It’s a vicious circle :
- People can’t afford to have kids
- Aging population
- Labour shortage
- Use more immigrant labour
- People start getting pissy about immigrants
- People vote for right wing candidates
- Decrement the social wellbeing counter and return to 1
You guys have retirement savings?
Which generation isn’t doing this? I don’t think it is a generational cadre thing. I think it is a class thing.
I pretty much said the same thing about my own experience then was downvoted to all hell and accused of being a boomer who caused all this. Wth is wrong with people, no wonder we can’t escape this shit no matter the generation.
Late babyboomer and early genx are doing just fine for the most part. I mean they’ve spent the last 5 decades pillaging from their children and grandchildren’s futures to keep the stock market booming.
If you put a $100 investment in the S&P 500 at the start of 1980, with dividends reinvested, it would have grown to approximately $17,427.60 by early 2025. This is the reason the vast majority of people who vote for Republicans are 55 and older, because they don’t care about anything but securing their own bag.
If you put a $100 investment in the S&P 500 at the start of 1980, with dividends reinvested, it would have grown to approximately $17,427.60 by early 2025.
WHICH CAN BUY YOU A HOUSE IN 1963.
I think the point is the 174x growth, not the final number based on the arbitrary $100. If you’d invested $10,000, you’d have $1,740,000 (simple extrapolation not accounting for dividend reinvesting, it’s too early for math)
But a ton of these people got completely obliterated is 2008 too. My point isn’t there aren’t rich people, it’s that there are poor in each generation and the wealth gap is increasing across demographics, even if not uniformly.
There are poor people in each generation but post boomer generations are doing less well off compared to their parents.
I frankly don’t see have how new technologies can help post boomer generations. It is just like the French revolution. Each generation is worse off than the one before. Eventually people will revolt.
But a ton of these people got completely obliterated is 2008 too.
And even more made more money than ever with the bounce back. The market recovered its losses within 4 years, but wages didn’t recover until 2015-2016.
there are poor in each generation and the wealth gap is increasing across demographics, even if not uniformly.
For adults the poverty level is around 10% all age demographics, however the important thing to evaluate is the difference in wealth.
The median net worth under age 35 is about $39,000, but this rises to approximately $364,500 for the 55-64 age group.
True, some people made that money back. But crucially, some didn’t. Partly due to market fears causing sales of positions and partly because they just had to retire in that window or because their annuity was invested poorly for those conditions. Some people did get wrecked and not always because they messed up.
But yeah, some people are doing well. More yet in the older age groups as you point out. I’m just saying the problem is more directly linked to class than generation. People need to increase class consciousness if the end is ever to be in view. A poor 50 year old is sinking in the same leaky boat as a poor 20 year old.
But yeah, some people are doing well. More yet in the older age groups as you point out. I’m just saying the problem is more directly linked to class than generation. People need to increase class consciousness if the end is ever to be in view. A poor 50 year old is sinking in the same leaky boat as a poor 20 year old.
I never claimed otherwise… I’m just pointing out that there are clear overlaps when it comes to class and generational divides. I never claimed there weren’t poor people above the age of 55, as I said earlier poverty levels for adults is around 10% across the board. The difference is that the vast majority of people above the age of 55 are in a different class than the rest of America.
You only got obliterated in 2008 if you took your money out of the machine.
With the S&P500 as an example, within 4 years it was back to where it was. By now, it’s worth 4 times what it was in 2007 at the peak before the trough.
It’s all about being able to save. If you can’t then capitalism won’t work for you. I feel it’s worse now, but there’s always been the poor and always will be. The world ain’t about to get fair any time soon. They just rely on the welfare state a lot more. Which is fine. I suspect some of the people struggling the most just aren’t claiming what they’re entitled to.
The people who were laid off didn’t have a choice.
they don’t care about anything but securing their own bag.
You’ve just described humans in general.
Right? I’m in my 40s and I’ve razed every 401k I’ve had to survive and move between jobs.
You got to love that media outlet. They can’t even write an accurate headline. If people are skipping meals, they aren’t getting by.
Vagrants giving up access to clean clothes, drinking water, and shelter against severe weather just to get by
Teachers sell their blood and organs just to get by
This situation in untenable. We need universal basic income. It can be financed if we tax the rich. It won’t lead to inflation higher than the extra income. It merely gives small and middle sized companies a way to compete in the economy.
Best America will do is feudalism
Now it would be more accurate to call it technofeudalism.
I don’t know if universal basic income would really do anything in the long run. I don’t think it would lead to overall run off inflation, but I dont doubt for a second that landlords would immediately increase rent.
We don’t really need more money supply, we need more protections in areas of economics that should rightfully be considered natural monopolies.
If we didn’t have to spend so much on essentials that should be subsidized or price controlled by the government like housing, food, utilities, and healthcare, then we’d have more to stimulate other areas of the economy.
Increasing the money supply without implementing mechanisms for regulation is just a complicated economic stimulus for landlords, produce markets, and utility companies.
if you tax the rich, they need to ask for higher prices of the products they sell to still make a profit. this is a partial inflation.
however, small companies run by non-billionaires, like worker cooperatives and local businesses, would be exempt from the taxes and therefore have a competitive advantage. this is my goal.
they need to ask for higher prices of the products they sell to still make a profit.
That’s bullshit, they’d make a profit anyway, but it would be less of a profit, the poor souls… and they’d still hike prices anyway.
They have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholder and therefore will act in a way that maximizes profits. It’s just what they do as a consequence of what they are. In candyland this leads to overproduction as companies race for existing markets and seek to penetrate new ones, and as a consequence they end up making a hell of a lot more than what they need, which leads to better access and lower prices for the consumer. In the real world? The classic example of something capitalism is really good at making is a pencil, and you have to hand it to them. Pencils are in fact cheap as hell and very readily available. Food, shelter, and medicine, on the other hand…
I really want to see a change to that fundamental shareholder law, that allows for things like:
A) A company is structured around a particular mission, which may have nothing to do with money in particular, just set up as a “shared goal”
B) Any profit motivations must acknowledge both short-term and long-term. If a company wants to replace their flour with sawdust, then a board member can readily explain this will likely lead to a long-term dropoff in customers and that such an action should be legally barred.A and B are both technically already possible.
Case A is possible if the organization’s mission/goal is written in the organization’s charter. The mission has to be set at the organization’s founding, however. Changing the mission later is difficult or close to impossible. Note that such an organization might not be profit-oriented, and therefore might have difficulty finding investors, which means it will have a difficult time to start and operate in the world, because investors are typically looking for companies that return a profit at some point in the future. So, the difficulty is really more about finding investors than running a non-profit company. If you can find investors though, you’re golden.
Case B is technically already the case. The board of shareholders decides on the company’s strategy, and they can decide to favor long-term profit over short-term profits. The reason they often don’t do that is because in today’s world, there’s a lot of structural changes in the world around us all the time (think of all the technology that was developed in the last 50 years alone), and so it’s very difficult for a company to keep to a long-term plan at all, so they often make short-term plans instead, which leads to the short-sightedness that you already mentioned. If the world around us was more stable and provided more consistent operating conditions for companies for long-term planning, companies could rely on that and settle down on a long-term strategy. Which has simply not been the case in the last 50 years or so.
however, small companies run by non-billionaires, like worker cooperatives and local businesses, would be exempt from the taxes and therefore have a competitive advantage. this is my goal.
What makes a large business more competitive compared to a small one isn’t taxation, it’s the economics of scale in regards to logistics and production. All of a corporation’s activities are already exempt from most taxation, the only thing we tax a corporation for is on their profit.
Being a non profit doesn’t automatically make you more competitive, operating at lower cost with higher productivity is what makes you competitive.
Porque no las dos
I mean you could, but what would be the point if housing, healthcare, and food security were a right? UBI is just a bandage some billionaires advocate for just so they don’t have to pay for a working healthcare system
Did you mean to say if they weren’t a right?
I meant if housing, healthcare, and food were guaranteed, what would be the point of UBI?
Politicians currently advocating for UBI are doing so as a replacement for things like universal healthcare, not in conjunction with it.
y’all got retirements and belonging???
I feel bad for 20 year olds now. Shit would have made me kill myself had I had to pay rent at these prices back in 2008. I barely survived on 300$ a week paychecks then. How are people even doing it today?
We’re not and trying to stave off the urge
Millennial here - gen Z has retirement savings???
lol right? Must be nice to afford to put more than your employer’s match into your 401k
What the hell is an employer match?
- Millennials, probably
As far as I understand, I don’t have a 401k. I have nothing. I have never considered retirement to be a reasonable outcome for anyone in my generation or younger, but even still, it’s not like I would have been able to save more than a scant couple thousand after decades of work.
for anyone in my generation or younger
You think no adults entering the workforce in the last ~20 years if going to be able to retire? What little bubble are you living in?
The bubble where the entire concept of retirement will be lost. Where society will crumble into wearing tribes fighting over arable land and fresh water. That one. That bubble. The bubble where this will begin in earnest in our lifetime. The bubble that says this fascist wave around the world is just the precursor and that as people get more desperate, things will only get worse.
The little bubble where you don’t get a small loan of $1 million on your 18th birthday
Definitely didn’t get one of those. Still on track to retire. Your experience isn’t as universal as you seem to think it is
Also you have to watch out for those expense ratios. I once worked at an employer where the only funds available in the 401k plan had expenses and fees around 2%. Managed mutual funds statistically perform no better than just cheap index funds. So paying those fees doesn’t actually earn you a higher rate of return. But plans with usurious fees are cheaper for employers to provide.
What was so egregious about it is that when I ran the numbers, I found that my employer’s 401k plan was actually worse than investing in cheap index funds in a regular taxable brokerage account. The 401k could be contributed to with pre-tax money, but all the tax benefits were cancelled out by being trapped in high expense 401k plans.
I contributed enough to get the match and invested any money above that elsewhere.
Have you looked into the high yield accounts from Marcus (Goldman Sachs). if you have any money Sitting around in a checking account or even Another savings account but you don’t need immediately you should consider this. The APY is 3.65%, which is a lot better than anything a regular bank will do. And you can transfer money between them with their app. of course they also offer no penalty CDs and standard CDs
Not if they’re dipping into it at 30. That’s going to kill any kind of compound interest.
I’m about to be 29, and have literally zero savings to speak of. I’ve been paycheck-to-paycheck pretty much my entire working life.
If it’s any consolation it took me until I hit 33 for me to have any savings at all.
Anything I put into the account I used for savings went out the same month so I didn’t go into an overdraft.
Funny enough the only thing that changed is I passed my qualifications and got my first “real” job… Though I may have also spent the past 8 or 9 years isolated in a way that regular people only got to see during the 'rona times
The best investment at your age is in training/education to improve your take home pay or ability to relocate. Fuck retirement savings, you have to eat for 30+ years to get there first. Invest in yourself, not in the fucking casino controlled by billionaires that is the stock market.
My wife made a career swap 5 years ago after getting a master’s degree. We used our retirement savings to pay for the schooling because the ROI was under 1 year.
Ah yes, telling the person that just admitted they’re paycheck-to-paycheck to pay for education, perfect.
Training isn’t a bad option, though, especially since some jobs will pay you for it. Some trades do paid apprenticeships - the pay isn’t great, but it’s better than paying for training.
Alternately, manufacturing jobs can be pretty good. I had a friend who got a job working in a factory right out of high school - he started at $20/hour, with a sizeable raise after the first year.
The only way off the hamster wheel of paycheck to paycheck living is to find a way to make the paycheck larger. The entire system is designed prevent you from doing so of course. You can not save money out of poverty wages.
It’s counter-intuitive but financially going $10K into credit card debt just to survive, while paying $10K for targeted education/training from disbursed 401K funds is a better use of the money. You can increase your pay by $20-30k or more per year with marketable training/education. If you pay off the credit card it will just come back if you don’t increase your wages. Bankruptcy also can’t take away the education/skills you’ve gained.
Swapping jobs frequently for a higher paycheck is required today. Every 1-2 years in your 20’s as you fight the experience/poverty wages bullshit. Every 3-5 after that just to beat inflation. When you swap jobs the 401k becomes available for withdrawal. Instead of using it to pay down debts etc., pay for education/training to make the next job pay more. Usually signing up for the minimum amount of the 401K makes almost no difference to your take home pay but a nice little bit of cash at each job change.
“the system is designed to prevent you from saving your way out of poverty” Followed immediately by “go 10,000 into credit card debt to pay for education”
While “Bankruptcy can’t take away your skills” it can 100% leave you on the street.
Not really, but that’s a myth that credit card companies want you to believe. Creditors really want to be repayed and make a profit. So they want you working, eating top ramen and paying them back. Homeless & jobless = no money for them.
Property owners want somebody with a job, a history of paying rent, and enough income to cover it. I was always able to get a place to live even when my credit rating was sub-500’s due to credit card charge-offs.
Millennial here- I’m bout to not have retirement savings.
It’ll be the best avocado toast ever though, right?
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Until this year, the job market was surprisingly good for Gen Z.
Millennials be like…
Soon there will be a critical mass of people who have nothing left to lose
the media-spread call to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” was a call for the population to “unroot” and “weed out itself”. The people give all of their life force to companies, and when late-stage capitalism ends, people will be laid off and thrown away like empty husks.
The last 20 years have lead to widespread social division [link], isolation (“atomistic society” is a term to refer to a society that consists of many individuals instead of being a cohesive fabric) and loneliness. I don’t think people will form unions and fight back.
I think it would be very un-American to help the people in need. The american spirit is one of enterpreneurship and adventure, and standing still and being lazy is unacceptable. The american movement is like the wind, if it stops moving, it stops existing. (it turns into thin air). As long as there’s progress to be made and big projects to be realized, people will have jobs and income. America can not last, it can only be first. America cannot stay, it can only go forward, it has to leave. It has to leave the world behind and venture into the stars. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Oh, and this is fucking funny, it turns out we fucking live like some kind of animals, the strong kill the weak, only now it’s fucking obvious.
It ain’t just them its everybody
Gen Z has retirements? 🤔
“Retirement”
I wonder if this really is the majority in america…its weird, I dont really see it here but im guessing a lot of people I know are getting parents help. I am seeing more homeless in my area all the time though but that does seem mental health related as well
If you knew for a fact that you’d never retire, you’d go a bit insane as well
From me and my husband’s family, 5/6 kids (late millennials and gen z) have absolutely fallen back on moving back in with Mom and Dad in order to made things work. Probably one of those could have made it work otherwise, and the one that didn’t have help lives in a tiny house. We’ve all been working the whole time, it’s just between crazy rent hikes, health issues, and hurricanes it just hasn’t been realistic to thrive (or in some of our cases thrive) without help. There’s no social safety net.
Most of my friends (we’re in our 30s) really want to start families and genuinely just can’t afford to. We couldn’t if we weren’t receiving support from family. Childcare is just prohibitively expensive (especially on top of rent and insurance).
