High inflation and decades of disparity in productivity gains vs compensation combined with massive cost of living increases has led much of the younger generations to completely give up on building wealth. They don't think they'll ever own a house or retire, so why would they attempt to save?
interesting hypothesis, but my subjective rebuttal is that nearly all of my friends would readily admit that they'd be perfectly content with building a life similar to that of their parents. most kids just don't think it's possible.
i asked in the parent comment if this is a normal thing? my parents were immigrants, so they don't have the experience of growing up here. it's always been an uphill battle. perhaps i've inherited that mentality but i wonder if americans of previous generations were also 23 and cynical, never thinking it possible to afford building a comfortable life?
That may be a component, but I think another thing that contributes is that unlike Gen X which still somewhat bought into the "American dream", many Millennials and Gen Z watched their parents struggle and ultimately burn out growing up and decided they don't want their lives to be like that. Why constantly stress and sacrifice enjoying today for the sake of an almost entirely fictional tomorrow?
I think the FOMO and enhanced hyper consumerism it enables contributes, but the actual macroeconomic factors around wage growth, etc. are the real problem.
The productivity of labor. Which is simply revenue per hour of labor. When people talk about the increase in worker productivity, that measurement is simply GDP divided by number of hours worked in the economy.
That number has gone up recently, and many people who don’t know what productivity is actually measuring like to comment on the fact that the increase is productivity hasn’t been met with an increase in wages. But that increase has been driven by technology, and the people who are responsible for that increase in productivity capture the value. The people who sell the technology, not the people who sell the labor.
Skilled labor isn’t new, and it’s not what’s driven the increase in productivity. I can implement useful computer programs today far faster than Dennis Ritchie could in the 70s, even though he’s far more skilled than I am. That difference in productivity is entirely due to advancements in technology.
I'd love to save and build wealth, and I'm doing just that, it's just the amount I have left over to save is very small. I won't be able to buy a house until I'm in my 40's or 50's, but it's better than never being able to afford a house, I guess. At least my kids can inherit it and start from a more prosperous place.
> At least my kids can inherit it and start from a more prosperous place.
How does that work, timing-wise?
Like my partner and I are in our mid-30s and both have parents who own houses, and with good luck with their health there won't be anything to inherit for several more decades.
The end of life care industry will take every single cent you have, and state paid end of life care doesn't kick in until you are destitute. Middle class people passing stuff down to their kids isn't a thing anymore.
Obviously that's more beneficial to people with a lot of assets than to someone with less, but for instance, a parent might choose to gift the house they live in to their children well prior to end of life care being a consideration (of course that will be very situational; do they want to stay in that house, do they have a good relationship, etc., etc.).
Medicaid won't consider the primary residence when examining assets to pay for care, but it may try to capture some of the estate after death.
In most states you have to transfer any asset or cash many years before you need state paid end of life care, otherwise they will charge you a "penalty" for basically the value of whatever you transferred, or deny you outright. So you basically have to accurately predict when you will need a few months of state paid end of life care (more like a room to die in for $6000 a month) years in advance.
Serious suggestion: Make sure you buy it somewhere climate-resilient. There are a lot of places in the US that have some really awful projections for even 100 years from now, let alone later than that.
> I won't be able to buy a house until I'm in my 40's or 50's, but it's better than never being able to afford a house, I guess. At least my kids can inherit it and start from a more prosperous place.
Buy a house outright or just afford the down-payment? Those are 2 very different things.
Lack of stable work is also an issue. I have the income to be building wealth, but every time I have to find a new job, it takes 5~6 months. I lose a lot of money in that time. Insurance costs two to three times my mortgage. On top of that, I'm not contributing to any retirement accounts while I'm out of work.
I'm single with no children living in a cheap house in Ohio. I also don't have any debt beyond my mortgage. My 401k is maxed out. Roughly 25% of my net income goes into my savings, which I only touch for things like a new roof. And I still can't manage to secure my future retirement.
You would save so things don't get worse. At least so that if you get laid off or your boss gets replaced with someone terrible, you can live off your savings until you find a new job.
young adult here (23m) with a normal salary (not FAANG, definitely underpaid but still above the american average). sometimes, i'll find that i'm willing to save costs at the expense of sacrificing my health. among other doubts, i've reconciled with the idea that i'll likely never own property of my own. there's too much debt to take care of and over time, things continue to get more expensive.
i grew up in a modest home. when my parents bought it, it was worth ~100k. not much has changed, we added some stone to the porch and an outdoor kitchen. it's worth nearly a million now. anecdotal? possibly, but certainly not a rare case. on average, how am i supposed to afford a home if the trajectory for a normal suburban life is that prices more than 2x every 20 years? [0]
even so, i find that year after year, i'm losing trust in the future of this country. 23 and entirely jaded. i cannot find it in myself to invest any energy in building a future here. mostly, i'm cynical and scared. i find that most of my friends are the same. was it always like this? is losing faith in your country a rite of passage into adulthood? does it get better over time? will i ever make enough to feel safe? etc.
> They don't think they'll ever own a house or retire, so why would they attempt to save?
That’s exactly what the winners of our class war want you to think. War of attrition. They want everyone to give up and stop trying. Spend all your money, stay dependent on their crumbs, perfection.
I understand the point though. Living paycheck to paycheck making 250K is either a gross mismanagement of finances, or a dishonest view of them.
The guy making 250K a year isn’t worried about not being able to put food on the table. But maybe he has a monthly car payment that is more than the person making 28k a year pays per month in rent.
Having resources you can draw on (an asset you can take a margin loan against is a resource you can draw on) is exactly what "paycheck to paycheck" doesn't mean.
250k in NYC or SF Bay Area is really 150k after taxes. After insurance and other usual expenses, 10k/month. Rents in these cities can be expensive and if you have dependents then 10k suddenly is not a lot of money. Its not paycheck to paycheck always, but can totally be.
Enough space for a family means something like $5k-7k/month rent. Even with 10k/mo the income rapidly vanishes. Housing and income reform is deeply needed nationwide.
If that's true of 36% of them then the definition of "paycheck to paycheck" is so broad as to be meaningless.
Woe is me, after paying for my eight children's horse riding lessons, getting an opera house named after me, and paying for the handmade rigging that my yacht's crew say urgently needs to be replaced, I'm barely making ends meet! Why won't Biden do something about the outrageous increases in the cost of helicopter fuel?
And are very likely living in high CoL areas where a large chunk of that is swallowed by housing, transportation, etc. It's functionally similar to a much lower salary in a lower CoL area.
That said even if someone in a low CoL area is pulling 250k, it's not "horseriding lessons eight kids and a yacht" money, not unless the individual/couple in question is drowning in debt.
Don't get me wrong, $250k isn't a "struggling" salary anywhere but it's also not past the threshold where one can stop being responsible with money and blow it on wealthy people things on the regular, especially if that's joint income from a couple with kids.
You can make 250K a year and spend half of your take-home pay on rent, in fact that's pretty normal in HCOL areas. With the leftovers you have life, including Uber, groceries, dinner, etc. People love cities, but dense cities are massively expensive for doing day to day normal things.
Sure, you could live one hour away from work to save money, you can stop drinking, you can only cook at home, you could ride a bike, you could buy used clothing, etc etc. But life is short if that stuff annoys you.
Does it really take a 1 hour commute to avoid $6,000 rent?
There's of course lots of room to argue about what the likely take home pay on $250k is, but many of the arguments involve choices that sort of undermine the claim that someone is living paycheck to paycheck.
If you have take home pay of $120k per year, half of that going to rent would be $5k. Spending that much on rent would only be normal in SF if you were renting a 5 bedroom. Normally people renting a 5 bedroom would be housing a family of four - or more.
I posit that it is not normal for a young adult in SF to have a family of four.
You can make 250k a year, eat out every day, buy a starbucks coffee every morning, regularly have new clothes, etc. This is all expensive.
Consider the cost different with cooking your own meals and eating out for every meal. Lifestyle choices make a big difference in living paycheck to paycheck for many (not all).
No one has to live paycheck to paycheck on 250k. Many do, but only because they choose to. I guarantee they are living amongst people making 20% as much who are doing fine.
Even in a state with high state income taxes, you're taking home north of $12k a month with a $250k/year salary. There's maybe one city in the country where a young adult (someone with no dependents) is paying half of that, $6k/month, in rent.
No single person making that much money is living paycheck-to-paycheck unless they're doing something really wrong in terms of personal finances.
In the places where a young adult makes $250k a year? In NYC $3600 a month gets you a small room. If you want to have the luxury of a dedicated, doored off bedroom, you will be paying significantly more than that. Sure hope your girlfriend/wife/boyfriend is also a FAANG superstar so you can afford to live together.
They're available in the bronx and staten. Most new yorkers have roommates though. It is not difficult to find a 2 bed (2 people get the luxury of a dedicated, doored off bedroom) for $2400 in any of the boroughs, although many neighborhoods are certainly out.
would love to know more about you and your background. I always drill into these threads because I find peoples' perspectives on basic living necessities fascinating
do you live in a major city, or have any experience living in one?
it took me about five seconds to find a $2300 2bedroom apartment for rent in brooklyn. it's more optimal to rent this and roomate with a friend for split rent, but if you absolutely have to live alone you can probably get down to $1800 for a studio.
I cannot understand how someone can make that much money and be so irresponsible with it. Even in NYC with high income taxes, on a $250k salary you'd have to be spending well over $5000 on rent for it to constitute 50% of your take-home pay. And spend at least that much on top of that on other unnecessary luxuries every month to be "living paycheck to paycheck". That's beyond disconnected, and implying it's normal in HCOL areas... Maybe normal in circles of trust fund kids. Reading HN comments makes me feel like I'm poor when I'm making 6 figures, or 2-3x the median household income.
In NYC the median rent is like 4200. MetroCard, gas, electric, internet take you to 4600, that's before you've eaten anything. Cocktails cost 15 bucks, beers 9, appetizers 20 dollars and entrees 30-40. Coffee costs 6-7 plus tip, taxis anywhere cost a fortune now and Ubers as well. 250k with fed, state, city tax, 401k and health deductions leave you with 5500-5600 every two weeks.(edited)
But god forbid you do anything in life but eat and pay rent. Most people buy clothes, furniture and go on vacation.
I'm sorry you feel poor. There's recent Bloomberg article titled, why 300k feels like 100k, outlining the insane cost of living of cities like NY and SF.
No need for 'trust fund kid' attacks, which by the way are based on incorrect information. Do you live in NYC?
I lived there until last year, paid $1600 for rent in an unattractive area, coffee around the block cost maybe $2.50 but I mostly brewed my own, and I ate out for maybe $30-40 per meal on average, when I ate out. I did plenty with less than half of that money and saved about half of my take-home during that period.
I didn't mean to label you specifically as a "trust fund kid", but I truly cannot believe that anyone who doesn't come from money (and thus hasn't developed a sense of financial responsibility as a child) would be capable of wasting that much money, even in NYC. In what world is it normal to spend hundreds of dollars a week eating out every single day?
Not everyone is willing to ride the subway for 45 minutes to an hr to get back and forth to work
.. The median rent was for Manhattan, fair enough, but near-Manhattan Brooklyn neighborhoods like Downtown BK and Greenpoint are the same price.
Also your lifestyle depends on your age and relationship status. A 25 yr-old who eats out once a week and lives in Bushwick or the Bronx is a different category than a middle aged person who's in a relationship and works long hours.
Well you are completely right, but now we moved from 'people have little income to survive or have a normal life' to typical spoiled 1st world kids problems 'I want latest Tesla just like that tiktoker and I am too poor for that'. Its damn hard to have much sympathies there, and 0 reasons to even try.
Basically there is no end in how much you can expect others will ease your life if you keep paying them to do stuff for you. And sorry but paying half of your net income just to rent some space is pretty big financial mistake, in Switzerland they wouldn't even consider you to rent such a place (normal limit is cca 1/3rd but if you wan to save a lot its better to keep it in 15-20% category and no it doesn't come with 1+ hour of commute).
Back in the real world, so something around 99% of mankind, real financial problems look very different.
I'm not sure what we're supposed to be taking away from your post.
There's been an insane lifestyle inflation amongst Millenials and Gen Zs. If people model their day-to-day after some social media influencers and that causes them to be financially irresponsible, then why is this news?
Financial literacy isn't hard if you are actually inclined to learn it. All the information and budgeting apps is out there, free, just a few keystrokes away.
250K is higher than average (and median) income in every single area of this country, including places like LA/SV and Manhattan. It's ok to not feel sorry for these people. They'll do just fine, regardless of what they answer in some survey.
Clearly the solution would be to stop dumping money where it doesn't need to be, like the war machines of various countries that serve no real purpose to us.
The USA benefits greatly from its international position. That position isn't borne from natural order, but from wielding the USA's strengths - including military strength. Arming allies is part of that, and it is especially smart when they fight those who threaten the USA or the USA's allies. Isolationism is a quick way to lose power so, even if all you see is budgetary accounting, the purpose of hard power should be clear to you.
LOL. This is an 8 month old account, but no I'm actually a KGB ultraspy warlord with golden AKs or whatever. All I want is for my country to stop pouring billions of dollars into fueling our imperialistic desires and doing the opposite of it's original job which was safeguarding our freedom and rights.
Yeah stopping a power hungry warmonger in Europe is such an imperialistic thing to do! It’s Russian propaganda, whether you’re Russian or not is irrelevant.
Yes, although not in ways that are as obvious as looking at a price number. Peaceful democracies make much better economic partners than belligerent autocracies. If you're one of the millions of people living near Russia, a Ukrainian defeat would mean a much higher chance that your city gets flattened by rockets in the future.
The more that wars of aggression and nuclear threats get rewarded, the more of them the world will see, increasing the odds of larger scale violence.
Will germany conquering poland make your life any worse? Nah. Oh look, now it's france... nah it's fine you're not in france. oop, there goes england. Oop shit now I need help and all my friends are gone.
Turns out, maintaining a network of strong allies has long term positive benefits.
Solutions to US problems look so very different from outside the US. There are a lot of obvious things that can be done, with great effect. Reducing military budget is some of it, but it is far from "the solution".
The solution is more of actually figuring out what we're spending money on and who we're giving it to. When you start to realize a good portion of EBT users can afford food and use it for junk food and a sizable portion of welfare recipients do anything but live with it and that your tax dollars fuel these people, you feel an irrefutable feeling of doom.
The things you identify as problems, are completely opposite of what I see. I'm going to make a wild guess that you watch a fair bit of media owned by Murdoch. Feel free to correct me on that.
Unfortunately, until one of those parties self destructs, there is no viable alternative. Then there will be a new duopoly. The constitutionally prescribed structure of the US government and the way in which elections are determined inevitably yields this outcome due to the game theory at play. The only way out is a more proportional representation system. This would result in a dilution of the power of the only people able to enact the change, so their incentives are aligned against improving the system.
There is an alternative. Vote in the primaries for whatever party is dominant in your district/state. And encourage your friends to do so. Primaries tend to be thinly-attended, and the people who currently vote in them tend to be the most active (read: extreme) voices for their side. They're the reason why general elections seem to boil down to two bad choices; it's because the crazies get to pick who's on the ballot. If you're not voting in primaries, then you're ceding all that power to extremists.
The parties have a lot of internal diversity within them, but partisan primaries select for the craziest views because that's who the current primary electorate is. Voting in primaries is already something in everyone's power, and doesn't require office-holders to vote in structural changes that aren't in their best interests. It's the most immediately practical way to effect change. I'm glad that you vote in primaries too; too many people don't, and seem to prefer to wallow in cynicism and inaction.
Basically people are able to choose 2 flavors of the same thing. Pretty much like in China Communism is the established system and people can't vote it away (nor they seem to want to), the same happens in the US with Capitalism, with the difference that dissent in the US is much much higher.
Physically easy to implement is not the same as easy to convince republican voters to allow it to happen. Republican pushback to ranked choice voting is extreme. They cry crocodile tears of "it's too complicated" while literal children in elementary school use it just fine for class and mock elections, or they scream nonsense about "one person one vote" as if reassigning your vote to your second choice was somehow a second vote?
More of all age groups are living paycheck to paycheck. This isn't a generational thing, it's a disappearing-middle-class thing. And not just in the US.
I'm 44 and have only achieved savings within the past year and a half. I live a very modest life and have always TRIED to live below my means, but living off of my government salary was challenging. I received a ~18k raise 2 years ago and I'm finally able to live "comfortably".
I certainly had no surplus at all until I was well into my 30s. And then the dot com crash caused me to take lower paid work and I burned through the savings I had. Wasn't until I was in my 40s before I could say I had some spare cash, then I had a kid!
I save around 100 a year liquid (very, very far from paycheck to paycheck). I have felt very wealthy relative to my desired lifestyle. And yeah, I can buy pretty much anything I want. But now, thinking about having kids at some point and thinking about college, I do not feel this way. Idk what to do about that. I'm not convinced I'm saving enough. But ffs, it feels grossly excessive for my current state.
100K a year for a child (And possibly an additional dependent, not sure if you’ve already got the other half or want it) is a hell of a lot more than most people have for an entire family.
If you’re really able to just hold on to that money and squirrel it away without spending it frivolously then it’s hard to imagine it not being enough.
Has anyone asked young people how they would reform the system? Or created a tree of who the money funnels to for analysis?
In my experience, workers know exactly what to do to improve their situations, but are denied that agency over their lives. And that's what poverty is - having no agency over your life. The smallest step above slavery.
My experience has been one of endless struggle over a lifetime, starting in the late 90s when the Clinton administration lifted the separation between savings and investment banking with the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, turning the US into a giant game of Monopoly again like it was in the 1920s. The Dot Bomb, Housing Bubble popping, Great Recession, even our descent into global authoritarianism, is all theater. The real kicker is that it was by design, to rein in Gen X and the hippies before them to prop up moneyed elites in the capitalist class. Hurt people hurt people, down people stay down. Exploited people vote against their own self-interest.
There's no money for workers because you invest and expect a return for doing nothing other than having money. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. The really sadistic part is that there's infinite money available for construction, or giving tax breaks to companies moving to a new city, pork barrel projects, etc. But no small business loans for 2 person startups. No Uber-like system for industry roles so that people can work at-will. No affordable health insurance, no retirement provided for jobs under about $50k, no affordable college, few worker-owned co-ops, etc etc etc.
The answer is the same as it has always been: tax the rich. All other answers are platitudes.
People appear to be working to live and not living to work! This is an outrage!! They need to be working harder and longer and improving our sacred GDP
107 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadwhy produce surplus value if you capture none of it?
https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/lifestyle/article/3194858/l...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/the-last-gener...
i asked in the parent comment if this is a normal thing? my parents were immigrants, so they don't have the experience of growing up here. it's always been an uphill battle. perhaps i've inherited that mentality but i wonder if americans of previous generations were also 23 and cynical, never thinking it possible to afford building a comfortable life?
That number has gone up recently, and many people who don’t know what productivity is actually measuring like to comment on the fact that the increase is productivity hasn’t been met with an increase in wages. But that increase has been driven by technology, and the people who are responsible for that increase in productivity capture the value. The people who sell the technology, not the people who sell the labor.
How does that work, timing-wise?
Like my partner and I are in our mid-30s and both have parents who own houses, and with good luck with their health there won't be anything to inherit for several more decades.
https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/estate-tax-and-lifetime-g...
Obviously that's more beneficial to people with a lot of assets than to someone with less, but for instance, a parent might choose to gift the house they live in to their children well prior to end of life care being a consideration (of course that will be very situational; do they want to stay in that house, do they have a good relationship, etc., etc.).
Medicaid won't consider the primary residence when examining assets to pay for care, but it may try to capture some of the estate after death.
Buy a house outright or just afford the down-payment? Those are 2 very different things.
https://qz.com/millennials-are-just-as-wealthy-as-their-pare...
So of course there are young people that are not doing well financially, just like there are people of other ages that are not doing well financially.
I'm single with no children living in a cheap house in Ohio. I also don't have any debt beyond my mortgage. My 401k is maxed out. Roughly 25% of my net income goes into my savings, which I only touch for things like a new roof. And I still can't manage to secure my future retirement.
i grew up in a modest home. when my parents bought it, it was worth ~100k. not much has changed, we added some stone to the porch and an outdoor kitchen. it's worth nearly a million now. anecdotal? possibly, but certainly not a rare case. on average, how am i supposed to afford a home if the trajectory for a normal suburban life is that prices more than 2x every 20 years? [0]
even so, i find that year after year, i'm losing trust in the future of this country. 23 and entirely jaded. i cannot find it in myself to invest any energy in building a future here. mostly, i'm cynical and scared. i find that most of my friends are the same. was it always like this? is losing faith in your country a rite of passage into adulthood? does it get better over time? will i ever make enough to feel safe? etc.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS
It's the era, it's not you.
Is it just ego?
1950 Median home value (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $79,063
1960 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $104,166
1970 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $112,941
1980 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $147,879
1990 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $157,169
2000 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $179,331
2010 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $263,604
2020 Median home price (inflation-adjusted to 2020 dollars): $336,900
[0] https://better.com/content/how-much-home-prices-have-risen-s...
That’s exactly what the winners of our class war want you to think. War of attrition. They want everyone to give up and stop trying. Spend all your money, stay dependent on their crumbs, perfection.
It is cool for young people to doom over money and spend all day looking at much richer people on on social media. Main character syndrome.
Yes, I agree with your sentiment that its "different" than being "poor" but that's the media for ya.
The guy making 250K a year isn’t worried about not being able to put food on the table. But maybe he has a monthly car payment that is more than the person making 28k a year pays per month in rent.
But that’s only because I’m automatically investing 70% of my paycheck so I never have more than a few weeks of expenses in cash.
I can imagine getting very biased results depending on how to survey is worded.
In my case, an unexpected expense just means I take a short term margin loan against my portfolio (at an insane interest rate) until my next paycheck.
The point of my comment was that wording of survey questions can result in biased results.
I don't think you're grokking the common definition of "paycheck-to-paycheck", or are willfully ignoring it to make a point (and doing so poorly).
The point I’m trying to make is bias in surveys
Woe is me, after paying for my eight children's horse riding lessons, getting an opera house named after me, and paying for the handmade rigging that my yacht's crew say urgently needs to be replaced, I'm barely making ends meet! Why won't Biden do something about the outrageous increases in the cost of helicopter fuel?
Am I living paycheck to paycheck?
That said even if someone in a low CoL area is pulling 250k, it's not "horseriding lessons eight kids and a yacht" money, not unless the individual/couple in question is drowning in debt.
Don't get me wrong, $250k isn't a "struggling" salary anywhere but it's also not past the threshold where one can stop being responsible with money and blow it on wealthy people things on the regular, especially if that's joint income from a couple with kids.
Sure, you could live one hour away from work to save money, you can stop drinking, you can only cook at home, you could ride a bike, you could buy used clothing, etc etc. But life is short if that stuff annoys you.
There's of course lots of room to argue about what the likely take home pay on $250k is, but many of the arguments involve choices that sort of undermine the claim that someone is living paycheck to paycheck.
I posit that it is not normal for a young adult in SF to have a family of four.
Consider the cost different with cooking your own meals and eating out for every meal. Lifestyle choices make a big difference in living paycheck to paycheck for many (not all).
No single person making that much money is living paycheck-to-paycheck unless they're doing something really wrong in terms of personal finances.
do you live in a major city, or have any experience living in one?
it took me about five seconds to find a $2300 2bedroom apartment for rent in brooklyn. it's more optimal to rent this and roomate with a friend for split rent, but if you absolutely have to live alone you can probably get down to $1800 for a studio.
https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/
But god forbid you do anything in life but eat and pay rent. Most people buy clothes, furniture and go on vacation.
I'm sorry you feel poor. There's recent Bloomberg article titled, why 300k feels like 100k, outlining the insane cost of living of cities like NY and SF.
No need for 'trust fund kid' attacks, which by the way are based on incorrect information. Do you live in NYC?
I lived there until last year, paid $1600 for rent in an unattractive area, coffee around the block cost maybe $2.50 but I mostly brewed my own, and I ate out for maybe $30-40 per meal on average, when I ate out. I did plenty with less than half of that money and saved about half of my take-home during that period.
I didn't mean to label you specifically as a "trust fund kid", but I truly cannot believe that anyone who doesn't come from money (and thus hasn't developed a sense of financial responsibility as a child) would be capable of wasting that much money, even in NYC. In what world is it normal to spend hundreds of dollars a week eating out every single day?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/homes/manhattan-rentals-march...
Also your lifestyle depends on your age and relationship status. A 25 yr-old who eats out once a week and lives in Bushwick or the Bronx is a different category than a middle aged person who's in a relationship and works long hours.
Basically there is no end in how much you can expect others will ease your life if you keep paying them to do stuff for you. And sorry but paying half of your net income just to rent some space is pretty big financial mistake, in Switzerland they wouldn't even consider you to rent such a place (normal limit is cca 1/3rd but if you wan to save a lot its better to keep it in 15-20% category and no it doesn't come with 1+ hour of commute).
Back in the real world, so something around 99% of mankind, real financial problems look very different.
There's been an insane lifestyle inflation amongst Millenials and Gen Zs. If people model their day-to-day after some social media influencers and that causes them to be financially irresponsible, then why is this news?
Financial literacy isn't hard if you are actually inclined to learn it. All the information and budgeting apps is out there, free, just a few keystrokes away.
250K is higher than average (and median) income in every single area of this country, including places like LA/SV and Manhattan. It's ok to not feel sorry for these people. They'll do just fine, regardless of what they answer in some survey.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-average-salary-by-age-in...
No, it's not $70-80k. Median in that age range is $52k (numbers are from 2022 Q3).
The more that wars of aggression and nuclear threats get rewarded, the more of them the world will see, increasing the odds of larger scale violence.
Turns out, maintaining a network of strong allies has long term positive benefits.
There is an alternative. Vote in the primaries for whatever party is dominant in your district/state. And encourage your friends to do so. Primaries tend to be thinly-attended, and the people who currently vote in them tend to be the most active (read: extreme) voices for their side. They're the reason why general elections seem to boil down to two bad choices; it's because the crazies get to pick who's on the ballot. If you're not voting in primaries, then you're ceding all that power to extremists.
FWIW, I already do this.
This is the UK, but I think it's fairly normal.
If you’re really able to just hold on to that money and squirrel it away without spending it frivolously then it’s hard to imagine it not being enough.
In my experience, workers know exactly what to do to improve their situations, but are denied that agency over their lives. And that's what poverty is - having no agency over your life. The smallest step above slavery.
My experience has been one of endless struggle over a lifetime, starting in the late 90s when the Clinton administration lifted the separation between savings and investment banking with the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, turning the US into a giant game of Monopoly again like it was in the 1920s. The Dot Bomb, Housing Bubble popping, Great Recession, even our descent into global authoritarianism, is all theater. The real kicker is that it was by design, to rein in Gen X and the hippies before them to prop up moneyed elites in the capitalist class. Hurt people hurt people, down people stay down. Exploited people vote against their own self-interest.
There's no money for workers because you invest and expect a return for doing nothing other than having money. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. The really sadistic part is that there's infinite money available for construction, or giving tax breaks to companies moving to a new city, pork barrel projects, etc. But no small business loans for 2 person startups. No Uber-like system for industry roles so that people can work at-will. No affordable health insurance, no retirement provided for jobs under about $50k, no affordable college, few worker-owned co-ops, etc etc etc.
The answer is the same as it has always been: tax the rich. All other answers are platitudes.