Re:Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich
by alkonaut on Saturday July 14, 2018 @06:33AM
(#17529739)
Norway is a bit of an outlier because of natural resources. Most importantly, the trust I put in the Swedish pension system (I.e I save next to nothing and trust I will get a good pension) is a bit less safe than a young Norwegians trust in their state being able to do good on their pension promises. This in turn means as mentioned in the article, a young person can earn $1700 and put half towards bills and rent, and the rest is for entertainment. The trust in the public safety nets is big (again you could argue we trust it too much but it is what it is). A young person isn’t saving for unemployment, illness, college, retirement. I think few low-30somethings in the Bay Area that has no student debt, and has half their income as beer money after all savings, insurance, rent, bills ...
The hard part is comparing what money is and what it means in terms of quality of life. It’s extremy difficult to do this (as recurring discussions on HN prove). What does $56k mean? Depends on what you need it for. What things cost.
Comparing a European state to a US state isn’t so far fetched either. Compare Norway to Oregon - not to the US. Population of small European states match many US ones.
> Norway’s youth unemployment rate (among 15- to 29-year-olds) is also relatively low at 9.4% compared to an OECD average of 13.9%.
But for the USA
> Youth unemployment stood at 8.4 percent in April 2018.
Also
> People in their early thirties in Norway have an average annual disposable household income of around 460,000 kroner (around $56,200).
But remember that Norway is a small petrol country. That would not be fair and square to compare it to behemoths like the USA.
Compare Norway to the Bay Area? I can't find stats but I'm pretty sure the "average" person is getting more than $56k in SF.
So what am I trying to say:
- Don't compare small countries (smaller than big cities in population terms) to big countries.
- Don't compare oil rich countries to non-oil rich countries.
- Don't pick your stats (he compared unemployment to the OECD and not to the US). Everyone know that some European countries are going through hell now (Spain, Greece, Portugal, etc...)
- Maybe we have reached peek capacity and the younger can't do better. In these terms, Norway can still grow faster if it didn't (but I don't think that is the reason).
Anyway, it is an article for article sake. Means pretty much nothing to why we are here.