"Among Gen Xers who have exceeded their parents’ income, those with college degrees are less likely to surpass their parents’ wealth, mostly due to student loan debt."
Me? Student loan debt set me back years, crippling housing costs, and a crappy 401(k) that is probably worth around what I put into it due to multiple deep recessions during my prime working years. I can't even begin to imagine how bad it is for you under-30s!
This is not sustainable. All the value captured through productivity increases is being captured by shareholders and asset owners now rather than the working class.
By 34 they owned a huge house in the country, several large holiday homes abroad, three cars, private education for the kids, first class flights (for them - I always flew alone to school, economy), motorbikes, you name it.
At the same age, I've done very well for myself compared to my cohort - I own a basement flat and a one bedroom cottage with no roof up a mountain, and have savings - this was from being a director and founder of a 50-ish person business with £MM turnover. I am incredibly concerned for the rest of this generation - if I feel insecure - how does someone renting on a zero-hour contract feel?!?
Part of the myriad resasons I quit my business to wander the world is that I'm done paying for the lavish lifestyles our ancestors enjoyed. Bluntly, it isn't fair, and I'm fed up, and I'm not taking it any more.
That's the issue with this thread: it's only first world perspective, about the time when the difference in income between countries around the globe was completely radical. With globalisation, it jist evens out.
It's not that hard, you put 23k/yr total in the roth IRA & Roth 401k in VFIAX. I do not work in the tech industry anymore and am still doing this, just stop eating out, live cheap.
Compound this over 40-45 years and you and I are multimillionares.
As for the rest, asking someone to live cheap until they're 65, as a way to compensate for systemic malfunction, ehh...nope, let's get political and fix the system.
Then the never-ending wars came. And, many of these people now have serious injuries and most have PTSD. They came back changed.
Now, I would never let a relative join the armed forces. Maybe it was a heroic thing to do at one point; I don't know. But, nowadays they're exploited and used carelessly for missions of dubious purpose.
While I can only speak from my own experience, many of my friends and colleagues (EE) have left the country already. There are lots of good arguments on both sides and plenty of stories to each end. That said, it comes to this, the people in my generation with real skill are leaving. Not all of them, but enough that it's becoming noticeable. Maybe it's always been this way, maybe not, needless to say my sample size is low so draw conclusions at your own risk. That's just my two cents on it (in reference to what it is like for under-30's).
They still have student debt, but with practically no interest adjusted for inflation, and they didn't have to pay for university. They won't be spending their future worrying about their loans.
Grow up in a country with ~30% income tax and ~25% VAT, get universal healthcare and free education, then emigrate and take a job and pay (less) taxes in another country where working actually makes you money.
That's how living in a poor country feels. You still have good enough institutions and human capital to turn things around, but if you wait for too long, those will be gone.
My dad didn't have my education or skills, but he got a job working for the federal government and was shielded from the up and down of the economy. His education was paid for, his home loan was 12k. But he had things too easy and now he has dementia lol.
I think you're right to be concerned. Not being able to strike out on your own delays family formation, which leads to some attrition of people who never have children for financial reasons. This decreases the birthrate and then on top of the working generation supporting members within its own cohort, they also have to support an older generation of retirees with an ever rising dependency ratio. It's a negative feedback loop that countries like Japan, Germany, and Italy are stuck in.
Both the education and housing problems can be solved. Education can be automated and amateurized using technology, and more housing can be built. Both of these would do a lot to decrease youth debt loads. Medical price inflation is the tougher problem but is less pressing for young people. Eventually we will be old though and then it will hit like a ton of bricks for those unlucky enough to have not accumulated wealth.