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
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
y’all got retirements and belonging???
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?
Until this year, the job market was surprisingly good for Gen Z.
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I had 14 grand in a 401k. I had to spend it to survive for a year while I looked for a job. All of it.
Now I know 14k aint shit. But that is where we are.
14k would have been $132k in 45 years when you would have otherwise retired.
The power is in the interest. Even if you max out your 401k in the future it cannot make up for missing interest earnings on early deposits. Having to use it it now means nobody in this entire generation will ever retire, ever.
Just to put it into perspective, if the inflation rate for the past 45 years predicts the next 45 years. $14K today = $55K in 45 years. A $75K household income today would be $294K in 45 years.
So $14K in a 401K saved for 45 years is a pittance and should never be considered a retirement “program”. It’s all bullshit to decrease and eliminate the cost of actual pension programs.
You don’t just put $14k into a 401k, you keep contributing to it. Getting more and more money to compound upon itself.
If you put $4k into it every year (remember, this is pre-tax money and often has an employer match), and it grows 8% per year on average (S&P 500 actually does more like 10%, but we will be more conservative and say 8%), we will also be conservative and assume you won’t increase contributions, even as you earn more later in life, then you have $1,546,022 after 45 years of working.
Yes, this is something you can retire on.
Gotta include inflation in there.
$1,546,022 in 45 years with the same inflation we’ve had for the past 45 years would only be worth $529,400 in todays money.
If you only plan on living for 10 years or less after retiring, then, Maybe.
You only get the 401k when you retire in US? This is not in addition to normal Social Security?
Most of us that are younger than the Boomers or maybe Gen X don’t want to count on Social Security because we’ve been hearing our whole lives that Social Security is on the chopping block because the government is in so much debt. And at this point we kinda just expect that ladder to be pulled up behind the Boomers before we get anything, because that’s already happened in so many other areas like home ownership.
I also think people need to remember that Social Security is their own money that they paid in over their lives, and they are owed it back.
And also that even though the US government has a large amount of debt, we’ve also spent the last 50 years giving tax cuts to the rich, we’d probably be just fine if we went back to a 90% marginal tax rate on the top earners like we had in the “good old days” of the 1950s.
Most of us that are younger than the Boomers or maybe Gen X don’t want to count on Social Security because we’ve been hearing our whole lives that Social Security is on the chopping block because the government is in so much debt.
Thinking about it, the chance that Social Security money will be stolen and transferred to the 1% is quite high. Not because of the debt but simply to make the rich even richer. They will probably just say that the current system is not sustainable and move all the money into pension funds controlled by private banks which will then gamble with it pocketing the profits and socializing the loses. But 401k is the same so putting money there is not really a solution. The solution is to run away but obviously not everyone is able to.
Correct, you get both your own savings and Social Security during retirement. The person replying is being a doomer, rather than preparing for his future.
401k will accrue interest (and will rise with the market). It’s not just going to be JUST a straight inflation calculation.
And $132K in 45 years will buy you 1 Happy Meal. ;)
Without the toy, because we can’t incentivize kids to ask for fast-food meals.
I had $20K a 401K and $15K in school loans when I swapped jobs in my late 20’s. Guess what I did with it.
3 years later I was able to purchase my first house because I saved up money instead of paying the student loans.
Right now I should be maximizing my retirement savings according to all the advisors. Instead I am using the money to pay for my kids college so they can start off in life above zero instead of -$50k like my wife and I did.
I figured out a long time ago that there is no way in hell I can retire and remain in the U.S. The system is rigged against me. So my goal for the next 10 years is to learn Spanish.
14k is worth 14k, and you can live a very spartan year on it apparently.
Probably worth a lot less after early withdrawal penalties and taxes.
Yep. Was 18k originally.
Luxury, I had 9.5k and had to spend it to survive for 2 years while I looked for a job.
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
Gen X here, same fucking story.
Yeah what I said last time I saw this article.
Hey, you are responsible for MAGA. Be responsible and do what your forefathers did.
Yeah KEVIN. YOU invented MAGA! YOU (single-handedly, on a Tuesday) brought them into existence, so YOU take them out!
Checkmate! NEXT!
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.
Millennials be like…
You guys have retirement savings?
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.
So that goes back to my original comment, porque no las dos?
And that would go back to my response… What would be the point?
A basic income is supposed to cover basic necessities, if those are already covered what is the point other than driving inflation and driving down productivity?
Billionaires have all our money. Maybe we could ask for it back nicely.
Guillotine is nice.
Free haircuts for the rich! You’ll immediately feel 10-12 pounds lighter!
People would need to stop using their social media, software, webstores etc.
But that would be harrrrrrd tho.
Yes.
But: people still want to be billionaires, what if they became billionaires themselves after coming up with a new invention?
I don’t understand the question. If you are a billionaire you took too much from society, not matter how it happened.
Yeah, because everything is ridiculously expensive and no one makes any money.
The survey this is based on has a summary page, but they don’t post their survey error estimates. What I can tell, without giving them my email, is that the entire survey was 250 adults. How many of those are “gen z” I have no idea, but if you are generous and say 1/4 that is 63 people considered gen z. The 46 percent that reported dipping into savings would then be about 29.
Just so everyone prognosticating about the state of the economy in this thread is aware, you are commenting on a survey that has a very low n and did not publish any sort of margin of error.
Have you actually read the other comments? Because the majority from what I can see are talking about their OWN experiences, and agreeing with the findings. I myself have done all three things in the headline in the past year.
I also noticed that the dichotomy is “luxury spending” vs. “paying off debt”, but that debt could easily have come from prior ‘luxury spending’, lol.
The source cited in this article is a website that’s shilling products, no methodology available at all, that I can see.
Valid
