feels a little extra given that I've already finished a bachelor's degree.

The scary thing is government is having a really hard time finding teachers! Which when your education system is churning them out by the bucketload and the job market is bad and teachers get good pay shows how much they've seriously messed up the system for them. Mostly by adding so much red tape and paperwork that the workload, during termtime is getting rather extreme for many staff. Plus many public schools keep getting random budget cuts mid-year. It's one thing to have a short budget, its quite another to - part way through the year - lose staff because of a budget cut and it puts departments really on edge.

Oh yeah, I found this too.

Being on the hunt for a job myself now I forgot how tough it was to even get to the interview stage these days. You now need far more education that necessary plus 5 years work experience of doing that exact job. I was lucky in that Canada has a good education system and I have already gotten rid of my student loan which I only needed to buy myself a car. I can't imagine how you Americans do it with those $100,000 educations...

That being said, a lot of people I know are broke simply due to appalling spending habits, they spend next to nothing on rent due to living with 5 other people (we have a bit of a housing crisis atm), work full time and proceed to burn all their money on designer sunglasses and junk.

No no, it is because we are lazy or because we hate capitalism! OR IT IS BECAUSE WE HATE MURICA!

Definitely not because we are broke. Capitalism would never do that to us! ALL HAIL CAPITALISM!

 Dreadwinter wrote:
No no, it is because we are lazy or because we hate capitalism! OR IT IS BECAUSE WE HATE MURICA!

Definitely not because we are broke. Capitalism would never do that to us! ALL HAIL CAPITALISM!

All hail Dreadwinter!!!

Yeah it’s prety crap, stuff just costs too much relative to how much you make these days.

I can’t afford a house or even a crappy apartment in the city I work, and that’s working as an engineer with post graduate qualifications and a few years experience. My baby boomer tech staff talk about the multiple houses they own, which they would have paid off in a few years back in those days doing semi-skilled labour, and for me to buy just one of the same thing now I’d be paying it off for the rest of my life on an engineers salary.

And then they talk about us buying too much coffee, maybe back in their day saving a few bucks a day to put towards a house actually made a difference, these days you can buy or not buy as much overpriced coffee as you want it because it’s a drop in the ocean compared to buying a house.

My favorite bit is when the older people decide that all I really need is to improve my interview skills and just keep applying.

Because obviously I'm the kind of moron who would never think of doing that on my own.

And naturally, even suggesting that I am already doing that just leads to the same lecture and accusations of entitlement.

My favorite part is how millennials are blamed for the participation trophy thing as though they somehow game them to themselves.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
My favorite part is how millennials are blamed for the participation trophy thing as though they somehow game them to themselves.

As a seven year old I was very self aware that I would need things to put on my resume in 20 years.

And the thing is... They didn't even mean anything to us. We'd all get these participation trophies or medals or whatnot but we looked around, saw that everyone got them, and knew they weren't worth anything. Maybe my social group was a unique case but I doubt it; even elementary school students are sharp enough to understand that if everyone gets it there's no achievement involved. So the previous generation fabricates the entire thing, and it's our fault.

Jokes on them; the debt crisis is looming and the biggest expense on the chopping block is social security & the like. We'll see who's entitled when baby boomers aren't getting their welfare.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
My favorite part is how millennials are blamed for the participation trophy thing as though they somehow game them to themselves.

Listen here you little gak, if the baby boomers want us to be the hero, villain, and victim of our own story, they can do it! All with the power of their IMAGINATION.



Holy hell that is depressing to say out loud.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
And the thing is... They didn't even mean anything to us. We'd all get these participation trophies or medals or whatnot but we looked around, saw that everyone got them, and knew they weren't worth anything. Maybe my social group was a unique case but I doubt it; even elementary school students are sharp enough to understand that if everyone gets it there's no achievement involved. So the previous generation fabricates the entire thing, and it's our fault.

Jokes on them; the debt crisis is looming and the biggest expense on the chopping block is social security & the like. We'll see who's entitled when baby boomers aren't getting their welfare.

I remember sports days back in primary school, I can't have been younger than 7 or so at my earliest memories, but everyone got participation stickers saying gak like "I tried my best" with pictures of proud bipedal frogs on them and things if they came lower than 3rd, and damn me if it didn't feel so wholly condescending to kids who didn't even know yet there was a word to describe that feeling.

The only difference between any of the participants was that a small handful of kids had stickers with numbers on instead.

Overread wrote:Grimskul I know several uni lecturers who are annoyed that they are basically teaching academic courses and can't adapt the structure to be more career focused. They realise that they've got to branch out, but its so heavily established and I think academia is just easier to mark, grade and put into league tables that its sort of stuck.

IT does mean that many who leave uni systems can research and write essays; but they often have a poor understanding and little to no skills (barring the 1 or 2 they used for their dissertation) to actually go into the working world.

It is a system stuck in the past at many places; back when it was geared for academics and the number of people who went to uni was FAR fewer and, if not elite, it was at least more selective and limited.

Don't get me wrong its great that everyone now has the opportunity, but its also devalued it in the world and also made it something it shouldn't be. Going from an extra to almost a required standard for many places

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here. Do you think university courses should be geared more towards vocational employment? If so I disagree completely.

As someone teaching in a university, I think we should be far, far more expliciltly academic in everything other than clear vocational courses that require university level education like medicine or law. We need to completely upturn the popular assumption that university is there to get you jobs. It absolutely is not. Employability is a side-effect. If we could get that across then we'd get far better students, far fewer businesses would expect applicants to have tertiary education, and far fewer people who's priority is their employability would waste their time with university and crack on with trying to build a career.

The idea that university is meant to get you into work is killing universities.

The sad part is that, esp with regard to school sports day; much of this has nothing to do with the kids at all. It's all to do with pushy competitive parents and trying to manage them when their kid just isn't a top performer. I'd wager that has more weight behind it than the argument that all kids must feel special.

That or we've raised a generation or three of teachers who can't instill inspiration in students without awards.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nfe wrote:

Overread wrote:Grimskul I know several uni lecturers who are annoyed that they are basically teaching academic courses and can't adapt the structure to be more career focused. They realise that they've got to branch out, but its so heavily established and I think academia is just easier to mark, grade and put into league tables that its sort of stuck.

IT does mean that many who leave uni systems can research and write essays; but they often have a poor understanding and little to no skills (barring the 1 or 2 they used for their dissertation) to actually go into the working world.

It is a system stuck in the past at many places; back when it was geared for academics and the number of people who went to uni was FAR fewer and, if not elite, it was at least more selective and limited.

Don't get me wrong its great that everyone now has the opportunity, but its also devalued it in the world and also made it something it shouldn't be. Going from an extra to almost a required standard for many places

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here. Do you think university courses should be geared more towards vocational employment? If so I disagree completely.

As someone teaching in a university, I think we should be far, far more expliciltly academic in everything other than clear vocational courses that require university level education like medicine or law. We need to completely upturn the popular assumption that university is there to get you jobs. It absolutely is not. Employability is a side-effect. If we could get that across then we'd get far better students, far fewer businesses would expect applicants to have tertiary education, and far fewer people who's priority is their employability would waste their time with university and crack on with trying to build a career.

The idea that university is meant to get you into work is killing universities.

I can totally see and agree with your viewpoint!
However right now universities accept pretty much anyone and its encouraged and almost even required to have a degree today. So to get back to where universities were decades ago you've got a lot of change to cover. You've got to ween employers off the need for degrees on everyone; you've got to bring back and empower apprenticing and guild and training courses to add far more weight to them on the CV and then you've got to change student and university attitudes too.

Thing is I can't see universities doing this on their own because whilst the system is failing students the extra students and money is surely doing the university a lot of good. If anything stripping out students now would likely leave many universities stripping out staff and facilities not long after; though major ones likely would source new investment potential better than some of the smaller fringe ones.
The other option is that universities would add their own apprenticing system; lets them keep students; lets them slap a "university of XYZ apprentice" on the student paperwork so it would carry "university degree" equal weight to the employer. But it would require significant university investment and likely a lot more facilities and a totally different attitude toward teaching and training. You certainly cannot teach practical skills to classes of 90+students unless you can find at least 5 to 9 staff to oversee those practical classes (I mean yes you can get 1 or 2 staff to teach practicals to 90 students, but for many cases of practical learning the student won't learn that much - its just not ideal numbers




Like I said I can very much see your line of thinking; its turning the clocks back to what they were and its not in any way a bad idea. Lots of essay writing and studious learning is a specific skill set that works in academia and isn't often all that relevant in many other fields beyond basic writing and research skill.
I just can't see the desire to change being there at the university level nor even really the government level (though government is lsowly getting there at the slow rate that vote hunting parties have)