Gen Z are dipping into their retirements, skipping meals and selling their belongings just to get by, new reports find
Gen Z are dipping into their retirements, skipping meals and selling their belongings just to get by, new reports find
Paywall removed: https://archive.is/KNzH9
I wonder if this really is the majority in america..its weird, I dont really see it here but im guessing a lot of people I know are getting parents help. I am seeing more homeless in my area all the time though but that does seem mental health related as well
If you knew for a fact that you'd never retire, you'd go a bit insane as well
“Retirement”
Gen Z where? I'm guessing the USA?
I don't see a clear reference to where those surveys where conducted.
Retirement?!?! Hahahaha!
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.
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.
Porque no las dos
Best America will do is feudalism
Now it would be more accurate to call it technofeudalism.
no shit, same old story
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
Stupidly expensive cost of living in some countries and even certain regions.
Soon there will be a critical mass of people who have nothing left to lose
the media-spread call to "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" was a call for the population to "unroot" and "weed out itself". The people give all of their life force to companies, and when late-stage capitalism ends, people will be laid off and thrown away like empty husks.
The last 20 years have lead to widespread social division [link], isolation ("atomistic society" is a term to refer to a society that consists of many individuals instead of being a cohesive fabric) and loneliness. I don't think people will form unions and fight back.
I think it would be very un-American to help the people in need. The american spirit is one of enterpreneurship and adventure, and standing still and being lazy is unacceptable. The american movement is like the wind, if it stops moving, it stops existing. (it turns into thin air). As long as there's progress to be made and big projects to be realized, people will have jobs and income. America can not last, it can only be first. America cannot stay, it can only go forward, it has to leave. It has to leave the world behind and venture into the stars. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Oh, and this is fucking funny, it turns out we fucking live like some kind of animals, the strong kill the weak, only now it's fucking obvious.
They voted for this. I'm glad to finally see they are getting what they wanted.
I mean America didn't really vote for this. Between ramp and gerrymandering, election fraud, and a generally anti-democratic voting system, America isn't a democracy.
I mean America didn’t really vote for this.
No no no. America is a perfect democracy in which everyone has a fully informed and equitable say in governance.
If the legislature is crippling the economy while the President crushes dissent with a massive paramilitary force, it is only because the people being impoverished and oppressed choose this for themselves.
They'll have an opportunity to do things differently in two years, when we have another perfectly fair and equitable and fully representative elections cycle, at which point they will once again be responsible for everything that happens afterwards.
America isn’t a democracy.
Only a Russian Wumao or a North Korean Iranian bot would say such a thing. You're trying to trick us into not voting! Well, I'm not falling for it. I'm going to vote. And then I'm going to blame everyone else, since our democracy is perfect and everything bad is the fault of my neighbors for not voting the way I did.
While its not a fully functioning it is a democracy and they did vote for it
Really? I voted for this 10 years ago when I was selling belongings to keep from going homeless? I voted for that at (lemme check) 17?
This isn't a new problem, this has been a problem since before Gen X was born.
The US is, and has been for decades, Absolutely Fucked™
Gen Z has retirements? 🤔
Millennials be like…
As a Zennial (the microgeneration between Millennials and Gen Z), I already skip meals and ditch my belongings in a frequent basis. It's far from "getting by", though: it's just so I hopefully get to finally retire from my daily, boring job as a "biological vessel operator/manager" sooner 😄
The NYT article that the one above alludes to also suggests Gen Z has generally very high savings rates, which of course makes it more likely for people to have to dip into these savings if there's no financial buffer.
Please leave lemmy.
I can do that. For money!
Honestly chuckled at the ref.
🤝
This is fascist rhetoric. But given that I’m seeing again from another .world user, and not dbzer0.com I’ll assume your attitude is “Welp, I’ve stolen more money from more dumb people, and I’m not going to lose my possessions to the folks I stolen labor from, so, long live Chairman Trump!🤳”
Btw, who propagandized the “fences”?
Imagine changing your core beliefs because you think someone on the Internet said something mean.
Give me a fucking break.
Billionaires have all our money. Maybe we could ask for it back nicely.
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.
Guillotine is nice.
Free haircuts for the rich! You'll immediately feel 10-12 pounds lighter!
I had to cash out my 401(k) while looking for a job. Thought I was on the start to a good track, but the house of cards collapses easily.
Sending applications that make you enter the information multiple times, have some ATS system with poorly implemented OCR autofilling among other issues. The chance to even have a chance at a job via interview is ridiculous.
To add insult to injury, at my previous job most people were referred by relatives or hired a VERY long time ago. It seems the world just hates anyone under 40? Including those damned millennials, right??
It’s fun to be expected to break your back for a system when nothing rewards you.
Millennial but I've been doing this for the last 4-5 years at this point
Wait, do you actually have retirement savings?
I'm on the leading edge of millennial and my retirement plan is to die.
My job has a 401k I was putting into when I started 12 years ago and they allow to borrow against it so I've had to do that to survive for a while now. Whenever I inevitably get fired or leave my job I'm gonna take the opportunity to just cash out and take the huge tax hit because I find it highly unlikely that I'll make it to actual retirement age at this point.
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.
Luxury, I had 9.5k and had to spend it to survive for 2 years while I looked for a job.
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.
And $132K in 45 years will buy you 1 Happy Meal. ;)
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.
Another thing to consider is that 45 years of inflation and probable economic issues will likely lower that return, possibly lower than today's purchasing value.
Plus people need the money in the first place, meaning those who need the money the most have the least. So either way it's a bad deal for funding retirement beyond some extra spending money for people who had money to begin with.
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.
Millennial here - gen Z has retirement savings???
20k in credit debt and zero savings. Life doesn't always work out even when one plans things the right way. I don't don't know whether to file bankruptcy or just check out some days because everything in my life just feels hopeless.
lol right? Must be nice to afford to put more than your employer’s match into your 401k
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.
What the hell is an employer match?
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.
Yeah, because everything is ridiculously expensive and no one makes any money.
BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL :\
And it's only going to be more beautiful once people are dropping dead due to medicaid and RFK Jr.
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.
Valid
Gen X here, same fucking story.
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!
It's amazing how badly small amount of people can treat large amount of people and get away with it.
I learned this lesson when I was in middle school. Our school cafeteria sold students expired food. Not, "Oh it's a few days late, these dates are estimates so it's probably fine." I mean food several months past dates, with obvious changes to consistency and taste. Two examples I vividly remember were moist cheetos and ice cream that looked like foam.
I thought it was disgusting and unsafe. I personally stopped trusting all such school cafeteria food from that point (and never touched it again.) My friends, however, didn't seem to care? Somehow?
Every time a friend took a bite and asked, "Does this taste weird?" I'd examine the food. If it was a packaged food, I'd check the date. Every time, the expiration date would be from last semester. I know this, because at one point I started keeping records in a notebook about it.
But before I started doing that, I encouraged the affected friends to tell the lunch ladies and ask them to exchange the expired package for a fresher one. They refused to. They were terrified of "causing trouble." I was like, "It's just a simple exchange. I'll go do it for you." But they begged me to just stay there and say nothing, like the rest of them. They were so scared to potentially upset someone.
Must be quiet. Must behave. Must not dare consider speaking up for our own well-being, even if it means we must literally eat garbage.
I'll give 'em this, the long-game authoritarians from the 90s and early 00s did a bang up job conditioning the kids to accept fascist rule in 2025. Want to know why so many Americans aren't fighting back? Because we've been raised to accept this abuse. Many are active enforcers at worst, or spinelessly compliant bystanders at best. Anyone outside that spectrum is a trouble-maker that the first group would gladly make suffer (while the second group "minds their own business.")
Im Xer and my wife is to. We are doing that now to some degree. We were actually sorta trying to dejunk but now we are scared we might need something and not have the money to buy it so not getting rid of stuff as much.
I'm currently downsizing homes, and while staying with family, doing the one thing I swore I would never do, paying for storage.
When we find our next place we won't be able to afford to refurnish if we sold all the furniture. I feel you.
It's like Gen Z is going through a divorce. Exactly where I was after mine.
I got to keep my retirement. But if I want a house I'm going to have to dip into it. If the goddamn bubble would pop it wouldn't be a problem, but here we are.
Is that not typical for every generation during and after their schooling years?
My parents experienced that, I experienced that, my kids experienced that.
Uhm no? In most freaking countries you would have more money to spend during your school years or just after it. Either because school is cheap/free or it's cheaper because you can continue living at home, etc etc
Is that not typical for every generation during and after their schooling years?
Only in a sense so vague that it loses all meaning. You can look up studies comparing the actual wealth of different generations at different ages. Millennials were worse off than Gen-X and Boomers were at the same age, and Gen Z are worse off than Millennials at the same age. The average wealth of the average 30 year old has, in-inflation adjusted dollars, declined markedly over the last several decades.
This should be common sense. Consider just housing. The median home price has gone up much faster than the median income. People who already own homes have benefited substantially from this. But the only way homeowners can earn above-inflation rates of return is if housing is becoming more unaffordable.
You know what? here in the late 1930's early 1940's boys were often sent away from home to live and work on a farm at the age of 12! And they often slept with the animals even through winter. These were not bad conditions for the time, it was normal!
But since then the wealth and living standards have increased tremendously.
There is no way it should be necessary for anyone in USA to skip meals today. But USA is such an unfair society, that some people have a million times more than others. There is no way that is socially justifiable. Nobody should be either that privileged or unprivileged.
No, it’s not.
Living conditions are getting worse, things are not as good as you had when you were younger.
Just because it was common, doesn't mean it can't get better.
"This was my experience so it must be everyone else's!"
I'm not trying to shift blame here, but I'd be curious to see stats on how much needless spending these generations do compared to those prior.
We definitely do pay more now for shit but at the same time, I wonder if latter generations can't go without some of their creature comforts.
Our economy would collapse without this "needless spending".
The younger generation is already going wothout homes and healthcare. How much more do you think they should give up?
What are you, a paid shill? Shut the fuck up.
You guys have retirement savings?