I sort of went down the rabbit hole in The Guardian's Generation Y coverage, and ended up in an article with Millennials confessing their greatest fears:<p><i>“I worry that I’m never going to live up to my own expectations. I live in terror that I will wake up on my 50th birthday in a perfectly ordinary house, with a perfectly ordinary family and unremarkable job – living an unremarkable, ordinary, average life.</i><p>If these are your biggest fears in life, take a step back to realize what you've got. Entitlement and bizarre expectations about what "life" is are to blame here. Not every one is above average.
I'm on the edge of this group (1980/1982-wife); living in the UK house prices were rising twice as fast as my wage. If I was just 2-3 years older I could have bought a house for 80k instead of the 250k I had to pay years later (two double-median incomes).<p>This has given my drive I didn't have before: I actively manage my career (next step being starting for myself) and have feeling for investments/planning that I wouldn't have otherwise had.
This appears to be correct based on everyone of my age sharing the same problems, but the article doesn't give any reasons on why it happens. Would be good to get some more information on causes as this is a rather very interesting topic. Any HN readers have good sources?
I'm 35 and for the most part like many software engineers relatively well off so I'm probably myopic of the full situation but here is what I have noticed differently among peers 5 to 10 years younger than me (that are often developers as well)..... they don't seem to mind not having wealth.<p>When I was college as an intern I opened a Roth IRA and put my earnings into it (I was fortunate to go a relatively cost effective school). I was absolutely afraid I was going to retire with no money.<p>When I got out of college my first goal was to buy a two family or something I could rent and live in. Which I eventually did waiting for the market to tank. I negotiated for raises or position title changes as often as I could. I absolutely was completely focused on provincially building wealth... people of similar age to me were equally concerned.<p>I can't say the same for folks 5-10 years younger (I'm not saying there aren't wealth focused millennials.. I just haven't met many yet). For example one individual I know went to Europe out of college used some parents money for as long as possible and then eventually came back home (the thought of asking my parents for money makes me uncomfortable).<p>I somewhat admire the guts it takes to not worry about the future like that and live life (and this is coming from someone who left a job and started a company).
So Australia didn't get on the free trade agreement train. Could it be that decreased prices from outsourcing labor helps those who are already established and the poor in foreign countries, but at the expense of unskilled and new workers at home?
Wasn't sure at first why the title bugged me. I think it is the word 'betrayal'. Parents want their kids to do well. And what that means is likely evolving over time. But is it a right to do better than your parents? Is it an entitlement? I don't think so. Each generation has issues it needs to solve, and by definition those issues are left to them by prior generations. One generation had to survive the Great Depression. The next, World War II. Then, political upheaval of Vietnam. Then 'stagflation', Internet bubble bursting, mortgage crisis... Each person has their own set of opportunities that are influenced by both personal and national economic circumstances. But it is the personal circumstances that make the difference. More than ever, parents need to teach their kids to be resourceful and adaptable. Competition for jobs is more global than it has ever been. I once jokingly advised my kids to become dentists because that was one job that could not be off-shored. Then this whole robotics thing came along ...<p>What I find interesting are the opportunities for young people in 2016 that prior generations have not seen. First and foremost is the elective jobs that are available: Find something to sell on eBay, borrow your parent's car and drive for Lyft or Uber, build up a stake, rent an apartment and become a hotelier with AirBnb, or buy a car and rent it out through GetAround.com... These are jobs that you can do if you want to do them and can serve both as a place to start now and as a fall back if you find yourself unemployed in the future.<p>I am not saying it is easy. It wasn't easy for any generation.
Number of mentions of the increases the share of income and wealth taken by the 0.1% / 1%: precisely zero.<p>Incitements to blame grandma for your economic woes in this article: many and varied.<p>Or, as Jay Gould put it: "I can hire one half of the working classes to kill the other".
And yet in Bulgaria you can live very well with $1000 per month. With $2000 you build enough savings in 30 years to leave well another 30 years without working.<p>The thing is, the biggest issue is not lack of jobs, it's mobility. If people could really easily move between countries, they could live much better lives. Of course, to do that we need to have many more remote jobs (hopefully this is coming), kill stupid cultural/political barriers (difficult), stop thinking people should remain in a 20km radius from were they were born.<p>Consider that a lot of this welt they talk about is in real estate. The moment you stop paying 50% of your income in rent, you become automatically richer than your parents.
Being born in 1980 I think this is the first time I've seen myself included in the group millennials. I have always though of that group as those born after 1990.<p>My age group, at least in Norway, seems to be fully employed and own houses etc.
As @ModeledBehavior pointed out on Twitter, it's potentially misleading to compare median household income across generations when young people are increasingly delaying marriage.
A combination of debt, joblessness, globalisation, demographics and rising house prices* is depressing the incomes and prospects of millions of young people across the developed world, resulting in unprecedented inequality between generations.<p>* The question is if all the other factors are true, how can the prices continue to rise?
As a parent of young kids, the future really worries me. Unless there's a new industrial revolution in the next decade, my kids' generation is going to be the first in a very long time that will have a worse life than their parents.