Millennials and Gen Zers are pulling in bigger paychecks, but much of their spending power is fueling short-term purchases like groceries and vacations, not savings.
Exactly. You get used to the feeling of intense anxiety if you have it all the time. You don't like it, but you get used to it.
Same goes for being poor. It's shit, but if you can't get away from it you adjust your life whether you want to or not.
No we definitely aren't. These and the pieces about 'YOLO spenders' are some of the wildest examples of gaslighting I've seen from media outlets in a while.
we're not OK. Inequality now is worse than during the great depression. I was hoping Bernie Sanders would usher in the Great Green New Deal, but now we've been left with middling liberals who blush at war mongers while creating a spectacle around removing a minuscule amount of student loan debt.
I may be somewhere in the middle. I see students around me traveling the world like it's nothing, eating and drinking out all the time... Maybe they're doing something right. I'm saving up half of my salary every month but for what? It's never enough to own my own home and I'll never retire anyway. Maybe having a little luxury right now instead of saving for an unknown isn't that bad.
I got some advice and I'm still living it so I can't say if it's worth it but:
"Spend money on the things you enjoy and cut everything else to the bare minimum"
So if you like having a nice house more than going to a sporting event you shouldn't be budgeting for the sporting event. Just don't go. If you love great food but hate driving, buy kitchen accessories not dinners. That sort of thing.
Getting used to? Without a decent option for health insurance, a sizeable chunk of us have been living for our entire adult lives with the reality that one wrong move could bankrupt us. Even if we have savings and aren't actually living paycheck to paycheck.
The rest of us who can afford to be on the affordable care act or have insurance through work are shelling out a quarter of our paychecks so that we can have the privilege of two checkups and hospitals can graciously (legally, if you have insurance) not charge more than $18,000 per year, which is a limit that can be reached in a single visit.
That's just one of the things that keep young adults down here.