Why Aren't Millennials Spending? They're Poorer Than Previous Generations
npr.org
npr.org
They forgot:
- Housing cost: previous generations were often able to pay off a house in 15 years. For millennial a 15 year mortgage is either a pipe dream or will require you to have a worse house in a worse location and still be more expensive than your parents may have paid for a nice house in a nice location. And the down payments were lower percentage of income.
- Lack of retirement options: a lot of people I know (myself included) don't have an option at work for a 401k and forget a pension, unless you have a government job it doesn't exist and if it does you probably won't last long enough without getting laid off to use it.
- Child care costs: my wife and I both work and we spend $19k (as in thousands) a year to send our 2 year old to daycare so we can both work. And we're not sending our kid to a fancy place either.
My wife graduated college in 2008 with $150k in student loan and it took over a year (with an biomedical engineering degree) to find a job. During which time I was the sole source of income and at one point we had no income because I got laid off. And we're two very well educated people with a middle class upbringing and every advantage. I can't even imagine what people with less advantage and non-engineer salaries.
The best house of the 70s would be laughably bad today. Poor climate control, sub-standard insulation, smaller rooms, etc. Going back even further (to 'the greatest generation' for example) housing is even more primitive.
Housing, like cars, phones, and almost everything else, gets better as we go along. The best cars of the 80s are terrible compared to the lowest price of today's cars. Phones? Not even worth talking about.
Young adults of today do have some disadvantages, that's true. But the goods they can acquire are better than ever before (but not as good as tomorrow's).
People today are paying more and going into debt for things that aren't functionally any better than what went before, and might even be worse. The reasons why are worth considering. Alternatives are worth considering. "Products are better" doesn't really get us anywhere.