Fewer young adults are achieving economic and family milestones typically associated with adulthood, according to a recent working paper from the U.S. Census Bureau.
According to the working paper, “Changes in Milestones of Adulthood,” almost half of all young adults in 1975 had reached four milestones associated with adulthood: moving out of one’s parents’ home, getting a job, getting married and having a child.
Five decades on, that progression has changed dramatically. The share of young adults that have followed the traditional pathway to adulthood has dropped to less than a quarter, according to the paper.
Instead of having kids I have decided to go on good vacations every year.
AND I don’t have a bunch of grey hair. It’s great!
- Having a child
Oh fuck off, I have very consciously decided NOT to have a child. In my own lifetime, I will see the agrinomic sector completely fail due to runaway climate change. I will see actual resource wars. Why the fuck would I have a kid
Why are we calling these “milestones?” These are economic choices that were once expectations. Expectations that are no longer realistic, and can no longer be expected. These are NOT indicators of someone’s “success” at life.
No children here with how fucked up things are. Only downside is no clue who will take care of us when we get too old. Maybe Winchester or Smith and Wesson…
I don’t need anyone to take care of me when I’m older. I decided that my retirement plan will be extreme sports. Base jumping? Wing suit? Steel toeing cops in the nuts? So many thrilling choices! Whatever happens, happens.
Yeah, I’ll just chase the dragon off into the sunset when it’s my time
“Boomers brag that standards set in 1960 unreachable by anyone today because Boomers ruined everything after they got theirs.”
This article is not particularly well written, but the four milestones they mention are: 1) moving out of one’s parents’ home, 2) getting a job, 3) getting married and 4) having a child. The fifth one seems to be the completion of education.
Thank you! Headline said 5, took to the end of the post to only show 4 with no mention of the 5th one. I almost thought it was written by AI.
1 it was too expensive to move out and honestly without the added income I provided my parents would have lost their house on multiple occasions
2 I got one the fall after I graduated
3 this one took awhile
4 lol no. Never. Children are the worst. I should know, I used to be one.
In 1960 the US minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the price of a home averaged $11,000.00
Two kids could graduate high school and move into their own home the next day, and have the place paid off in less than a decade.
To put it In Perspective, in 1968. A person made about 6 grand a year houses were 12k. So twice the income. Now? Mean houses prices are around 400k. Income is around 66k.
There is no comparison. Today’s kids are financially MUCH worse off than we genxers
Anyone buying a home in 1968 is not an Xer. That’s a birth year.
Ate you just trying to be rude?
The poingvisbits the elites. Thats facts. Its not an age thing. Hell it ain’t even really a poliyics thing. Is the elite holding you down and keeping you arguing with other poor people. If is what it is
Effectively, someone would have to be earning over a million dollars a year in literal wages (which virtually no one is) in order to have the equivalent buying power that someone earning a couple bucks an hour did in the 50s/60s. And that level of buying power was considered an appropriate wage for literal child workers…
And yet old folks complain “no one wants to work anymore”. Yeah, maybe thats because were grown adults with a tiny fraction of the buying power you had when you were 12 and bread cost a nickel
Old folks don’t complain and say that.
Conservatives do
Back when I was a wee lad growing uo in the mean fields of rural new england, the conservatives in power were loud and powerful. And older. Boomers and the their parents.
But they were also richer, and like any other rich powerful elitists, they blamed the poor people for their greed and unwillingness to pay
So of course old people were demonized for saying it was the kids not wanting to work. Wasn’t. It was the elite.
There’s more to it. Including the pretty standard past fact that people usually become more conservative as they age ( though i see that shifting as I age),
Buts its not old people its the musk and trump and Zuckerberg, etc…
The older people I know who vote Democrat complain all the time about how expensive everything is these days and nobody can afford anything.
The bullshit “Nobody wants to work” narrative is absolutely pushed by conservatives.
Thank you friend. Your are seeing truth.
Its class warfare at its most insidious
While I get the sentiment, this is serious hyperbole
Its really not hyperbolic at all.
In 1958 child laborers were paid $1 per hour, the minimum wage at the time. Assuming that child worked 40 hours in a week, they would have made a little over $2k in the year. Relative to the GDP of the united states at the time (about $480B) that would equate to making over $1M per year today. Therefore, everyone currently making less than $1M per year (pretty much everybody) has less buying power than the average 10 year old child laborer in 1958.
With this in mind, its easier to see how inflation doesnt tell the whole story. That $1 minimum wage might equate to $12 today, which is higher than the federal minimum wage and the state minimum in about 25 states. But even if the minimum wage were brought on par with that base metric (which again was considered the appropriate wage for literal children), a person making $12/hr would have absolutely no buying power relative to a minimum wage earner back then. To be precise, it would be less than 2.5% of it.
It’s not just Gen Xers, speaking as a millennial, I bought a house with my wife in 2015 that was just over 2x our combined income at the time, which was not very high as we were both recently out of school, and we refinanced in '21 for a 2.7% interest rate. Out of control home prices nationwide coupled with high interest rates only hit after covid
I appreciate the insight as I’m a bit older and can’t look at it from that vantage. , but I’d ask if it wasn’t always going to go up again after the 08 bubble.
But I’m not economist. Just going off memory, so file this under “could be?”
I’m a millennial. Bought my house in a rural location for $70k at 3% interest in 2018
Due to the out of control housing market, it’s now “worth” $150k
This market makes it impossible for younger generation to have a chance.
Yes, money is important and salaries aren’t enough.
As far as having children goes, I think it’s more than an economic effect. We also just have a change in personal goals, supported by a change in social expectation.
Choosing to start families at a later stage or just plain choosing not to at all, is sometimes a personal choice independently of economic pressures.
It should be noted that the article title is actually “Fewer young people are meeting these 5 milestones typically associated with adulthood”, and even it’s first sentence acknowledge these milestones as a mix of economic and family milestones - “Fewer young adults are achieving economic and family milestones typically associated with adulthood…”
Last I looked, we weren’t running out of humans, so the drop-off in breeding is mostly a capitalist concern, or a bigoted concern that the wrong humans are breeding.
This is just a case where the metrics are utterly flawed.
At least a couple of those supposed “milestones” have nothing to do with a person’s maturity, and I even know a few people who’s immaturity helped them hit those milestones earlier than most.
Thanks Captain Obvious!
Maybe because cunts fucked the world?
At least I’m 2 for 4, thats slightly comforting
