Everyone in these photographs are in the top 1% to 2%. Hardly representative of most Millenials.
64
Might be time to stand up on you own at 30, pay your own bills and certainly don’t start a family when mommy and daddy still need to support you.........wow
91
Expecting parents to determine the future, or else? Ummm.......
17
How awful! Unable to cover the rent in Manhattan AND the $30,000 tuition for preschool? What to do? Oh my!
How about: Move to Des Moines.
107
The educational consultancy New York Admissions works with children starting at 10 months? Did I read that right or was this a typo? I guess it really is a jungle out there red in tooth and claw.
26
If you can't afford your lifestyle without assistance, you can't afford your lifestyle.
166
Yeah but we gave multimillionaires and billionaires tax cuts. So they are helping us. They are providing good jobs at good wages, and contributing to infrastructure and foregoing sweet tax abatement deals so they can bring their companies to our states and contribute to jobs and economic growth, and not buying back their stock to shore up the price, and wait... sorry, dreaming... I just woke up.
I suppose we must vote out the scoundrels who instituted these policies, now that gerrymandering and voter suppression have ended, but wait... sorry, dozed off again.
I think I’m fully awake now.
63
I have to say this entire article and discussion make me a bit sick to my stomach. Because it all reminds me of how Americans value around money.
The Calvinists thought that those with money were blessed by God. Blessed by God. You can't get better than that!
Americans have absorbed the message. COMPLETELY.
For all those "I pulled myself up by me boot straps, so why can't they" you are not blessed by God, nor smarter, nor harder working.
Nor are those of you who get down payments and free child care, and 100,000.00 contributions to their trust funds. You're not blessed by God, nor smarter, nor harder working...either.
Life can be easy or it can be hard.
I find the greed, pettiness and moral outrage exhibited here, from everyone, troubling and really sad.
67
Boo boo. I am about to turn 65; I sent myself to college and grad school, bought my 1st real estate at 43, financially helped my parents in their elder years. Maybe going to your state’s colleges, not have the latest I-gadget and working at jobs like bagging in the supermarket while in school would put some on more prosperous path. I am tired of the whining. I bring lunch from home, my younger colleagues go to Freshgreen and Starbucks. Case closed.
67
I see a wedding ring. Did her husband have any say? Doesn't his income or decision factor in to this? I find his non existence here strange. I also find her expression to be rather smug, as if she is thinking, "ha ha I can and you can't."
34
I live in Washington DC and everyone I knew that was a previous Hill staffer or intern got help from their parents. The issue is that even she getting high passing jobs they still needed help. Buying a home in this city isn't cheap, raising a family isn't cheap, man even having a pet in this city isn't cheap. that being said, I will have to file this article in the white privilege category.
46
Living in expensive cities, like NYC and SF and Boston, is a gigantic financial mistake. Rents are outrageous; other costs, like childcare, are too high.
Not so in places outside the “big name” cities. 3 bedroom homes for $170,000. And good jobs are available for anyone with reasonable skills. And no commute. And good public schools.
These places are all over the US. Like Manchester or Nashua or Concord NH. An hour from hiking in the White Mountains, an hour from the Atlantic, and an hour from Boston.
Millennials who cannot make clear choices to live smarter, cleaner, cheaper must take responsibility for their own bad location decisions.
80
NYTimes's social bubble is obvious in describing free childcare by relatives as a novel phenomenon. Look to the working and lower class, to non-white populations, and you'll see this is, and has been, a very normal arrangement.
102
It’s remarkable how eager the parents who “help” their kids into their 30s are to justify their decisions to do so. It’s like they know they’re doing the feel-good thing rather than the right thing, but they don’t want to admit it. Because the right thing is to create independent adults, often with some tough love, but they don’t have the stomach to do it.
27
When I graduated from college in 1982 (with a computer science degree), we were in a recession. Our region had a very high unemployment rate, and jobs for inexperienced, entry-level applicants were scarce.
So, I moved to where the jobs were - remained there for four years, and then returned when the market, the jobs, and my experience-base were more stable.
Lack of opportunities have flipped from reasons to move to reasons not to move. Why do today’s generation lack the previous generations’ get-up-and-go?
21
Lost two years because of a recession! What about time lost of those serving our country as draftees while others had protected status.
36
Baby boomer here.
That parents help their kids, it's not a new thing to millennials. It happened before as well.
Don't blame the millennials for everything, it's just getting old.
51
Our suburban house has more than doubled in value since my wife and I purchased it twenty years ago. Good for us. But what about my son, who has graduated from college and has a good job and a decent income? Where can he afford to live?
NIMBY zoning restrictions limit the supply of housing and exacerbate home prices and rents, but someplace like NYC can hardly be accused of low density. Some regions are just plain overpopulated and the high cost of housing is the market’s way of asking “Do you really, really, really need to live here?”
If I was Jeff Bezos (well, if I was I wouldn’t be spending my Saturday afternoon sending comments to the Times), I would ignore pleas to reconsider New York for Amazon’s “HQ2” and go to a smaller city with a lower cost of living. One advantage would be that my pool of potential workers is not limited to upper class kids who are subsidized by their parents to live a “hot” area.
37
I don't appreciate the tone of this article. the comical tinge of the writing is quite inappropriate. coming from 40 year old millennial with a real job. I don't live with my parents. I did as a college student in my 20s but never in my 30s. this article seems to put the blame on the individual, when economic circumstances are structural, not wholly dependent on the individual.
33
Ideally, we should all start from the same starting line with no handicap or silver spoon, no handouts from parents, fair and square. It is precisely because that is not humanly possible that we need a world of state supported tuition, medical care and safety nets in general. That is not socialism; that is how we can make the world more fair and square---and that is very American. I kid you not!
30
The example of someone making $75k and still being subsidized by their parents is concerning. Is it FOMO that sends people to these super expensive cities? It seems like there are lower cost alternatives.
If she must be in San Diego, does she need a $400k condo? There was nothing for $300k?
And couldn't you afford a 400k condo on her salary? $75k = $4k/month take home. $400k mortgage = $2k payment? That's $2k/month for the rest of her expenses. I would think there are single people getting by on $2k/month.
"I can't live in a condo for less than $400k!", "I have to live in San Diego!" and "I can't live on $2k/month?!?" might be things leading to the entitled label that you hear from time to time applied to millenials.
13
Once again you overlook the vast swath of America where housing , schools and even entertainment is affordable. (And no, you don't have to be a farmer) We in the heartland, have always been amused by the attitude of coastal city dwellers we proclaim they could never live in the vast cultural wastelands we inhabit. We snicker as we stroll by you on our way in to your theaters on our vacations. Sit down in restaurants and enjoy fine dining that you can't afford because you're spending so much on basic housing that all those amenities you are so proud of are out of your reach.
35
It's irresponsible to have three children regardless of affordability. The planet is being eaten alive by the demands of the 7.7 billion already on it. And of course it is well off Americans who demand the most.
68
My teenage son is going to start working this summer and I realize it is a lot different for him than when I was a teenage. 1) AZ Republicans want to pass a bill so teenagers can get paid less than minimum wage. 2) Jobs I was paid to do as a teenager, he has to PAY to do or volunteer for free. When I was his age I was a paid camp counselor. He is looking at jobs like that this summer and most require he pay thousands of dollars to get experience as a “junior counselor.” What a scam. How is this legal? We did find one where he could be a volunteer camp counselor to get experience and he will do it, but he is mad. I don’t blame him. I understand why younger generations need financial help from their families.
73
Two things going on here that don't mix.
First, these young adults are burdened with student loans and the high costs of living.
Second, despite their financial condition, they want a certain "lifestyle" with kids they can't afford, home ownership over $200,000, private school tuition, etc.
Mixing these is a recipe for crushing debt and a terrible life.
The people borrowing from their parents need to make different choices....hard choices.....that keep them living below their means.
20
Is some of this motivated by guilt? Boomer parents telling their children they can do anything in life; only to see that isn't the case.
16
Why are we digging to find the negatives here? The help that parents give adult children is easily justified if we consider that what appears to be a parasitic relationship now, can eventually become symbiotic when aging parents need care from their once millennial children. That's how society should work.
26
During my high school teaching career, I saw increasing numbers of parents rushing to intervene whenever their children stumbled academically. Very often these interventions were counterproductive because, instead of learning that they were capable of overcoming a temporary difficulty, these adolescents learned that they always needed to turn to their parents for help. As a result, we see wide-spread anxiety among adolescents and young adults.
Good parenting is about helping children to learn to be independent. Thus, parental intervention when a child is two should be more than when he or she is 12 or 22 or, indeed, 32. And I, too, have tried to ease the way for my own children with timely contributions of money but always with the understanding that it was limited.
It is unfortunate that young people today must face difficult economic circumstances, but they don't need to worry about being drafted to fight in a pointless war in Vietnam. And despite the racism and sexism that still exist today, they do not remotely compare to the situation that existed in the 1950's and 1960's. Each generation must face its own challenges. However, rather than turning to their parents for financial help, young people today should be trying to create a more just society where those born into privilege don't have such obvious advantages over those with more modest backgrounds.
13
A lot of people give the millennials guff for living with their parents and whatnot, but I happen to think it might be a positive development for America society.
My wife and I each come from cultures where different generations living under the same roof is not uncommon. While such a thought would've mortified me when I was younger, I see its allure: my in-laws practically live with my brother-in-law these days, helping provide childcare for my brother-in-law's two small children. When my in-laws or my own remaining parent grow too old to be independent, it's understood that myself and my wife, or our siblings, will take them in.
When I was growing up in Middle America the expectation was that you'd leave the home at (or close to) 18, whether to college, or to make your way in the world. You're on your own. And when you grow too old? Well, here's a nice retirement home where we'll stick you until your last day.
Now that I'm a little older, the first scenario sounds so much better. Three, sometimes four, generations of a family supporting each other at all stages of life.
20
My children are in their mid-30’s and are both launched and employed in NYC. Both my kids went to college and graduated before the crash of 2008. College back then was much more affordable, with Federal grants and other financial aid. They both carried loans, but not an obscene amount and they are all paid off now. It could be that the timing of their college days and getting into the workforce helped with their current success. I am not in a position to give them money, and they will likely be able to buy a house the same way I did when my parents died and left me with a small inheritance that was enough for a down payment.
4
My advice to Millennials: Live frugally, save every dollar you can, and don't have kids. The world has way too many people so you'll be making a great contribution to the health and future of the planet by foregoing reproduction. And if you live frugally and don't conspicuously consume, you'll cut down on the environmental pollution associated with wasteful accumulation of material wealth.
20
Like many boomers posting here, I was very much in debt coming out of college and graduate school, with a car loan to boot. I was terrified of not being able to pay my way, and my parents had their own financial challenges, so I worked hard to keep afloat. Fast forward to my kids...we paid for their public college education so that they wouldn't be saddled with debt that took me forever to pay off. I often wonder if that was a mistake; does financial uncertainty breed good habits leading to financial independence?
5
The burden on the middle class young people of student debt, health insurance, housing and childcare are preventing them from being able to marry and start families. That is why proposals for childcare and free college should be universal and not just the bottom 50% like Warren’s childcare proposal or for incomes below x like the SUNY free college. These things should be universal and stop crushing us struggling to have families in the middle class.
7
Every family has to manage this as they see fit or are able to.
There were a few times my parents helped out in my twenties with a few a few hundred dollars for car repairs that could have sent me in to a real tailspin. I was grateful for the help and tried to pass that on to my own kids later in life.
Once I married I would never have thought of asking our families for financial help. We figured it out. Took second jobs, austerity, etc. That was the early eighties living and working in NYC and living on LI. It was some lean living but we made it.
We did not help our kids out much, not to the degree some of our peers have. We're always willing to help out with time. Our finances are good but we won't be giving $15,000 per annum gifts, or even $1,500 gifts. I did enjoy giving $500 to each when I'd get a large bonus.
I don't think it is fair to blame the millennials here. I think the problem is the parents.
Our kids moved home more than once. "Your room is still here, the fridge, the washer and the drier are available." But we were not going to pay their rent and risk our own financial security. "And this is temporary."
10
I am a physician who treats patients covered by Medicaid who have as many children as they want. Then I read about and have friends who were subsidized by family and have as many kids as they want. I think it is sad that people like me in the middle class drowning in student debt had to wait so long to start families and then choose to have 1 child or 2 at the very most. Every month I put money in my one child’s 529 college account as well as pay off my own student loans.
27
I'm a boomer and two of my siblings (both older and boomers) have children who are Gen-Xers. One older boomer bro has four millenials all of whom are making their own way in the work world.
DK where you found the people cited in this article, but I don't believe their stories are typical at all. And most boomers born before 1956 (that would be the first 10 years of boomers) have Gen-X children, not millenials.
5
Reading through these comments, one sees a lot of the same testimonials about experiences raising families of entering the job market 30, 40 or 50 years ago.
What is quite sad is so few readers seem aware that the focus of this article is the same subject that Tucker Carlson focused upon almost exclusively during the first few weeks of January 2019.
There are lots of high paying jobs in the country, but too many are clustered almost exclusively in areas where the cost of living is so high as to be prohibitive with regard to purchasing a home and raising a family. This pattern grows worse each year despite the promises of high speed internet and telecommuting. The middle class is a smaller proportion of the population than it was a generation or two ago, and many Americans have seen themselves fall out of the middle class, and see their children (both real and aspirational) dropping even further away from security and prosperity.
7
We have close relatives who just purchased their second $1M home with help from Mom and Dad. With the advent of baby #3 they needed a larger home and now find themselves in a nearly 7000 sq ft home costing over $3M in one of the most highly sought after neighborhoods in the city. The other set of parents have moved in with them (2 master bedrooms downstairs) to provide childcare for the newborn so both parents can continue their full time professional careers uninterrupted. Parents helping out their children to get started And on their feet at the beginning of careers and families is one thing. But parents giving $3M “loans” to afford luxuries far surpasses this Gen Xer’s comprehension.
12
I'm a boomer who still relies on my dad's help from time to time.
I have two degrees, and chose to work in the non-profit environmental urban planning sector.
While this brought serious responsibilities and serious titles, plus much valuable experience, my annual pay never exceeded $30,000.
I never wanted kids, nor to buy a house. I paid for my college education myself (state unis, not expensive).
In 2008, I was laid off due to the crisis. After two years, literally no one was even interviewing.
So I moved to Paris, not for "la vie en rose", but to learn about geopolitics of Europe and the Middle East. To work here, I had to enroll full-time at a French university for 5 years.
I could not speak French, so trained to be an English teacher to adults, which I love. It satisfies my desire to "give back" to the world.
However, I could never afford to live in the States again, anywhere, or in any first world country, on my salary. My low rent at present is a lucky fluke.
If France ever asks me to leave, I will have to find a 2nd or 3rd world country, not war-torn or where women are in danger, to work.
My life is quite humble, without children, expensive pre-schools and debt.
The millenials critiqued here seem to think living beyond their means and overpopulating the planet is their privilege. With all their education, one might think they would have learned about zero population growth, and living more humble lifestyles.
19
Look, The Boomers, those on the left side of the bell curve, ending in the mid-late 50's, have bungled a whole lot of things in their years as parents and in positions of power. They created this world where their children and grandchildren cant leave home. They nurtured their children on pop-psychology, and created the whole baby/child fixated culture that currently infects the US.
The Boomers wanted to be their children's "friends", over being their parents. Because being a parent wasn't hip, was what they least liked about their WW2 parents approach to parenting. They wanted their moms and dads as friends first, as parents only to pay their way.
Boomers raised their kids on being the reason for the Family. Not part of the family, a subset. Boomers asked their children what they wanted to eat, if they wanted to eat. They allowed the wants (not their needs) of their children to subsume the needs of their parents. Indentured servitude.
Boomers instilled a grandiose sense of privilege, over one that favored earning ones way.
Millennial's, whatever the labels of those Boomers spawned might be, should not be leaving home expecting that the world is there to serve them. But the other way around.
Classic example of whats wrong with the "Kids these days." Those I work with say they remain home; because they cant afford to pay rent AND for all the gadgets and WiFi, their parents provide. They want the 50" TV, and all the accessories right when they move out. Not earn them.
6
Let’s be accurate - as a child born in the 70’s and raised by Boomers we were not treated special. This phenomenon was entirely Gen X.
Also not sure where your misinformed anger is coming from regarding Millennials - Boomers contributed to wage stagnation in the 80’s with the never ending pro business, pro rich, pro globalization policies and now you blame the young adults who can’t make a decent living and are forced to live at home longer. You try buying a house for 450k when your making 30-45k.
Article misses the point on child care though - that’s been a constant in America - older generations helping with child care. Of course - women didn’t work back then - so there’s that. You know - supporting a family with 1 middle class income.
5
I know someone who babysits for her grandchildren 3 days a week, driving 16 miles to Hoboken at 6AM, getting home at 6PM if she's lucky. Her daughter is an attorney, her son-in-law has an MBA. The Hoboken condo was probably around 600K and the couple enjoy frequent weekends with friends, at weddings, etc while the grandmother takes the little ones.
This scenario is probably played out in other metro areas since the NYT stated recently that 80% of women live within 18 miles of their mothers.
I never went back to full time work in the city after my kids were born, and my mother lived 35 miles away.
Some are just very lucky.
8
I paid for my son's college loans until I retired. I also paid for his cell phone until then. He was 28 and just bought his first house with his wife. We did not help them with the purchasing of their house. I think if you can help until they become financially stable, great. I am putting a small amount of money aside for my grandson for college. I was given nothing from my parents who did not have the funds to help me with college or to buy a house. I was lucky to go to college in the 70's when it was much less expensive. Both my son and daughter in law live well and within their means. Education about finances and saving should be a must for all young people. Choices such as taking out 100,000 loans for college will impact a person for a long time. Everyone can't attend an expensive school, state schools offer a good education without the debt. It's many times about choices and willingness to sacrifice for what you want.
5
My husband (81) and I (74) raised two children then took on our daughter's two little girls when she divorced and started working full time. Our daughter now has an excellent job and salary but we are still paying for one of our granddaughter's higher education fees, which means vacations are not really possible. Our son has just divorced and we have his two teenage boys for one night a week so he can do domestic essentials outside of work. We don't regret our time or money as both our children are in good relationships now. What is difficult is to see our grandchildren juggling with their divorced parents.
7
I'm a Gen-Xer who benefited from my Baby Boomer parents' largesse--when they were able to make my life a little easier, they did so without compunction. I will do the same for my own daughter (who is 21 and living at home while she attends a local university) because that is what our family does.
If we have the ability to make our loved ones lives a little easier, why wouldn't we do that? Because it's "not fair" to their peers? That makes no sense.
13
The biggest solution to this problem is that we as a generation (I’m 1981, so Millenial/Gen X) do not need to have that many children anymore. We are entering a world that is more and more unstable because our population is closing in on 8 billion. This world cannot handle 8 billion, and when it does it will be at a time when manual labor including driving will no longer be a pathway to the middle class. This article has talked about people with a college degree, what’s going to happen to those without a college degree? Now add 3 kids to that equation. You don’t need that kind of stress in your lives.
13
The wealthy and privileged will take care of their children and grandchildren. They always have and they always will.
Who will take care of those who are not so privileged, who see their standard of living for their children decreasing?
Unfortunately, that frustrating question was the basis for the election of Donald Trump.
And yet the privileged still are benefiting. Money talks.
15
Family helps family. My parents, and my wife’s, helped us (and would be still, were they yet with us); we help our adult kids. Some acquaintances find that strange. I find it perfectly natural, and good.
23
I don’t accept the notion that family members helping each other out is failure. This notion is part of a larger cultural problem that defines success as a function of individual effort. Our culture needs to move back to a more communitarian ethic...we are all in this together people.
30
This isn't an article about Millenials. This is an article about how the well-off transfer wealth to the next generation, ensuring their offspring themselves become wealthy. Nothing new here. I hope people at least start to recognize this aid, and stop saying how they earned it all through hard work.
Meanwhile, I wish these articles on Millenials would stop being so 2-dimensional. Either Millenials are entitled and unable to be adults, or else they are victims of forces beyond their control. For many of us, neither story rings true. Neither hubs nor I have had any parental assistance post college. We've paid off all our student loans, and yes, wasn't able to afford a home in our 20s--but finally saved enough to buy a home at 34. We save for retirement, for college, and support a family of 5 on our own. I didn't have $200K in net assets at age 32 like Ms. Ho, but I'm doing just fine.
21
I began working in 1978. Around 1980, during a deep recession, IRA's came out and I began maxing contributions. This meant forfeiting other options for my $. When 401(k)'s arrived I made sure to have an employer offering one and I maxed that every year too. Again, this meant forfeiting other uses of that $, other pleasures.
My dad once told me that life is nothing but a series of choices.
12
The trend will continue to the point where it won’t be uncommon for those in their 50’s will need financial support from their parents. Eventually the kids will eat up the potential inheritance before the parents die, leaving the grandchildren’s generation with nothing. It’s inevitable as long as people continue to live above their means.
10
There seems to be a lot of resentment towards those whose parents help them out. But what parent with wealth would not help out their kids? OK, there are certainly some, but not many. My husband and I have managed to save a good junk of change and I am not at all embarrassed to use it to ensure that my kids graduate debt free and get a strong start in life.
15
I would like to point out the simple reality that for most of human history parents (and the larger family unit) have helped children in some form or another, whether it be welcoming the child into the family business or farm (however small), with money, with connections, or whatever. That is life, no big deal. Would it be great if every young adult became an "up from my own bootstraps" type person? Sure, but don't hold your breath.
11
@Paul, amen! This article weirdly translates traditional relationships into dollars. And what about the peace of mind that comes from knowing that care for the toddlers is provided by Auntie, Granny, or Gramps, who share your own values and do the "service" out of love and for the very joy of it. Priceless, literally. Millennials will pay forward one day, knowing the same joy.
15
Choosing to live in the nation’s most expensive cities is simply imprudent. I was a first generation college graduate, and when starting out had to move where I could afford, not where I wanted, work several jobs to pay for school and my first home etc. The notion that not being able to live where you want in one’s 30’s is a problem just reinforces the idea that millennials are spoiled children. I wonder whether these “problems” for millennials exist in Kansas City, Cleveland, or Birmingham.
12
I think it’s more about following the jobs than affordable housing.
6
I'm in my thirties. I never had support from my parents, in any form -- yet managed to put myself through college, purchase my own home at 25 (albeit a modest one, not in the most expensive housing market imaginable) and build a solid career. I did it by working very hard, having a primary job as well as a side gig or two. There was no safety net and I had no other choice, and I'm better for it. My husband and I had no money for a wedding -- so we didn't have one. When we moved to a more expensive real estate market for his job, we bought the house we could afford, not the house we wanted. Millennials struggling to "get past the narrative" that they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Aw, those poor babies. Get off Instagram and get a job or two.
19
Is life grade School+ middle School + high school + college + work + family + retire?
Add play sports or be in a club make some friends, go to a camp and/or on family
vacations, buy a used car, rent, travel a bit, buy a house, have loans and mortgages, get insured, get sick, increase debt, keep up with the neighbors, the friends from school, some church, some politics, some sports events.
Granted there is living and loving and building relationships going on throughout that track, but maybe human beings can change that track. We have gone from a nomadic hunter/gatherer existence to sedentary lifestyles that have caused population growth which endangers now our existence. What do we do now. Surely not the same thing. Milenials are right to want to change the game.
5
There is an alternate economic reality to NYC, DC, Chicago and the expensive coast cities. Welcome to flyover country! There are good jobs in medicine, manufacturing and other areas that pay decently. More importantly, the cost of living is very manageable. Food, services, and taxes are much more reasonable.
One makes a choice as to where a career is pursued. If that decision is to go to the big cities, well, then economics are a going lot more challenging. Your choice.
12
It is not that simple of a solution to say “just move to flyover country”. Plenty of people who live in those cities do so because they have immediate and extended families nearby needing assistance. Many have specific training for jobs that only exist in those cities - and let’s face it, the job opportunities are definitely not the same all over the country. Lastly, big cities need people of all income levels (who will teach in their schools, or work in their many hotels or restaurants? Someone has to). Not everyone can just pick up and move their whole life to Omaha or wherever.
16
So things are going back to tradition. This is great news. Three generations used to live together. Stop following the modern internet suggestion of being independent but talking to a computer and then staring at a cell phone while you are up or walking around. In Asia the savings rate is at 40% while families pull together. Of course we have a very high divorce rate and high debt rate . So instead of caring about what others think about, stick together , help each other out and stop worrying about the
neighbors or what society thinks about. Many people end up saving their money and end up alone in assisted living spending $10,000 a month until they are broke.Pull together and support each other.
13
As a Pell Grant kid, I take pride in having earned everything I have achieved financially. I’ve made sacrifices to buy a smaller house, bought a used car, live in a sub optimal neighborhood, all while paying off my own student debt and living far below my personal means to send our children to private school.
I’ve come out on the other side with an enormous sense of accomplishment. What floors me is that these Millennials seem to of lost a sense of personal pride, or a willingness to sacrifice anything of today for the future.
How is this good for America?
And ps: Chuck Collins is my new hero.
3
This article does not acknowledge that anyone earning minimum wage ($10 per hour in many states) cannot afford to do much but live at home with mom and dad. Add it up: gas, groceries, car insurance, modest student loan payment, phone and utilities - there is nothing left. My son asked me, Where can I cut? I answered, you can’t: you need to earn $18 per hour, or work 2 jobs, just to keep your head above water.
17
I am retired, in my early 70s, and live in a 55- and- up community. My kids are 40 and 38. Both of my kids put themselves through law school on gigantic loans. They live in very expensive cities and are holding their own. It angers me that so many of my friends either help support their kids or have their kids living with them, free of rent or any pitch-in help like cleaning or cooking of any kind. Some don't work and are pleased to spend their days sunning at the pool or drinking at the (subsidized by residents' hefty monthly association dues) bar. I feel so blessed that my kids are adults and are not waiting around for me to die so they can inherit my little retirement condo in Florida.
15
Proof positive that the Boomers have destroyed the country (they've nearly locked down the destruction of the environment as well, give them 12 more years).
This is the fallout of the economics of the GOP, a slash-and-burn to enrich the top and impoverish the rest, making the US low on the upward mobility scale, rendering entire generations debt ridden, with societal and family collateral damage.
Because the rich don't care what wreckage they leave behind as long as their towering mountain of gold can get a few feet higher.
Goodbye, American Dream. It was short but hope inspiring.
Now we and the world have learned that the forces of human depravity cannot long be defeated.
10
Is it maybe fair to expect that parents of millennials should have to do this, since it's their generation, as well as that of their own parents, that cluelessly voted for policies that created this situation for their children? Financial de-regulation, "right to work" laws, un-progressive tax cuts, the coddling of pharmaceutical, health insurance, and credit card companies, and other factors that re-distributed wealth to business elites can all be laid at their door.
13
Not sure child care by grandparents can be thought of as "passing on wealth". This is done all over the globe in areas where multi-generational households are the norm.
It's common for children to stay in their parents house and raise a family. Moving away to a single family home away from family support is an immense financial burden that doesn't seem sustainable in the long run unless child care is subsidized by the state.
16
Student loan debt is the big problem now. When I graduated in 1978 the economy was not robust with two recessions on the horizon. But neither I nor any of my friends had any student debt. Our parents helped us settle into our first apartments with some cash and used furniture. I was lucky to get a car as a graduation gift. And that was it. But we all did well with jobs of varying salaries. We shared apartments until we could afford to be alone. Marrying and being part of a two income family goosed my standard of living significantly even though interest rates at the time of our first house purchase in 1981 were over 15%! Impossible to imagine now, but true.
Bottom line, no student debt is what launched me well financially. Plus I never bought on credit that wasn’t paid in full monthly until that house.
9
If the aim of this piece is to build an argument against wealth-transfer taxes, it's a nice bit of political rhetoric. If the aim is to explain the problem of modern living, it has masked the largest part of the problem, which is Boomers themselves. The cost of living in the here and now has been fundamentally shaped by a bloated generation of bloated demands who, collectively, never paid it forward. The generation of Americans born from 1946 to 1966 grew up with unprecedented social support networks in the form of a housing industry fueled by postwar prosperity, FHA loans, cheap timber and labor, and--most of all--a massively subsidized education system that ensured white kids had broad access to great education and jobs equal to or better than their parents' generation. They grew up, got good paying jobs, and bought houses. And then they started voting for Proposition 9, and agreed with Ronald Reagan that the state was the enemy. When Hannah Seligson wants to look at the whole problem, I might read her again. In the meantime, this is a half-a-loaf analysis, a lot of whining with too much context missing in action.
14
Two sons live in Austin and San Diego. They rent there after growing up in a suburb of Milwaukee. I paid $90K over thirty years ago and that house my wife and I still live in would sell for roughly $300K today. We paid off the note over ten years ago and only have taxes and monthly utility bills and insurance now. It is in fact a duplex of about 2000 sq ft total and my wife and I live in both units.
My 29 y/o Austin son who has a good job ventured that he didn't see how he would ever be able to afford a house in Austin that is of the size and quality as the one he grew up in.
The one observation I might make is that my sons both spend a lot more on dinners out and drinks and social life in general than my wife and I ever did. With all this said, they both enjoy a great life in two great American cities that many people would love to live in. As a fairly comfortable retired guy, I couldn't reasonably afford to live in either city and I'm a long way from poor.
11
When I was in high school in the 1970's, we were taught to be thankful that we did not live in a divided society of "haves" and "have-nots". But sadly, over the course of my life, I've seen a slow but continuous trend toward this end, and I see no reason why what is happening in places like Venezuela cannot eventually happen here unless we change our ways.
16
Strange. In my family of well educated professionals, everyone left home after high school. Straight to college, which you paid for yourself by working while attending class, living cheap, taking out loans, and scholarships, or straight into the military.
Everyone was financially independent within a couple of months of high school graduation, finished college, and has raised their own generation of college educated professionals under similar circumstances.
We have always drawn a hard line of adulthood at 18 coming with adult responsibility out of love and a desire for our children to be fully equipped for life at the age of majority.
13
I’m a Millennial who was raised by well-off parents. They instilled a degree of thriftiness, so I remember being surprised when I got to college by classmates who brought their own microwaves and mini fridges.
That was just the tip of the iceberg. Those in my generation who came from upper-middle class or more affluent means have received more from our parents than they did from theirs. Some of this is because of the outrageous cost of essentials like education, housing, and healthcare. It is also because expectations for what one ought to have in one’s 20s and 30s is higher than what earlier generations were taught.
Many in my generation, rather than trying to build a more equal society that enables for the things my parents had, like cheap or free college and affordable housing, are contributing to its growing bipolarity.
The more of us who send our kids to private schools with private tutors, who buy bigger homes and more appliances than anyone needs, the less investment there will he in public services.
(I’m just recalling some of the wedding registries I’ve seen, that include things like high end flatware, grills, bread makers).
Even progressives start to oppose policies that redistribute wealth—like progressive income taxes and higher taxes on investment income—when such increases would cut in to their ability to afford excesses I’ve mentioned above.
Rather than try to build a more equitable society, too many of us are chasing its trappings.
22
While the millennials and families featured are predominantly upper middle class, there is a lot of help given to young families by their parents in general: Tons and tons of grandparents aren’t just watching their grandchildren for free a few days per week, they’re raising their grandchildren so that the parent can work some distance away. Or, millennials are living with their parents in their 30s. While these aren’t cash gifts, I think it’s a bit misleading to paint millennials as spoiled by their parents with $500,000 houses in major cities. Most parents help their kids in whatever ways they can, financial or not, for the reasons described in the article. I guess I’m not seeing the difference between allowing your child to live with you rent free, and giving them some cash to make rent. Both situations speak to how difficult it currently is to be on your own.
As an aside, the comments about the audacity of the grandparents to watch their grandkids is pretty amusing to me. Most grandparents, Uh, like to spend time with their grandkids? The distance between members of extended family is a relatively modern phenomenon - generations living together and helping each other when possible is as old an idea as the human race itself.
21
Aren't parents supposed to help make sure their kids have great lives? I'm semi-rich. My kids, if I have any, will have my support. I'll pay for private school, college, and maybe their first apartment. I'll raise them skiing, riding horses, and playing tennis. They'll spend their youth mastering skiing and stuff. I have a PhD in the Humanities. My kids will read a lot and be raised to want academic success. They may never need to work, but they will have a work ethic, but it will pertain to hobbies (skiing, tennis, etc.), fitness, and academic pursuits. I myself never had to work, but I have an excellent credit score, work out or run every day, and have a PhD. I have a strong work ethic, and I ski in 11 degrees. I'm not a delicate flower. people here talk like working a job/earning a paycheck is the ONLY way to build character. Go spend 7 years working on a doctorate. Go work out every day and mostly avoid sugar, alcohol, and fast food. Until you have rock hard abs and an advanced degree, stop judging others as having less discipline, focus, and drive than you have.
9
@Anti-Marx
Seriously? Please read your comment. You may have a PhD, but clearly that does not translate to self awareness or common sense. Rock hard abs and an advanced degree do not build character!
Building character includes compassion, which would enable one to understand that many people who consume sugar and fast food do so because organic from Whole Foods is out of reach for them economically.
My children were able to have a college and graduate education without debt. But we required that they work each summer for their “ incidentals”, recreation and gas money for their cars. THAT helped them to build character!
Through no fault of theirs, job layoffs, and similar circumstances, they have received our financial assistance. When they rebounded, they had the grace and common sense to pick up the check for a lovely dinner.
14
My eyes are rolling. I graduated from college with student debt, had no help from parents after graduation, lived in Manhattan in a rent stabilized apartment with a roommate (whose parents paid her rent) until I was 34, walked everywhere because I couldn’t afford a pack of 10 tokens, ate bagels and $1 pizza, worked two jobs but was self sufficient. I lived within my means. Why is someone making $75K a year buying a $425K condo at the beach?!? Do the math. Once I moved away from Manhattan for a better job I could afford to live on my own, save and eventually buy a place. (Sometimes I wish I had stayed but then I remember having a roommate and I think, naaaaaaah.)
23
@IlsaLund
Most New Yorkers with a 75k income will spend about 2k/month on rent. Over 25 years that's 600k. That doesn't include rent increases (and also doesn't include property tax and building fees). to me, spending 425k on a condo you might live in for 30 years doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. My Manhattan studio (which I rent) would cost about 675k.
3
The “math” is that someone earning 75K likely cannot afford the payments on a 425K property. (Buying real estate is obviously preferable to renting.)
7
One of the big topics about millennials that goes unmentioned is regarding their irresponsible use of school loans.
Yes, school tuition is expensive (in-state school not so much), but they use the loans for far more than the school.
I’m talking new cars, nice apartments with no roommate, smart phone, cable, restaurants. I live in a college town, and there are large groups of students at even the most expensive restaurants, and no shortage of costly fancy drinks while there.
It’s as if once the tuition is considered expensive, they give up all other fiscal responsibility. This massive extra spending is a very large part of why their loans are so egregious when they finally finish.
It’s not just a loan for tuition, but it certainly could be, and should be. They should have a job to pay for the rest, learn to keep all other costs low, apply for all scholarships and aid that they can, and minimize loans. Always have roommates. No car that requires a loan. Rare cheap restaurants. Rare, carefully planned budget travel.
Then, once they graduate, they continue their smart management for just 2-3 more years, pay an extra $10k principle on their loans annually for those few years, and voila, they won’t need money from parents.
And yes, I did all this myself, graduated with only $160k of debt (med school tuition only), paid it all off prior to buying a new car or furniture for my house. It can still be done, and quite easily!
13
@Doctor
Millennials are in their later 20s and into their 30s, not in college.
And how precisely do you know that the students you see dining out are the same ones taking out student loans? The students I knew who did that in college (I'm 33) were the ones being bankrolled with generous allowances. Certainly, some students take on more loans than necessary, but I don't think it's fair to paint with such a broad brush.
9
The idea that adult children should leave the nest and be completely independent of their families is, I think, more of an Anglo thing. For Italians maintaining close family ties is more normal. It only makes sense to stick together. Sure my parents helped me buy my first flat and continue to help with some childcare, which is allowing me to pursue my dreams. But, it works both ways. They love being grandparents. I also give them a lot of company and emotional support and as they get older they know I will keep them in their own home as long as it is possible and if we can’t avoid a nursing home, I will be there to visit and supervise. Also, accepting help means I do have to give up some control as a parent and let them do things their way with the kids. It does require good communication and patience. Once I get my career sorted out, they know that the more I make it, the better it will be for them. I think I’m a good investment. Hopefully, I will be able to do the same for my children. I think I’ll need to as property prices in Melbourne are insane.
28
It is not mandatory to have children.
It is not mandatory to own a house.
I'm 68 and have neither.
No regrets. Interesting and challenging life.
Adapting to Reality is an important Life Skill.
56
The economic prospects for a 20-something in America has changed dramatically for the worse over the past 25 years. I attribute this primarily to three factors: (1) the ridiculously high cost of college (2) the absurdly high cost of real-estate on the coasts, where the jobs go (3) the severe inequality in wealth in America with the gains going to the top 1% at everyone else's expense. Unless these factors are addressed politically - and reversed over the next two decades, America will, like a giant ponzi scheme, become the most leveraged nation in the world, with all the social and political troubles that come with it.
16
Sending our children to private school and then paying for college (including professional programs - medicine and architecture) kept us poor for a long time. We never took a vacation until they were all done with school. When they graduated debt free they were able to get out there and commence their lives as independent adults. I am a boomer and my very well off parents gave me nothing- made it through school as a merit scholar and later as a graduate research assistant in grad school. Sometimes it’s just about what you as a parent think is important. And my children wouldn’t dream of relying on me to babysit! Investing in their futures at great sacrifice meant that they are now capable and on their own. Sometimes they even do things for me!
11
Your experience, decades ago, has become anachronistic, what with the subsequent steep rise on college costs and the diminution in student aid. (I say this as someone in her 50s). Even state schools are expensive for those with average incomes.
I also put myself through college and graduate school 30 years ago, but I did not expect my children to be able to do the same.
Also, is it possible that you did eventually get some funding from your parents, as in an inheritance?
8
@Elizabeth Hagen
Nothing from my parents - at all.
We were not wealthy people and it wasn’t “decades” ago. We were just very committed to our children not having any debt from school. It’s about priorities. For my husband and me - our children always came first. We literally did not take any kind of vacation until they were in their twenties. It can be done but it means sacrifice - an outdated notion.
1
@Me I’m surprised that your children “wouldn’t dream on relying on me to babysit “. One of the joys of being a grandparent is babysitting!
2
I moved to New York City in 2009 after spending 10 years in Brussels, Belgium. Recently divorced, I was 33 and had two suitcases and about $3,000 to my name. I found a mattress on a floor to the tune of $600 that month, and within a month, I had a job and my own apartment. In the past 9 years, I've tripled my income and remarried. I'm still in the same apartment. I was lucky enough to have had parents who paid for my student loans, but I haven't had parental help financially since I was 22, and I'm now 42. My loans were paid off a long time ago because I went to a state university in the '90's and it just wasn't that expensive. I feel comfortable with my finances. I have a nice salary for an admin, and we have some savings due to a very small inheritance. I really don't see how I could ever afford to buy a house in New York City or even on Long Island or up state. Kids are out of the question due to both time and money considerations. But I don't have sour grapes about this. I could be richer, but I would be a lot more stressed. I could have a family but then I would be out money, time and patience. I'm happy with my choices. I've always known one could never have "it all"!
12
Who am I to judge? I rather these children depend on their own families than on social assistance. When my children are grown, I hope to be able to help them in any way I can, responsibly, whether monetarily or in kind, if they are in need (my husband and I are raising them so that they hopefully won’t need our help but life does throw all of us curveballs). After all, what are families for?
25
First/second gen people are also millennials and familial ties play a huge role for us. It's just cultural around the globe that parents invest in their children and children take care of their parents when they're old. Parents buy homes for their children and then live in them during old age with their kids. Immigrant parents sacrifice their wellbeing to send their kids to college debt free and their kids remain filial through life. Although it seems transactional, I doubt child or parent is keeping some ledger. In minority families, parents and children have codependent relationships all the time. If the author would tell these types of stories, one would see that the problem lies in the loss of family cohesion and relationship building, seemingly rampant in affluent American born families today.
21
@Mark Exactly. People who have loving, supportive families are getting a leg up. It's hard to explain how difficult it can be to launch without this.
6
Sooo, instead of Kimberly Palmer being grateful for the help her parents give she piles a 3rd kid on them? If you can't afford the childcare for the first two why are you having a third? This is entitlement to the N-th degree. What happens when the grandparents age just a little more and aren't able to subsidize their adult children's lifestyles?
50
These people freely admit to getting financial help from their parents and are willing to go on record in a national publication.
That being said, can you just imagine how many people don't admit to mom and dads monetary assistance and instead claim financial "independence" and appear to just be really "well off"? Rather hard to keep up with the Joneses when the Joneses are being bankrolled by Mom and Dad. One wonders "man, how the heck do they afford X, Y or Z?" And the fact is, they can't.
26
Chicago? Unaffordable? Have you ever lived in Chicago, dear author? It affordable simply for not being located on either coast. And using "Unthinkable Kimmy Schmidt" as a reference to the financial lives of millennials is strangely inaccurate, but quite funny. The lead character, Kimmy, was captured and kidnapped and made to live in a bomb shelter for 15 years. Upon "release" she received a handful of money which she lost when her backpack was stolen at a club in NYC while she was learning how to twert. Really, NYTimes, sometimes I wish you'd pop the bubble you live in.
17
On a small, crowded and environmentally unstable planet this is a real 1st World problem. We are speeding towards the cliff and resist applying the brakes.
No 3rd kid!!
No 3000 sq ft house with a lawn.
walk or use public transit. Live near your job. Learn to live within the planets means.
40
@Louis J
Yes, yes, and YES!
3
I seem to recall an episode of “Thirtysomething” in which Hope’s friend, Ellyn Warren and her boyfriend house sat for the Steadmans. Ellyn snooped through Hope and Michael’s stuff and learned that Hope’s parents helped them buy their house...
13
@PMD
You're right! Fellow "thirtysomething" geek here. Wasn't there also an episode where Melissa's father offered to help her buy her artist loft? She demurred the financial assistance but can't recall if she ended up taking it in the end or it was ever discussed.
1
Nothing new here. White people enjoy legacy wealth. Non-white people generally do not. White families give their kids money to go to expensive schools, buy cars, homes, vacations, and child care. This article is just a reconfirmation of the fact that the US is a world of white privilege, which will continue for at least one more generation.
14
As a liberal white person in his 30s, I grow tired of the generalizations about my race. I'm white and I did not grow up rich. I was bullied for my tattered clothes. I did chores and tasks for elderly neighbors and started delivering newspapers at age 11 to earn money to buy toys and books my parents couldnt afford. I saved up to buy a computer for myself. I did that until I started working fast food as soon as i was legally allowed after my 16th birthday. I later worked as a janitor.
I moved out of my parents' house in a rural town as early as I could to pursue my passion for technical work. I never went to college because I didn't want debt after seeing what it did to my parents. But I could read and teach myself. I have given my parents tens of thousands of dollars over the years and paid their mortgage for several years. They have never given me anything except raising me with a passion for learning and how to work.
I guess I am reasonably successful and stable now. I learned to not do what my parents did. Earning six figures, I own a modest 1500 sq ft 1960s home and drive a 12 year old car that I bought used. I live well below my means and I will help my child how my parents never did.
I had some run-ins with the law in my teens that did not result in my incarceration but did affect job prospects for over a decade. I couldn't even join the military when I was desperate. Maybe that is my white privilege that I didn't get locked up or shot, but it wasn't rich parents.
25
@Inez Scoggins
Privilege? I'm a retired white boomer. I started work in a factory in high school at age 16(1967). I worked 3 hrs before school and missed first hour study hall. I punched in at 4:30 AM. My dad was a professional man who got into a good university on an academic scholarship during WW2. He was a depression era, lower middle class product. His means were such that it was totally unnecessary, financially, for me to work in a factory. I went to a good state school and graduated after four years (1973) with a degree and no debt. My total tuition for four years was less than $2000.00.
My folks preached hard work and education. My mom grew up as one of nine kids in rural Wisc. If her family wanted meat, they shot a deer, squirrel or rabbit. Vegetables came from the garden or were preserved. I passed these ideas of frugality on to my kids with the following principle beaten into them, figuratively speaking. "The harder you work, the luckier you get".
10
This is a blanket statement; please consider class. Many poor and working class people are white and don’t inherit money. Race and class intersect, but not always.
10
Look at Mr. Chris Palmer's facial expression! To me, it says my daughter got a pass - but if I had a son, he would have really been on his own years ago. As for the mother, there have always been indulgent mothers
7
Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before we got some kind of retrograde sexism in these comments.
Bankrolled by their parents? I spent a ton on my kids' educations and now I expect them to bankroll me!
7
What happens to the next generation - whose parents have no bank roll?
11
The thing that confounds me: your parents will pay for college, maybe a little bit for a house down payment, AND babysitting.
Does that mean when they become too old to care for themselves, they'll be taken in? Or shunted off to a home? Will this lifelong favor be returned?
14
Poor people do this too, just with a lot less money. My mom gave me $1000 to help me move to Newport, OR, and now I pay $550 a month to live in my own one-bedroom shack two blocks from the beach.
But just like middle class people, I am somewhat poorer than my parents were at my age, and it feels like I'll be an adolescent for the rest of my life.
8
I adore that photo illustration! It made my day. Just perfect.
I was on my my own, financially and otherwise, well before I graduated university. So when I see my siblings coddling their adult children (one thirty-something is living in the family home, ditto another until recently) it makes me want to scream. These same adult children are the worst cheapskates you could ever imagine (your best friends if you have a nice place for them to stay, for free!) yet they always have cash available when it’s time to take a trip to an exotic locale. What values are the parents teaching? All for one and one for me? They have produced self-centered snowflakes.
Decades ago a couple of my (adult, then) siblings greedily tapped the well of parental generosity, for many thousands in unpaid “loans.” The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But it’s still wrong.
I know two couples who were looking forward to getting their homes back to themselves after raising their kids, only to have adult children move back in after they had difficulties in their lives. One even moved in with a child! Compassion is a wonderful thing, and I would never encourage anyone to cut off their offspring completely. But there comes a point when you have to let those chicks fly away, even if they aren’t doing that well on their own. How can they learn to be resilient otherwise? If no one catches you up when you fall, you learn how to bounce.
18
This is not simply a millenial issue: Always those who've had help from their parents (buying a house, school admission/tuition, work opportunities, club memberships, etc., nevermind the advantages during childhood, e.g., piano lessons, good schools, summer camps, tennis and language lessons, etc.) have a leg up... but larger and larger divides between the haves and have-nots, massive student loan debt, huge cost of living increases in the most lucrative job market areas, yeah, the shortcomings are stark... even impossible to bridge.
7
I think the writer may be incorrect about “Thirtysomething.” (I was a big fan of that show, I am embarrassed to admit.) As I recall, the couple who had the biggest house, among the friends, had help from their parents in buying it. And the wealthy parents of the wife in that couple did figure into the story.
6
Silly. If you can’t afford the city, live outside it. Commute 90 min each way and then with each step in your career move up.
My parents paid for nothing. My wife and I came out with debt from school. Our first house was a loooong way from where we worked. Our next house was a bit closer as we also paid down student debt and our mortgage.
We had the number of children we could afford and now that they are in university we are helping out because we can.
Pretty simple step by step program that works and no, our kids won’t live in the big house that we earned over the last 25 years.
They will do what we did ... start at the bottom and earn their way up, with one advantage, maybe starting a rung higher than we did.
But earning their way to the ladder is their responsibility and I am sure they will do fine.
4
there are 50 somethings still being bankrolled. so what? financial success is often who you know or being born to the right family. The only thing that bother me is that these "kids" pretend like they've made it on their own. They've never had to make any financial sacrifices or wait tables which explains why so many people treat those without money rudely but what can do? Life is unfair.
9
Life is good for this 30-something in Omaha. Affordable housing, good economy, good schools, light traffic, and the restaurants are getting better. Come on over, Millennials!
9
Don’t let them in on the secret—we must all work together to keep them on the coasts.
5
This is not that new. I am a boomer and I remember friends whose parents bought them houses, cars, took care of their kids and even got them good jobs. I was jealous because my parents never did any of that.
However I was able to live at home and with a minimum wage 30 hour a week job I could pay my tuition at a state university part time (12 hours a semester) plus buy clothes and a used car. This was the late sixties.
6
It's not just people in their 30's who are financially tied to their parents. It's also those in their 40's & 50's.
I know many who pay initiation fees (often in excess of $100,000) for their adult children to join clubs and then pay all their club dues and bills for food. I know many who pay for the independent school tuition for multiple grandchildren. I know many who are paying for college for their grandchildren.
Are they all doing this due to their adult children not earning much? Absolutely not! They are doing this to avoid inheritance taxes for their children. They try to find as many ways as possible to pay for things for their children. They also help with downpayment on houses.
Many of my generation (born during WWII), want their children to be able to live the same standard of living in which they were raised themselves. And that's not easy in today's world, even for those earning big salaries. With independent school tuition being nearly the cost of college, even someone with a high salary can find it difficult to be able to pay. So the grandparents pay.
Parents who have the means to do so, will help their children. They always have. The parents of my first husband gave us $2000 towards the downpayment on our first house. We had saved $2000 ourselves, so we were able to afford to buy that house, which cost $22,500. My parents gave me $300 a month so I would have some money of my own when I was a SATM. Nothing new here.
9
My immigrant father used to say, what else is money for if not for your family? They put us through college and helped with down payments on our houses, even way back when. No inheritance because of nursing care, but now in our 70's we're in position to help our kids, and in particular education for our grandchild. What's the problem? If the kids were slackers/addicts/irresponsible that might be different, but they have meaningful work that contributes to society, and we are not sacrificing our comfortable (semi) retirement by helping them with home ownership and hand-me-down cars. In the broader picture, yes, we and they are very privileged, but since when does helping grandchildren become a stigma?
26
There is a historical perspective here that shouldn't be ignored. Americans who came of age in the prosperous economy of the 1950s and early 1960s enjoyed opportunity and economic mobility. But past generations frequently had to rely on a family economy in which different generations felt a responsibility to young AND old. Fewer Americans today feel that sense of familial obligation as a given, unfortunately. That doesn't stop them from helping children or elders, but how much better to view family ties based on love and sharing as natural and not exceptional.
3
The pick yourself up by your bootstraps crowd, and just about everyone else in the developed world, irrespective of any material help they may have received from their folks (and often conveniently fail to mention,) are all missing one fundamental point; we are all blessed to have been born where we have been. If you are in good health, well that's another to be both cognizant of and thankful for.
For most Americans, even today, we can alter the trajectory of our path towards financial independence, with the decisions we make. Then, there is thing called luck.
It certainly has become more difficult though. As a first generation American, one who had made his own share of questionable choices, I still marvel over what my immigrant father achieved. Even he says that he would not want to trade places with me, despite all the benefits conferred upon someone who is native born, and the reasons are almost too many to innumerate.
9
When I started my career I was incredibly jealous of friends still receiving assistance from their parents in some form. My parents cut me off before grad school as my father filed for bankruptcy. While not lugging around student debt for 10 years would have been a definite advantage, it forced me to make better choices, learn from my mistakes, and budget. Yes, I would be financially better off if for example I had free child care from my mom. Many people my age expect the comforts of an upper middle class lifestyle. Sadly, this is not easy and I can understand why many parents still help. However, I don’t think providing vacations and computers to the 35 and up crowd helps them. I think education for their kids is different, but my generation needs to learn personal responsibility and financial savviness.
10
The reason that housing is so unaffordable in NYC, Boston, DC, SF, Seattle, LA, and London is because of zoning density restrictions that create an artificial scarcity of land which creates high housing costs.
These higher housing costs are from politics at. the city council level that benefit wealthy landlords such as Trump while harming people what wish to buy homes or rent apartments such as millennials.
This use of politics to benefit the special interest group is called "rent-seeking" in microeconomics. It is a market failure or market inefficiency on effective markets.
The fix is quite simple: reverse the politics that benefit wealthy landlords over others and reverse the unfair zoning density restrictions.
Sure, Trump will be far less wealthy than he would be in an efficient market, but I can't see our Democratically controlled city council too worried about that.
9
@David MD Agree with most of what you said. I think that "wealthy landlords" would like to build more units to take advantage of the hot market, but are inhibited by NIMBY zoning which is driven by homeowners who already "got theirs".
2
My wife and I both have graduate degrees and work full time in well compensated positions. We live in a reasonably priced area in the U.S. and live a modest lifestyle. In spite of this, with three children, things are tight and often very stressful. We receive no assistance from anyone and I'm very proud of that. But if somebody were to offer, I would take it in heart beat. While not spoken of in public, I know for a fact that a significant chunk of my acquaintances are getting help from parents. I even know physicians who are getting bankrolled by their parents.
18
Historically, it is the leaving of the parental nest in one’s early twenties that is the aberration. World wide, the extended family is the norm and far more stable that the nuclear family. The 1% have always lived as in mutually supportive multi-generational units.
For example, Do you really think Don jr, Eric or Ivanka have actually left home?
21
I'm a boomer, and my sense is that families helping their kids transition out of the nest wasn't all that uncommon--financial help with school, providing dishes and towels for the first apartment, helping with a home down payment. And grandparents for generations have happily assisted with care for their grandkids. What amazes me about this article is that some millennials are getting an income stream from affluent mom and dad not just for a year or two, but for DECADES, to finance their desired lifestyles. And the fact that the 30-somethings seem clueless to the fact that this is helping to fuel the wealth inequity they are bemoaning. Or maybe it's just good ol' American hypocrisy: the woman who got her apartment paid for and still gets $10K in annual "salary" from her parents works for an organization that is advocating for taxing wealth at $1 Million (versus Elizabeth Warren's proposal of $50 Million), a 100% estate tax and abolishing ALL inheritance. Gee, let's redistribute the wealth by socking it to older middle class homeowners and small family businesses--just don't touch MY lifestyle.
16
@TigerLilyEye At $1 million she is proposing taking the retirement of the first wave that was moved from pension to 401k. That is only going to work if seniors are property tax exempt, and medical, dental, and vision care is entirely free.
3
I am in my 30s and live in Southern California. Literally every person I know my age that has purchased a home has received a significant amount of financial assistance from family.
14
My husband and I are both mid-30s and come from poor families. Not "we can't go on vacation this year" poor. More like, "we can't pay the electric bill again" poor. There has never been, and never will be, financial help. We've been trying to claw our way to the middle for 15 years (together, thankfully). It is TOUGH. Please take a closer look at stories like ours.
316
41% of parents have paid for a cell phone? The time to cut the cord was way before that. It’s great for the rents to do it, but any 30 year old should have learned to live on their own right after college. Yeah, it’s a struggle; but share an apartment, a car ride (or walk!), eat at home, don’t have that $5 latte! That struggle was the best time of our lives....
15
I agree. I’m 34 and my parents have never paid for any phone bill of mine—or car payment, or rent. My parents’ job was to raise me to be able to function in this world, which involves making sound financial decisions.
I’m definitely not wealthy, but I don’t live above my means and I don’t give a hoot about the Jones (a perspective I also learned from my parents).
7
I think the conversation should be less about buying $5 lattes and more about why does a latte cost $5?!
7
You are insane or just not paying attention if you think any number of $5 latte avoidances is the answer to an entire generation’s economic qualms.
9
This article along with so many in the times really makes me think and appreciate how fortunate I am.
I appreciate that living today is expensive although when I started working forty years back, the minimum wage wasn't very much either. I worked three jobs to get through college.
I will say, the expectations and redefining of the word need is different today. It seems like the minimum expectation of the young is to have a smartphone and cable service. These costs alone are considerable. Thankfully the cost of flat screen tvs has dropped because they all want those too.
And don't get me started on their expectations at work.
Of course the other expectation is that they deserve to have a job in this country. While in other places. people are willing to relocate in order to support themselves.
My wife and I both started off very poor and we have been very fortunate to have good incomes and prioritize saving.
We have always been willing to help but I have to admit, we will never view this generation as peers. Nice kids, but that's all they are.
5
@BB
My boomer generation produced the current crop of late thirty somethings also called millennials. We do have some responsibility for the perceived out comes
2
@BB
How on earth can you dismiss an entire generation? The reality is that while minimum wage might have been low when you started working, your math and memory might be a bit off. In Illinois in 1979, minimum wage was $2.90, which adjusts to $10.12 in today's dollars. When I working my college campus job in 2004, it was $5.25, which adjusts to $7.08, while my tuition costs at a state school were likely more than double yours.
In regards to your comments about millennials "needing" a cell phone and other items you seem to think are luxuries, welcome to the realties of living and working in 2019! I'm sure you had a land line in the early 80s, and would have found it difficult to get by without one-- a cell phone is the modern counterpart. And most of us don't have cable, we use streaming services that reduce the cost quite a bit. And did you not ever have a television as a young adult? You speak of flat screen televisions as though they're some new-fangled luxury when they've been inexpensive and widely available for a decade.
Don't take this article as representative of an entire generation. Because I have friends with parents in various economic circumstances, some (usually those of substantial means, a group which has ALWAYS extended this help to their children) have had support from their parents, but I also have friends who have taken their parents in or who pay bills for them. The most common help is parents proving some childcare, which happened in many generations.
18
@BB
Oooh - that's a hot burn!
Perhaps just as well, because realistically they won't consider you or me their peers either.
2
Those of us born in the last stages of the boomer generation did not jump into a great economy with unlimited opportunity. I graduated from college in 1981 -- a year frequently mentioned during the recent recession as "things haven't been this bad since 1981." While I always had decent benefits, for which I'm grateful, I didn't have a job that paid well until I was 33, not 23, as Ms. Alvarez mentions.
The expectations of so many Gen Xers and millennials blows my mind. I worked a second job to pay off my student loans and I saved for five years to pay cash for an Accord (which I drove for 21 years). I put money into an IRA when I first started working. My parents funded my education and while I always knew I could turn to them if things got rough, I saw supporting myself as an indication of being an adult. Now I see friends and acquaintances in their 30s and 40s who are continually helped by their parents. I hope they realize that their kids may expect the same level of support when they become adults.
448
@E. Giraud I couldn't help notice that you added "my parents funded my education". You didn't have crushing student loan debt like todays young people. Although you worked hard, you still started on second base.
143
@Laurie: Allow me to say this: my parents DID NOT fund my college or grad school, nor did they give me money for a deposit on a condo or a rental. They didn't have any money to give, and I didn't expect any from them.
I had some scholarships, and held a job during college & grad school. I graduated with a Master's degree, owing student loans equal to what was (at that time) an entire year's GROSS salary at my job. Those loans were mine, all mine, no co-signers.
How did I manage? I worked a full-time job + TWO part-time jobs. That paid for my student loans AND all the expenses of living on my own (no roommates). I was 23 at the time. Had a lot of energy and I used it to work all those jobs.
A lot of what I did was a grind, but I did it b/c it got me where I wanted to be.
It *can* be done, but most of the young people I see around me today do not want to work that hard, period. They *do* feel entitled, and that attitude comes across loud & clear, especially in the workplace. And IMO, that's unfortunate, b/c they will not be ready for the rest of the stuff life tends to throw at you as you get older! It's not just young people who are having tough times.
75
Even with a second job I don’t put a dent in my student loans. Wages are insane in this economy. Thanks, cheap contractors, and the Boomers that hire them.
72
Not all 30-somethings have that safety net and can sustain themselves, like my family. We are fortunate but have busted our behinds to be at this point. We lived in Chicago and left because we were tired of the high cost of living, poor fiscal management by the city, county, and state, and the crime. You have to work hard to make your dreams a reality. That stated, we do have a larger fundamental problem where wage growth has stagnated for the 99% of folks and executives, shareholders, and corporations are redistributing that back to themselves. Socialism isn’t the answer; instead, let’s fix capitalism.
139
@Juan Miranda- to "fix" capitalism, it stands to reason that certain aspects of socialism need to be incorporated into the capitalism system. How else can we possibly fix it?
44
@Juan Miranda Many don’t have that safety net; we didn’t. If I could do one thing to change everyone’s lot in life it would be to change the concept you cited - that it’s about “working hard” to make your dreams a reality. These days, it’s about “working smart” to make those dreams a reality. (I always use the example of putting in a new road. If you want to “work hard” you’ll dig with a spoon; not a good way to get anywhere.)
Capitalism always requires a person to survey the landscape (i.e., the market), assess one’s own skills, aptitude, training, and abilities, then find the most efficient and effective path to attain that dream - and “work smart.” And that may include updating one’s skills, training, etc. to be more inline with today’s opportunities.
The people that have chosen in-demand, marketable career paths do not see their wage growth stagnated. It’s the folks that have not made that choice (and change) that have seen their wages stagnate. The reasons vary; but the result is the same.
Capitalism doesn’t need fixing - it’s always worked the same way. But, people seem to want a form of capitalism that’s easy, one where they get to do what they want to do and not change the way they do things, and not a form of capitalism where the market is clearly showing a better, and perhaps different path.
5
@Juan Miranda. Republicans have made you afraid of the "term socialism". This is the kind of socialism that will fix what has gone wrong with capitalism.
35
College was really expensive. So my parents saved and I worked beginning at age 14. I graduated into a recession and an oil crisis. So what exactly is so different, now? Maybe it's the generation of helicopter parents scared about milk carton kids who never made their children feel strong and independent. Maybe it's a college system which encourages intellectual and personal "safety" at the expense of supporting those who want to grow up. A generation taught to look to others rather than themselves for answers. And maybe it's never being taught how to boil water but how to use the app on your phone for an overpriced delivered meal.
16
Forgive me if this scenario has been covered already:
Though I loved my family deeply, & continue to, I couldn't get away from home fast enough!
Craved independence, self-sustenance (at what has turned out to be a far lower level than most peers).
But mostly, alcoholism & mental illness had long wrecked any sense of safety in our family home. You couldn't have paid me to return.
17
my wife and I are people of color lucky enough to have parents who broke the bonds of poverty and had the financial foundation to assist us in buying our first home. My dad was a poor Black man from the Jim Crow south, 1 of 9 children. My mother a daughter of Chinese immigrants who lived with all her cousins aunts and uncles in a tiny apartment. By the time I was in grade school, my father’s business took off and we were vaulted into the upper middle class. But their humble beginnings were never too far out our lives; my father bought his parents a house and moved them out of the projects. His siblings never made it out of poverty, which makes the road for their children, my cousins, fraught with peril. My wife’s immigrant parents from working class UK and colonial Africa have similar stories.
Because we straddle both words, we see the shocking disparity between those with generational wealth, and those without. Those with it have a tremendous advantage in society that is taken for granted. But now being parents ourselves, it makes sense to pass on generational wealth to our son. And for those that don’t have such a safety net, the road is harder but not insurmountable. One can get a trade at a JC like mechanic or machinist, travel the world on contracts in their early 20s and save more than enough for a down payment on a house by 30. Certainly outside the box thinking is required, but generational wealth is a goal that all can and should strive for.
13
Isn't this entire article bankrolled by the exasperation about millennials? The article basically says nothing new -- it just fans the flames of outrage by showcasing upper middle class privilege while nominally exorcising the affluent "30-something" of fault.
It's frustrating that the less fortunate are mentioned as perhaps 'taking care of other family members' and yet this is not seriously acknowledged.
Many millennials I know (myself included) are financially supporting their parents. It's possible to be paying off your parents' mortgage while remaining on a family cellphone plan (thereby skewing the statistics). What this article really shows is the ever widening wealth gap, albeit in a classist, flippant, and tone deaf way.
489
@Amy. Word. Especially amongst immigrant parents and their children, I've known quite a few families where the 20-something kids are "living at home" but paying rent/ the mortgage... I've heard (white) people assume that the kids are massively benefitting, but no, not that simple.
26
@Amy
"It's possible to be paying off your parents' mortgage while remaining on a family cellphone plan."
You mean you never moved out of the house and and is now forced to pay rent which pays for the mortgage. Amazing!
9
Most of these supposedly lazy millennials are dying to get on a career path that will pay what they need to live in this city. It's not as if people just decided to become lazy all of a sudden. I remember when I had dreams of a career in publishing, I couldn't even give my labor away for free. The universities had all the internships completely sewn up. Most people don't mind doing menial work - as long as it leads somewhere better. The problem is there's too many dead end jobs.
287
@Jess Isn’t this part of the challenge we all face, and that everyone has faced since the beginning? Your dream was having a career in publishing. But, if that field is in such low demand that you “couldn’t even give your labor away for free,” that was the market signaling you in the best way it could to look for a different and more in-demand path.
Millions of millennials are dying to get on a career path that is a dead end given the changing marketplace. Changing direction is not often an easy choice to make, but it’s a necessary choice to make if millennials are going to come out of this well.
True - there are too many dead-end jobs. The solution? Don’t go into them.
Whether a job is menial is irrelevant. What’s relevant and necessary - and this applies to everyone - is to continuously survey the landscape (i.e., the market), assess one’s own skills, aptitude, training, and abilities, then find the most efficient and effective path to attain that dream. And that may include updating one’s skills, training, etc. to be more inline with today’s opportunities.
20
Jess, move out of the city. If all the internships are already full, those are the people who will be the publishers, despite your dreams; the early bird gets the worm, you know. Keep your costs low, always work, and find something else to do. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the world is not here for you to have your dreams, while living in the most expensive city in the richest country in the world. Please get some perspective on yourself, and move forward.
25
Very interesting article. As I live in Canada, former american, I found it fascinating that there was no mention of the costs of health care...
13
I find the tone of this article just stunning. Since when is there a sacrosanct right to live in the most expensive housing markets in the country? NYC is not newly expensive - it has always been expensive. When I graduated from college many years ago, I got a job in Manhattan, but certainly couldn't afford to live there. So I did what most people in my situation did: I lived where I could afford and commuted to work over an hour each way on public transportation. This is hardly a radical proposition except to those who somehow think they are entitled to have what they want when they want it. Sometimes you have to learn to defer gratification. The easiest time to do this is when you are young. After 8 years of saving, I was able to make a down payment on a house. 4 years after that I finished paying off my student loans. There is great value in learning to live within one's means and I am grateful that my parents found it more important to foster self-reliance than to insulate me from disappointment.
658
I just love how many Boomers think an entire generation’s economic woes come down to all of the millennials choosing to live in Manhattan.
Did you forget our avocado toasts? I order ten a day with my iPhone X.
89
@Suzanne, it's not just NYC. I live in the relatively podunk city of San Antonio, where the median housing price has increased from $161,400 to $231,200 in just six years. Have salaries increased correspondingly? No way, Jose.
The whole salary-vs.-housing-price dynamic has changed since I bought my first house in Austin in 1990 for roughly 1.5x my annual salary. The same house recently sold for about 6x my current salary. Could I afford to buy it now? Nope. We boomers had a huge advantage.
153
@Suzanne - totally agree with your post. I have many boomer friends who are going without while bankrolling their offspring’s glam apartments, wardrobes, and even European travel. Some of my friends are in relationships where their significant others won’t commit because of the other’s adult children’s dependency. To commenters here excoriating those of us who point out no one should be entitled to a Manhattan residence, at some point the gravy train will come to an abrupt halt, and then what will you do?
42
I do not begrudge Ms. Alvarez her condo and parents, often, take great pride if they are able to help their children financially. That said I do not know the real estate market in San Diego. What I do know is that real estate is all about location. Had Ms. Alvarez not chosen to live 3 blocks from the beach (and that counts as living at the beach) could she have afforded a condo without help from her parents?
263
@BG, you hit the nail on the head. My first purchased home was in a dodgy neighborhood and was a fixer-upper on the edge of tear-down condition. Before that, my apartment rentals were modest and in less than prime neighborhoods. If you want to purchase a home, first you have to save some money. My husband and I never got a penny from our parents for any home. Nor would we have ever asked for any. We advanced into better properties over time, with lots of work.
47
@BG
Believe me, the real estate market where I live(near the beach) is quite pricey. The cheapest tiny cottage when I moved here in 2009 - market way down - was in the $250k range. It is now back on the market for $800k. But, even "inland" the smallest little house is very expensive and often a real reach for young people loaded down with student debt. We need some form of social democracy - call it what you will.
24
I think you should leave the cost of private preschool in NYC out of your calculations -- stick with the problems faced by ordinary people for whom such a thing is an unimaginable luxury -- there are plenty of them. Ordinary costs such as rent, car (decent mass transit being unavailable in many parts of the country), food, clothes, and daycare are already hard to manage for young families, even in smaller cities with less insane real-estate markets. And even single young adults, assuming they aren't armed with an Ivy League diploma or a lucrative profession, are struggling. And, if and as they can, their parents are helping. We're glad to do it for our kids, as it has meant that they could take their time to find and develop careers that really match their interests and abilities, which might otherwise be impossible no matter what city you live in.
7
Being parents, and now grandparents, who have supported our children through many years, we so relate to this article. We just paid our last tuition check at age 65. But I don't regret in any way the support I give, with an eye towards helping them to eventual independence. That's what families do. But what does irk me is when I hear simultaneous talk about FIRE: financial independence, retire early. Not on my dime!! I'm happy to help them have productive, health and happy lives. But if my support goes towards their dream of not having to work hard for what they get, I'm out!
9
As a 61 year-old father, I know what it is like to inherit money from elderly parents after one has already "made it" in this life. It really doesn't matter at that point. So, I'm giving my late 20-something kids gifts now, when they really need it. When I look at it, I've got enough going forward. Why wait?
14
@Don K. Exactly our approach also. When our son and daughter-in-law thank us for picking up a check, I simply say no problem, it is coming from your inheritance. We long ago decided that we would like to see the benefits of our funds, so we sent our three grand kids to college via 529 accounts and yearly distribute cash to both our children.
What this story is describing is the transfer of inheritance to beneficiaries before the death of their parents. It is a good and humane practice.
A tragedy of our society is that not all parents can afford to do this. We are among the lucky.
20
"So last year Ms. Alvarez’s parents surprised her with a $50,000 cash gift to help with a down payment on a $435,000 condo three blocks from the beach in San Diego".
This quote says it all- you can easily buy a place in San Diego on a salary of $75k a year. You just can't buy one 3 blocks from the beach. Perhaps we need a readjustment of expectations.
My parents got a loan from my dad's parents for the down payment on their first house. It wasn't in a great neighborhood or fancy, but it was a house. They paid the parents back. Being an adult means making sacrifices for a better future. We can't all live at the beach at 30 years old.
26
Have to laugh at the many commenters who claim corporations and business need to pay more taxes. Taxes are a business expense that gets added to the cost of every gallon of gas or milk, loaf of bread or pair of shoes. Consumers pay the taxes for businesses and corporations.
7
@Reader In Wash, DC
Do you also consider profits to be a business expense?
2
@Reader In Wash, DC
And if there were some kind of true competition (assuming elastic demand), changes in taxes wouldn't have much affect on prices (i.e., they'd impact profits more).
But we no longer aim for competition in our markets; we have 'too big to fail' corporations.
I was surprised to find Chicago included in a list of unaffordable cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D. C. One of the Windy City's great advantages is the relatively low cost of housing.
5
Not to be flip, but it takes a village. Calculating the amount that grandparents contribute to childcare? That is beyond absurd. It's called a family and love. In the past, grandparents, aunts, uncles, helped raise the children and no one would think of the monetary value of their help. We have become mercenary about everything in this country, even familial love. It's pretty gross.
43
@FRT
There's a big difference between grandparents taking the kid for the odd night or weekend, and being relied on for child care so the parents can work. The former is familial love, the latter is a job.
23
@Matt J These appear diametrically opposed, but I recommended them both. We HAVE become mercenary about everything, and there IS a big difference between a grandparent babysitting every Saturday, say, and handling the whole job so the mother or father or both can work full-time.
4
@Matt J
Historically grandparents have always been major providers of childcare. Families lived in a inter generational system where the parents work to support both children and retired grandparents. The grandparents help to raise the kids.
The promotion of the nuclear family as the desirable norm, has been the rot at the heart of N. American society for too long.
7
Thomas Pickety analyzes this in Capital in the 21st Century. Income from wealth grows faster than income from labor, and over time this difference snowballs. Eventually, this leads to intergenerational wealth even among the upper middle class that parents begin to pass along to their children during the parents lifetime. This may lead to a dynastic form of wealth as those who make their living from work simply can't catch up. This is the logic of capital accumulation.
40
I wonder as well, though, about the mentality in this country about being financially independent starting right after college or high school. Not many other cultures around in the world expect that. In many places, students live at home throughout college - they aren't expected to live in dorms or move away. The line about Millennials needing to give up the "by the bootstraps" narrative is misplaced, I think. My generation (Millennial) is actually very progressive in that sense - we don't believe in that narrative. The only reason anyone hides the help their parents are giving them is how much it's looked down in our society at large, particularly if you grew up in a conservative family. And yet, I remember being in Senegal and someone there telling me how the common practice is for parents to give most of their wealth to their young children (actually male child, a different problem, but that's another discussion), and then that child uses that money to make their way in the world, sending their parents enough money back to take care of them. That's an incredible amount of trust, but also an acknowledgement that the most wealth resides in an older generation who needs it the least.
8
My husband and I had very different childhoods 2 miles apart. He came from a blue collar home and was told to move out at 18 and find a job, or stay home and contribute towards room and food, or join the military (1972). He enlisted in the Marines.
I was a lawyer's daughter who had college paid for as well as a 2nd hand car to make trips home for Thanksgiving.
He had almost no help his entire adult life and had many years of struggle and financial strain, while my life was generously filled with free used cars every 4 years and checks at Christmas.
Without help from parents today, I think many are in much worse shape than those in the 1970's-1980's. Many of my friends cover phone bills, down payments, or offer other financial help or babysitting in our suburban town 25 mi from NYC. This area is
filled with parents who can and do help. I realize it is privileged living.
13
The continued erosion of the middle class.
21
This issue of millennials having less wealth has been caused by several things:
- employers offloading financial risk onto employees (think the gig economy, "flexible" scheduling, no longer paying for necessary training, and 401ks instead of pensions)
- Rich people having a disproportionate share of the money, which puts them in an unfairly advantageous position to buy (multiple) real-estate properties and outbid those with average incomes
- Colleges spending money in unwise and unfair ways (most colleges spend outrageous amounts of money on real estate and administration, not classrooms and scholarships) while jacking up the cost for almost every student
- Developers incentivized to build profitable Mcmansions instead of condos and apartments more practical for millennials.
This is the wealthy stealing from the masses; this is the Boomers stealing the future of the generations after them. We cannot just talk about how hard it is to be a Millennial; we have to talk about WHY, and who is causing this game to be increasingly unfair. Only then can we truly tackle these issues.
43
@Ashleigh Adams I was agreeing with almost everything you said until you started blaming the Boomers. The Boomers are *not* equivalent to the 1% or even the wealthy. A generation is not the same thing as a social class.
9
@Ashleigh Adams well said!
1
@Frances Grimble I am certainly not blaming every Boomer, but as a whole generation, the majority have done a lot of damage. Boomers' first major election was Reagan, ushering in trickle-down economics that have devastated the country and union-busting that has become endemic. It's also the Boomers that are making housing policy more difficult so they can protect their property values. Boomers benefited from cheap college, housing, and great infrastructure provided to them by the Greatest Generation, who believed in investing the future. Now Boomers are benefiting from social programs like SS and Medicare, but have no issue with cutting education spending or healthcare benefits (check the statistics - most voted for Trump) for the generations coming up through the system. Essentially, whether they themselves are super-wealthy or not, the fact is that the majority (though not all), and the representatives they voted for in Congress for decades, have been supporting massive generational theft. We as a country need to acknowledge, for the sake of social stability if nothing else, that stealing from millennials and Gen Z is primarily the fault of the Boomer generation, and it needs to be fixed.
8
I just took an Uber ride from the senior community where my parents reside to the airport. The young Venezuelan man who was driving remarked on how he is so surprised how groups of seniors live together in these complexes instead of living with their extended family. Rather than shame the younger generation that they are unable to support themselves like a “real” adult, we could learn from other nations where living with relatives is normal, welcomed, and leads to a richer family life. Living with family should be celebrated, as it is completely natural, and creates built-in efficiencies of child care, senior care, and shared cooking and cleaning. It’s not that one way is better than the other, but we should have choices without feeling embarrassed about it.
80
I'm more than happy to help my kids out as much as I can, before and after I die. I see this as my responsibility to off-set what mine - perhaps the 'worst generation' (to my parents' 'greatest', though that is dubious) - has bestowed them:
Off-shoring of jobs that once would have granted them middle-class status; college and health care costs that outpace inflation; social security and medicare that I will eat up before they have access; crippling national debt - thanks to regressive tax policies; and lets not forget the environmental catastrophes that loom, thanks to our collective heads-in-the-sand.
I and they are lucky that I'll leave them some assets, the most valuable one might be a small plot of defensible land, and a tractor.
19
I'd like to see a story on democratic presidential candidates and congressional representatives, and how they plan to address this economic crisis in practical terms. I'm 31 and graduated college in 2009, at the very height of the recession. More than a third of my graduating class immediately moved back home because there were simply no employment prospects. While I was fortunate to graduate without debt, most of my peers are still in massive student loan debt, have poor credit, and have at one time or another been unemployed and forced to depend on family or even live off credit cards and further amass more high-interest debt. A lot of us don't make much more than we were making in our early 20s—that's 10 years of wage stagnation. This permanent financial stasis has logistical, psychological, and emotional consequences: we're putting off everything from buying houses, to having children, to getting married, primarily for financial reasons, in my opinion. The government has never recognized exactly how much the majority of millennials are really struggling with high rents, poverty wages, and little to no health benefits. That's the story I want to see featured about my generation, not objectifying and shaming millennials (in the STYLE section, no less) who have families willing to help out. The sad truth is that most of us just want to be able to maintain the middle-class socio-economic status we were born into.
40
@HC
I agree with you, but millennials with the challenges you describe were not featured in this article.
1
This whole idea of a nuclear, economically independent family unit is something that only recently came about, its origins being in the brief economic boom of the 1950s and early 60s, and it was mostly limited to whites. Before that, many families were multi-generational and extended in their networks of mutual aid. For minority and immigrant communities, no strangers to hardship and societal barriers, there was no social stigma in relying on an uncle or a distant cousin for help, let alone one's own parents and grandparents. It was what was expected. The boss wasn't going to help you, and neither was the government. Your family was the only thing that could be relied on.
So it was then, and so it is now.
28
Financial help from parents (for some) also helps suppress wages in general, since the kids can afford to take lousy wages that don't pay the bills. Since everyone does not get this deal, those who have to earn every cent are also competing with those who can "afford" more due to the magic money.
Parents want to help their kids, but I have known too many adults who are still overly dependent on Mom and Dad (and their money), into their '40's and beyond.
For 30 somethings who have lived very simply and creatively and somehow done it all on their own: we need you to run the world some day, since you know how to make your budget!
17
@Crying in the Wilderness I agree. I have peers who live on their trust fund and then can "afford" to buy an Auber-expensive home and have a "fun" low paying job. It alters the job market and the housing market and disenfranchises even further those who have to be self-reliant.
11
We are native New Yorkers who stayed here, raised our kids here who are now in their 20s.
But it is clear that our kids cannot stay in NYC as the city has been transformed into a playground for the rich, with housing (in traditionally middle/moderate/low income neighborhoods) gobbled by wealthy people of all ages and backgrounds.
Our kids have decent jobs and are frugal, but their salaries are not sufficient to cover housing - and to have a life in NYC.
But it is also not clear where they can go.
The cost of housing is the critical issue
Worth noting the profound income/wealth inequality among the millennial demographic - there are 20-30 somethings making a lot of money in tech, finance for example.
Then everyone else - so many young people with low paying jobs, unable to afford housing.
26
Let's not pretend that "30 somethings" is the first generation to have the bankroll of their parents. It has always been thus.
I'm in my 50's and not one of my associates or close friends didn't have mommy or daddy's backing at some point.
Whenever I hear someone declare "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps" I cringe because I know it to be extremely rare or untrue.
The greatest mitigating factor of this is education. More education means a greater chance at financial success....but again who generally pays for that?
12
Expand your circle of friends. It’s not rare for those whose parents cannot provide such support.
4
It’s not just big educational loans or lower salaries that contribute to parental ongoing financial involvement in their young adult kids lives. Many of these young adults have had the good fortune to be born into financially successful families. Poor families don’t pay their kids cell phone bills or underwrite grandchildren’s private school tuition. Millennials have gotten used to a pretty high standard of living and they don’t like starting at the bottom. They have heightened expectations of how one lives and they don’t think twice about getting help from parents so they don’t have to do without. It’s hard for me to fathom that one couple would have a third child because their parents will do the child care. It doesn’t cross their minds that affording another child is their decision that shouldn’t involve their parents. These parents seem to think they can’t say no to their kids. The issue isn’t parents agreeing to take on these roles it’s why their adult kids would have the the unbridled selfishness to even ask their parents. It’s one thing if there’s a death, a loss of a young parent, or an unexpected illness or tragedy. It’s become normal for parents to be raising their grandchildren, and many millennials make career choices without any regard to how those choices may impact their decision to have kids or how many to have. My generation has helped raised adults who are evolving into adulthood very slowly. This parental involvement is especially seen in today’s colleges.
20
@Jonathan Lewis, you are out of your mind. There is lots of research supporting the idea that the reason why humans life so far beyond their reproductive age (esp women) is because the help they can give to grandchildren is such an asset.
I see nothing wrong with cross generational support.
My mother gave me significant support throughout college, primarily by letting me live at home and covering my living expenses(she couldn’t afford my tuition). Had she not, I would have been quagmired in debt. That would not be the right move financially, not even considering the emotional side. I’ve seen her give help to my sister, who has had much more difficulty than me. I have given quite a bit to my father to help his financial troubles. My sister in law helped my wife and I put together a down payment a few months before we’d otherwise be able to afford it. My wife and I helped pay off her parents’ mortgage. My mother in law has provided hundreds of hours worth of childcare for my daughter. Functional families help support each other, especially in a country like the US where the safety net is so threadbare.
44
Two years ago I was finally finished supporting our younger son's education for his second graduate degree - his first in art had not panned out on the earnings front. My wife and had also footed the total education bill for our older son who has been for now now ten years a top earning research MD. The younger graduated without student debt, which we paid off completely when he began earning. I was an octogenarian. I had been retired for six years. Then last year I sent him half of the cost of a new penthouse apartment in Berlin, Germany, where he lives. He needed to be free from his constantly rising rent. Now he benefits from the rising values of most world-class city real estate as an owner of the apartment. In Berlin those values rise 5% a year. In all economies it is easy to slip into the "precariate": that group whose existence easily becomes precarious due to factors outside of their control. Those factors create too much homelessness, especially large cities. Resource sharing may be essential for parents who have the means to do so. Yes, this is a parental obligation. And adult children should have no qualms accepting such aid. To argue that young folks have to learn independence and self-reliance, cherished American values, misunderstands the power of economic forces that have nothing to do with self-reliance.
16
@Friend of NYT If you have the money and if you are so inclined, you can of course support your "child" if you believe it to be valuable to his maturation process or an absolute emergency. But when does it end if ever? How did you get your own money: industriousness; thrift; luck; creativity; inheritance; marriage?
1
@Friend of NYT. You seem to be very well off. Otherwise, this advice you are giving is idiotic, and shows how the American dream is basically a mirage for the majority of our people.
3
I never received financial support from my parents. I left my home country and moved abroad with what I saved while working in college. I came to New York with dreams and no legal status. I worked side by side with people whose parents paid for everything. It was very frustrating to know how easy their lives were and how supported they must have felt going home to their cool air conditioning and brand new mattresses, not to mention going to Drs and dentists without sobbing in the street about how they were going to pay for it. That said, at the risk of sounding trite, all of these experiences made me the strong and independent person I am today. THAT said, I am still envious of those who had more support than I did and feel envious of that type of ease. I remember so well how much they took it for granted.
24
Also, I never had any support and I have managed to have a successful career, and become a homeowner. So, I say boo hoo to the millennials who think life is so tough. Figure it out like I did.
2
I thought I was self made..got IT job in 78, bought my own house in 80(with no social life and sharing cheap rent with junker car put away 13k), bought 2 fam rental in 83(both houses to impress girls which was a fail). Married and changed 2 fam for apartment house right at S and L crisis, walked away from 150k equity and 100k rent over 10 years(impossible to collect) and came within an inch of bankruptcy and house loss(did miracle loan work out). Had 2 kids, k-12 catholic school, worked 2nd job(wife not working much another story), did Obama mortgage, did credit card workout, kids in college and I figured I would drain 401k and work till death. My mother and aunt died at 90 and 88(I was 60) and made me executor..very frugal ww2 widows and got enough to kind of finish college. Retired now at 63, substitute teach daily in urban environment, adjunct at comm college but I will NEVER spend a nickel on self, drive junk cars and eat PB and J. I try to play it forward to cancer/heart charities, Cath ed as you never know when you might get help. I was self made until 60 and shocked that I luckily got exactly what needed and pray that my kids in health care will realize that they got a great gift and play it forward themselves and not get this jerk materialistic lifestyle so beloved in America. Rambling I know but what a roller coaster and I KNOW I am lucky compared to most
17
@arthur
Yours is a story of survival and hard work. I think it’s fair to say no one is self-made; however, it’s clear you didn’t have the benefits many other had to achieve similar paths.
Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and harder for young people to survive. And most successful adults now rely on financial assistance from their parents. Gobalism has failed Western democracies. And this new generation
3
Which is why so much of America is offended when the coastal elites tell them "well, if you can't find a job where you're living now, just move to a place where there are jobs".
19
@Jim S. It's an unfortunate cycle. I'm from the Cleveland area. When I was younger, I would not have minded staying in the area when I graduated college. But my options were limited, so I made the choice to put down roots in a place where I had more of them.
My 20s were a struggle, and it wasn't until I hit my 30s that I was really stable, financially. I worked hard and moved up at my job. My parents really had no cash to supplement me, so I did the best that I could.
This is just living though. I don't regret my choices, I only look forward and try to do better.
8
@Jim S. Well, plenty of us who moved to these cities are not, in fact, bankrolled by our parents. Many of us are doing just fine. The point remains - if there aren't enough jobs where you are, you have the option to stay and create them, to stay and be bitter, or to move somewhere else to find gainful employment.
5
@Jim S. If all parents have to offer is in-kind help, as opposed to cash, then moving away from them is not going to work. I
2
Funny, no young people I know are bankrolled by their parents.
As usual, The New York Times both caters to, and excoriates, a small demographic that the rest of New Yorkers -- and we are many, and the majority -- do not have much to do with. So, they're lucky. Big deal. And for those less lucky, New York City is enormous. Lots of nice neighborhoods in Brooklyn if you're not a snob.
There are bigger issues to investigate than the economic affairs of this small group.
Move on.
38
You couldn't pay me enough to live in NYC.
16
When there is a will, there is a way.
My wife and I are in our mid-30's. We have two kids. I still owe over $30k in student loans. Our older child goes to private school in NYC (thank the lord for very substantial financial aid). We also bought our place over five years ago, and between the two of us, we have over a half a million stashed away in our retirement accounts, while also contributing to 529 accounts. We have not received any major assistance from our parents beyond occasional child care.
How is this possible? Well, for one, we never had the need or urge to live in a 'trendy' neighborhood. We lived and ended up buying in the Bronx. We did our research and were able to finance with an FHA loan with low down payment. The mortgage insurance was dropped when we refinanced.
Most of all, we ended up buying a multi-unit property and we live in one of the units. Certainly not a challenge everyone wants, but it is an available route.
Is it a bit tough sometimes? Yes. Do we forego some luxuries that many folks with our income indulge in for the sake of having more in the future? Yes.
I do not begrudge anyone any assistance from their parents. More power to them and their parents, it is perfectly normal for parents to help their kids. I just don't fully buy the idea that it is some impossible feat for well paid professional thirty-somethings to do things like get married, buy a house and have kids if parents are not footing the bill for parts of their lives.
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@Realist How was Mr. Realist's education funded? Professionals usually need graduate degrees. And in the US graduate degrees are increasingly expensive. It may be unrealistic for less fortunate to find the necessary funding for a sound education. Otherwise I fully agree with everything else that the Realist said. Nonetheless: We have real problems here in the USA on issues of adequate education for good jobs. Those problems exist in other countries also. But they are handled differently. US universities' tuition rises far more rapidly than the inflation rate. Graduate education was more affordable 20, 40 years ago. We must be realistic to recognize those problems.
3
@Friend of NYT:
I graduated with nearly six figures of student loans (which is why I STILL have over $30k). For a long time, it ate up more than my share of the rent. A couple of refinances at lower rates, lucking out with the housing market doing well after we bought and taking some equity to pay down one of the refinanced student loans, and here we are.
Did my parents help a bit? Yes, they had to when I was in college, but not much after. This article doesn't really point the finger at parents helping kids while IN college though. Same goes for Mrs. Realist (although she didn't have nearly as much in loans).
Going to a brand-name expensive private school was a mistake for me, and one that I will discourage my kids from making.
Oh, and for what it is worth: I dipped my foot in graduate school and took on more loans, but left without completing it when I realized how much more I would have to take and what kind of 'reward' awaited me.
My wife is public servant and I work in support at a large legal shop. Good money, even by NYC standards, but nothing extravagant.
I am not suggesting that it is easy. Nor am I saying that it is equally easy for people in different income brackets. What I am saying is that young professionals, who earn a decent salary can absolutely do it. The sure-fire way of doing it is to make a sacrifice in the biggest expense...housing. Do that when you are renting, and then you can save up quicker to buy (if that is something you want).
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@Realist
This is not a will or way situation. You have over $500k in retirement st 35. You are rich. Most people don’t have incomes that correlate to a mammoth retirement at that age.
Many people that are as intelligent, ambitious, and pragmatic as you and your partner cannot make the same lifestyle work, regardless of will. To frame it in such a way is a disservice to the conversation and shows a lack of understanding about your context as compared to most Americans.
12
For those commenting about how they can contribute to their kids retirement, or provide other financial support, you are the minority. It is not normal for parents to be able to support their kids this way.
I think it’s valid to question what this level of financial handholding does to a child’s understanding of the world, and how it effects their ability to empathize with those of us (most of us) who have no safety net.
I graduated from a good business school a few years back. My background (Midwest, mechanic father, mom worked at a department store) did not match at all with the spoiled children I attended courses with. I was amazed and disheartened by their general naïveté of the world, and the inflated egos their upbringing had instilled.
I’m not sure I had an expectation of how to feel after reading this, but I guess in truth it has added to the jade I already have for the wealthy. Many who don’t consider themselves “rich” are actually extraordinary wealthy in the eyes of most of us. Rich parents supporting kids is a noble thought but I guess I am torn on how to absorb this conversation.
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@Sam
"I think it’s valid to question what this level of financial handholding does to a child’s understanding of the world, and how it effects their ability to empathize with those of us (most of us) who have no safety net."
Yes! Yes! So well stated.
8
Can i get out the small violin, because about half the cases cited are legitimate and the other half is whining about delayed gratification. Nobody twisted arms to have your parents or yourself take on huge student loans for your dream career and life. Possibly you take a detour of a couple of years and join the military and go to school later on the GI Bill (not every job in the military puts you in Afghanistan) or take some entry level job at a place that has a tuition aid plan and go to school at night for a few years. Lots of people in the past had to save up money until they were in their mid-30s before they could come up with a down payment for a house sans a parent six figure boon, where some people think having to wait a few years is their generation being shortchanged. While past generations have certainly screwed up lots of things up for 30-somethings, before the strings break on the small violin being played, my question is would you trade your situation for that of a newly arrived legal immigrant from some place like Haiti that is really starting from the bottom. I would suspect not.
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@Kevin
The military does entail some financial assistance and that path is right for some but not all. I think you are way off assuming companies will provide actual tuition reimbursement. I’ve worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies and they all offer the federal minimum - about $5200 per year. That is if you go to school while working full time. At current college costs that amount is much too little.
Also, the wait for a house is not the issue, it’s that many will never get there given the dynamic between wages and housing costs. It is not the same as it used to be.
Agree some stories are a bit babyish but your solutions were poor, and the comparison to a Haitian immigrant made no sense.
12
@Kevin this is the exact route I took. Joined the military during senior year of HS. Used GI Bill to pay for some college. Entered into an apprenticeship program, earned a journeyman card in a skilled trade. Continued to work full time (50+ hrs/wk) in said trade while going to school. Company paid tuition. I'm now 45, highly skilled with 2 associates degrees (electrical engineering tech and automation and robotics). I make very good money and my skills are in high demand. I can leave any job at any time and be employed immediately. It can be done, you just have to have realistic objectives and willingness to go without.
4
@Todd I completely agree with you. I grew up in an NYC project, did a few years in the military and after a few years in a dead end job used the GI Bill and the company tuition aid plan to pay for college at night and worked any overtime I could get to have a decent standard of living until my education allowed me to move up in the same company. Needless to say it didn't take four years to finish, but it was certainly doable. I frequently run into twenty-somethings that work and go to school at night and come from less than affluent backgrounds, that are even doing it with less resources than I had (GI Bill). That impresses me even more because their time frame is going to be longer than the six years it took me. They know they are going to have delay gratification until they can have the career and life they want, but sans bankroll they are still moving towards the finish line without a lot of whining.
2
I am 56 so, if I had kids (I do not), mine would be 30-ish now.
A major reason that I did not have kids is that what the 30-somethings are going through now was predictable before they were born! I am not kidding.
I started college in 1981 and went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a private esteemed STEM school. My tuition was $8400/year. Of course, tuition rose and I realized that it was going to cost us me least $40k for our 4 years.
I decided that I was not going to saddle my children with the yoke of college debt that I was for so long.
I ran the numbers in my head and assumed that my kid's 4-year college education was going to be about $70k. Since a kid is about 7000 days old when they get to school, I would have to save $10/day for every day the kid is alive. And that's one kid!
However, my tuition quickly rose - and faster than inflation. Soon, it became apparent that my $70k estimate was going to be way off because college tuition just kept rising much faster than inflation.
It became apparent that I could pay for my kid's college - even one kid. I also felt it would be cruel if they were in debt for school because then they could not afford a mortgage or retirement or their own kids.
It soon was obvious that it was irresponsible to have kids unless I was wealthy and that this was the GOP at work. Between their reversal on environmental policies and screwing anyone not rich, I chose to not have kids.
I don't regret it as this article illustrates.
22
The article suggests that the 30-somethings who can not afford their own homes are not somehow inadequate, but are caught in the limitations of their backgrounds and the larger economy. This suggests they deserve dignity for doing as well as they can, yet the accompanying images are of mothers feeding and caring for baby animals, a cutesy, insulting joke at their expense. What's it going to be: dignity or denigration? How did the editors miss this? Who designed and approved this page?
17
@Ima Palled - I love your screen name!!!
4
Back in my day, we used to wear plaid, grow our hair (a little bit) long, and listen to bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. When college was done, we moved home. So to Millenials I say this: Stop being bumbs! Go out there and young men and women! Accomplish Something! Tis not too late!
5
Too many 30- and 20- somethings want everything and they want it now. Waiting and being patient is not par of their calculous.
Children, upscale cars and SUVs, big homes in upscale neighborhoods, travel, boutique appliances, nice restaurants, jewelry and toys are needs to them, not wants.
Paying for it all? What, wait, these things cost money? How can that be?
Ms. Palmer decided to have a third child because of free child care from her parents? There's some interesting 30-something thinking. Now if she could reduce here grocery bill by couponing, she could have a fourth! (Can't help but wonder how Dylan Palmer Dave is going to turn out.)
Sorry for the cynicism but not sorry for not caring about the fate of people for whom making idiotic life choices has become a full-time job – or their enabling parents.
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@James J
You denigrate people you really do not know. Where is the responsibility of the boomer parents who created these millennials.
1
Having a child because the grandparents can take care of him/her???
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@Brigitte As a grandparent and great-grandparent I would never babysit. I have better things to do. And why would anyone in this day and age want three children? Doesn't she know that the U.S. and the world is overpopulated? She's too old anyway.
8
Wait, what?! How is a "personal finance expert" having a third child she can't afford?
136
How colorblind can you be, NYT??? The fact that a generation of white, middle class boomers has the privilege to bestow on their adult children the financial means to live comfortably in increasingly unaffordable (and hence, rapidly gentrifying) cities, is the direct result of racist social policies (e.g. the post-WW2 GI Bill, legalized redlining, the pre-1964 FHA, etc) which have privileged them and whose legacies are still quite apparent. Far fewer families of color have the luxury of supporting their adult kids (in kind or in cash) because their families were denied the ability to build wealth the way white families were. This is not a complete story and as such, very disappointing.
42
Why must every story inject identity politics? The race of the Thirty Something cast has nothing to do with this story.
9
This is the economic system in the Age of Reagan, and it is a clear and present danger to our Constitutional Democracy, and it is it is a more direct threat to human survival than Climate Change.
In the Age of Roosevelt one worker made enough money to own a house and automobile and to support a spouse and several children at home.
With the financial crisis of 2008, Obama had a golden opportunity to end the Age of Reagan but unlike FDR he did not have the will to crush the Republicans who established our current unviable economic system.
As FDR stated in his Economic Bill of Rights speech, economic stability is necessary, not just for individual prosperity, but to avoid the rise of Dictators and catastrophic wars.
22
It's the responsibility of all of us to understand our collective affluence and to insist that our country provide the basis for more economic equality. It's not just about taxing extreme wealth, although that is part of what's needed. We need to purposefully harness our resources to provide education all the way through college and health care for all as well. On the average all of us will be better off. We need to make wiser choices.
The situation we're in is largely the fault of people older than thirty. But fault is not the same as (current) responsibility. The political responsibility for addressing economic inequality belongs with all of us regardless of age. Every person's economic planning should include a political component. That is price of self-government. But it is also the triumph of self-government that we can take care of those things that are better handled with collective resources.
We don't have to be country where the fundamental credo is every person for themself.
Millions of Americans were sold a bill of goods when they allowed themselves to be convinced that we can't afford to take care of our own. Many countries do a lot better for their people with fewer resources. The inequalities described in this article are largely a result of foolish selfishness and fear of failure. We can do better.
12
In most cases, parents love their children and children love their parents. What else is there to know?
10
@Ralph Sadly, even this is a privilege of wealth. It's easier to get along when everyone is safe and well fed. Less to fight about.
5
With full recognition that today’s economic climate is significantly different from when I was young, I will offer my experience as potentially instructive.
I’m a 62 year old construction worker. No pension, no health benefits. My wife and I, together, earn in the upper mid 5 figures and live in a suburb of Chicago. We dine out only occasionally and travel very infrequently. No kids. Credit cards are paid off every month. We live frugally but comfortably taking care of the necessities first. We save as much as possible and over the decades have put together a nice nest egg. Despite an apparently spartan lifestyle, the years have been full of meaning, friendships and joy.
Here’s my advice, for what it’s worth:
- Live within your means. Be aware of the vast power of our consumerist culture.
- if you can’t afford kids, don’t have them
-if you can’t afford college, don’t go. As far as I know a degree is not required to work in the trades.
-you might not always get what you want
Lastly, and simply, from a retired investment banker I met who said this with the utmost sincerity: “stay out of debt”
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@Slambert:
Amen.
May I add a few more?
Community colleges and state schools are not to be looked down upon; I can point out many super-successful people in my field (law) that went to schools that Ivy Leaguers would spit on.
We put our kids through good state schools and they have done well.
Undergraduate costs: If possible, this should be paid by the parents.
Graduate degrees: The children need to own this, they should pay.
I worked full time and went to law school at night; I was a career changer, didn't graduate law school until age 40. We ate a lot of beans during that time; sometimes we still do - you must live within your means!
Children are a blessing - no matter what they cost.
Last, when will anyone start to question tuition costs that have no upper limit? Colleges have zero incentive to keep costs down. No other business operates like that - and, yes, colleges are a business.
33
At 47 my parents made their third child (me) and gave me to their 27 year old daughter (my sister) who could not conceive.
I was told when I was 4. It was fine.
Not all parental gifts have a dollar sign.
15
Why are so many of the comments in the category of us against them, Milllennials vs Boomers, such as " Boomers often seem to be clueless to how amazingly good they had it."
I'm a Boomer and when I had it good I realized it. Also I'll add, I had it good until I didn't. The forces that have knocked down the Millennials didn't originate with their generation.
The Powerful have done a great job of divide and conquer. This is a cultural (vulture capitalism?) problem and pitting one generation against another is not a solution to deep systemic problems.
36
@Mary Ann Donahue Yes, I am having trouble understanding why an article about family members helping each other is giving rise to comments about how awful the other generation is, and how awful people with a little more money are even though they are sharing it.
3
I’ve been financially independent since I graduated college at age 22 (I’d just turned 22 actually). Here we are four years later and my wife and I earn more than 80% of American households. We didn’t do it thanks to our parents bankrolling a move to a big city - in fact, we have never had to ask them for money. Instead, we just worked hard and moved up. We take our parents out to dinner when they come visit, not the other way around.
Needless to say, I question this narrative of the millennial who can’t get ahead and -must- rely on parents for help. To me, it sounds more like rich baby boomers have just never learned to quit being helicopter parents.
14
@Mr. Adams maybe living where you do says it all.
5
@Mr. Adams "We just worked hard and moved up."
Please name at least one thing you (and your wife,) benefited from that wasn't a result of simply working hard.
3
@Mr. Adams Dear Mr. Adams, you are obviously fortunate and intelligent. Both probably in equal measure. But if you cannot understand why others may not be as blessed as you are, that may be due to your young age - now 26(?) - or lack of education or even empathy! Please look around you! Please read the papers! Do not look at TV reports or social media. Read quality newsprint such as the NYT!
4
My wife and I both come from families that have been “paying it forward” and “paying it back” from generation to generation for at least a hundred years. Not just parents providing for their children and grandchildren, but also children and grandchildren providing for their parents and grandparents, not to mention brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews helping each other out when needed and when able. It was not uncommon for three generations to live together under the same roof, or for adult siblings and their families to live together under the same roof. Isn’t this the very essence of what it means to be a family?
Our children have recently or will soon graduate from college. They won’t have any debt in the form of student loans to repay, but they will be deeply indebted in a more fundamental way to this family history of care for one another, of selflessness and and willingness to sacrifice, of generosity and gratitude, of prudence and patience, of good judgment and personal responsibility. I see that legacy as a gift, not a burden. I hope they appreciate it like I do. I believe they do. I am sure they know that we will continue to support them in any way we can as they start their careers and (hopefully) their own families. And I hope and trust that they will help us as we age, when needed and when able.
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@John Mullen. John Mullen! Super! Your disposition is absolutely correct!
3
@John Mullen Please write a guest column about this.
4
As with any article dealing with millennials this one deals with the overwhelming burden of student debt. What made so many people think it’s be a good idea to go into such crushing debt? I place most of the blame on college and university administrators as well as their sales force, the college professors from whom so many of these millennials sought guidance.
11
@Brian G - I think the combination of student debt and jobs that don't pay well have been toxic to many. The Great Recession added to that.
I have a child who graduated in 2010 as an RN and she's doing pretty well, living in NYC. She's chosen to spend most of her salary on interesting vacations and high city rent, and I'm happy that her work allows that.
This is a country built on dreams, and it is dependent on best case outcomes. For anyone taking on the future cost of a student loan, there should be (at a minimum,) a required "buyer beware" course in what that might mean if the best case outcome doesn't materialize.
9
What choice do the unwealthy need to go to college. It is a rigged system. Either have cash in hand or mortgage your future.
5
On a minor note, this example shows a teeter-totter form of parent-child support: I paid my daughter's cell phone bill for 20 years, from age 15 to age 35. Now she will pay my cell phone bill for 20 years, from age 65 to 85 (we hope!) as my income is far less in my retirement, and hers is finally substantial now that she has hit her professional stride. A balancing act, for sure, and we both know we are lucky to have those options.
55
@Eileen You got it! A lot of these 'I did it all myself' people are not just proud, but bitter, and it shows.
2
Student loans are not new. I had one over 40 years ago which put a crimp in my style for a number of years. And,most parents have always tried to be supportive based on their personal finances and their free time. But, what appears to have changed is the duration of the assistance and the normalization of the expectation that assistance will be forthcoming. In the past the one of the signs of adulthood was cutting the financial ties to your parents and one of the signs of successful parenting was letting go of children so that emotionally they could become successful adults. Are those standards too old fashioned for the 21st century?
10
@RWF There is a big difference between student debt that "crimps my style for a number of years", and student debt that makes it excruciatingly difficult or even impossible to accumulate wealth or make significant lifestyle choices such as purchasing a home or having children (with commensurate consequences that last a lifetime). Boomers often seem to be clueless to how amazingly good they had it.
17
@RWF
Adjusted for inflation, the cost of attending college has increased 161% since 1988. If you had a loan 40 years ago, odds are good that your tuition (again, adjusted for inflation) was closer to 200% less than what our generation has had to pay.
Did you ever have to decide between paying your loans and paying rent? Because, if you ever wonder why people in their 30s get parental assistance, it's because, without it, they'd have to decide between debt, hunger, or homelessness (and, yes, it's that big of a problem).
26
Not old fashioned just economically impossible. Not old fashioned but old reality.
1
Independence can be over-rated. As the environmentalist Bill McKibben says, "we're built to rely on each other."
See Bill McKibben's essay at http://incharacter.org/archives/self-reliance/old-mac-donald-had-a-farmers-market-total-self-sufficiency-is-a-noble-misguided-ideal/
8
I feel like this article was written in a really tortured way to generate clicks. It was struggling so hard to shoehorn in a Boomers vs. Millennials narrative.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to write the story this way?:
Millennials start out in the world with crippling debt and even as educated professionals earn wages that don’t let them buy a home, save for retirement, or afford childcare.
5% or less of those Millennials (coincidentally the ones likely to read the Times) have rich mommies and daddies who can solve this problem for them.
So hey, Times reading Boomers, I know this is framed as a “trend” - and maybe it is in your circles - but if you’ve got $100k to hand your kids for a down payment or you paid their full college tuition, you’re not a trend. You’re an aberration.
59
this is the only comment on this article that is warranted.
3
as is the arts, as is fashion, as is media.
1
Hannah are you bankrolled by your parents?
At some point everyone must launch!
The 30 somethings you write about should get up, move out and get on with their lives.
It's not going to be easy, but with lots of hard work it will be rewarding.
Besides, their parents deserve time and resources for retirement. You can only baby sit on generation at a time.
2
The "new fashion" of calling a male child "buddy" instead of "son"? My dad called me "buddy" and he died in 2006 at age 84.
8
Nothing too new here.
Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg in the Early-Mid Aughts had hipsters hanging out all day (or most days) on stoops and in Cafes (bankrolled by parents or trust funds or overseas money) with maybe a part time job at some hip spot.
....While some of us worked 60 hour weeks at construction and art handling or whatever.
It was always infuriating that they seemed a little less stressed, dressed in cooler clothes, and were able to jump start an Art career, Band, or Boutique of their own with free-er time and funds. Some became famous and supposedly now represent "the gritty NYC of the early 2000's".
Some of us know better.
13
@Ignatius J. Reilly wow. as someone who lives in the nabe - real talk right here
2
Let's see:
2.3 billion people on planet earth have no toilets.
1.8 billion lack adequate sanitation.
800,000 children die from diahrrea as a result of lack of sanitation.
736 million live on less than $2 per day.
Poor Boomers!!!!
9
Poor millennials...
1
This is the symptom, not the disease.
The disease is the unregulated capitalism of the late 19th century — brought back to life slowly, like a frankenstein's monster, by the constant drumbeat of supply side, trickle down, voo-doo economics promoted by both Republicans and Democrats alike for 40 years now.
The result? Our culture will not survive.
It's simple — if bright young people can't afford an education they won't get one, and won't be able to find the solutions to our long term problems which will then left unattended do us all in by fits and starts. Cutting off access to college by monetizing it into a debt pyramid scheme like pay day loans was loathsomely unethical, it was also really stupid.
If hard work doesn't pay, if years and years of paying dues doesn't produce a substantial reward — the work ethic will not survive. People will not strive when their are no rewards on offer. Conversely the 1% and their children who increasingly take up the public domain of media will flaunt their lazy and richly rewarded examples to drive home the message — you'll never get ahead, only WE get ahead.
Reagan and Thatcher hatched the egg and the monster is now fully grown, eating everything in sight. You are worthless they tell us — value must be earned! But it is a cheat of a slogan, as it now can't be earned. A dark age is coming, because none of the people who could have helped us save the consumer society bothered too, having adopted the bad values on offer.
31
@Arthur
The disease is rampant entitlement. If your kids don’t catch it, they’re just fine.
8
I admire Chuck Collins and believe he has it right. I do take issue with the title of his book, “Born on a third Base.” It should have been called “Born on the Home Plate,” since that descriptions much more accurate.
5
I believe the title of his book is from the saying, “born on third base, thinks s(he) hit a triple.”
Ms. Palmer's parents must have really wanted a third grandchild. I don't get it, this article is about millennials anxiety over not earning enough income for essential housing, education and health care costs yet the millennial profiled has a third child???
23
Once that third child gets ready for private school or college hopefully those grandparents will still be around to count on, otherwise free temporary daycare and babysitting may have seemed a little shortsighted.
14
The couple across the street from me make $300k a year and send all three kids to $25k a year elementary schools on GrandDaddy's dime. Jealous? Of course I am! But happy to not be on the hook to my powerful F-I-L. Very happy.
5
In the end, no one can take advantage of you without your permission.
6
This is such a sad story, these “young” people will never be independent.
3
"...the stereotype of lazy, entitled millennial."
That's an outrageously false thing to say. Where is your evidence to back up that slur? In fact, where is your editor?
You won't find one social scientist who says an entire generation is lazy, entitled, or any other descriptor properly assigned only to *individual* personalities. We see each other as family, friends, neighbors, students, teachers, whatever. I'm a "boomer" - not that arbitrary cutoff dates have any scientific validity - and I don't see the people you categorize as "millennials" as lazy or entitled. Not one of the millennial interviewees in this article substantiates that broad-brushed epithet.
Many people of all generations have needed help from their parents to cope with a corrupt economy that works only for corporations and the wealthy. My parents were in the mis-named "Greatest Generation". They borrowed from their parents for a down payment on a house. They were anything but lazy and entitled.
Families exist to help each other. Friends, colleagues, communities - we have them so we can help each other in myriad ways when needed; these are social constructs that are literally a survival tactic of the human species. There have always been lazy, entitled people and always will be. Lazy and entitled is more applicable to the attitude behind this story.
12
This article has an individualistic U.S. bias and misses the big picture. And I'm assuming the author doesn't have kids and has no idea about the struggle to work full time and raise small children in this country.
In other and wiser parts of the world, grandparents help out with grandkids through babysitting, co-habitation, etc. In many societies multi-generational families live together and aunts / uncles / grandparents look after children while parents go to work. Some societies have a strong social safety that provides low cost daycare, health insurance, and quality education. The U.S. does not. We are unique (and barbaric) in that we expect young parents to move out on their own, work full time, and provide childcare and health insurance without outside help. It's a recent phenomena and not in the best interest of kids.
33
Re: Wages have stagnated
That reference misleading for the subject at hand
Readers, please note that the reference cited pertains to production and non supervisory employees.
Those are fading jobs in major cities. It is financial
services, IT, high tech that grow - not production jobs
For the educated , that are NOT exposed to global competition wages have risen. A good example are physician salaries as it is next to impossible for foreign MDs to move to the US
Average compensation 2011 : $ 210 000 per year
Average compensation 2018 : $ 300 000 per year
On the other hand, for those that ARE exposed to global competition, salaries have been nailed down - basic economics tells you that via outsourcing, immigration US wages, free trade, free capital movement must move to the global average. That hit the production sector the hardest
But major cities are increasingly populated by the winners of globalization - not the losers
So, the truth is
What the 30-Somethings encounter is yet another distributive effect of globalization
---
Data cited
https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2018-compensation-overview-6009667#3
4
Wow, I didn't know this was a new phenomenon. I remember it being extremely common in NYC during the 1980s.
7
For that matter, after Dad got out of the navy at the end of World War Two, met my mother, and married her, they both moved into her parents' apartment for a few years until Dad got a decent job, and years later they had me.
For a number of years, I had lunch every day with that same grandmother because Mom was working in Manhattan. And imagine -- our little public school in those days allowed us to walk home alone for lunch, and back. And then back home again at three.
A different world in more ways than one.
24
@EveT
You’re right. It is not a new phenomenon. It’s a story as old as wealth. What is financial assistance? Getting a job at white shoe law firm where your Dad is partner after you graduate from Yale Law, where you were a legacy? That’s financial assistance. Parents have been buying their children apartments or helping with down payments has been going on for generations. Grandparents watching their grandchildren so their daughters can go work as nannies for more affluent families whose parents are footing the bill is what makes the world go around. This is not new or limited to class. Though obviously actual cash transfers are more common as you climb the financial ladder.
14
@B. Yes, and my Grandparents and my Mother moved into my Great-GP's house during the Great Depression.
It was not exactly joyful with two strong-minded women trying to run a household--my Mother and the men basically tried to stay out of the way.
And yes my Mom walked home for lunch every day too!
4
My son is 43 and my daughter is 38. My daughter no longer speaks to me because I did not pay off her college loans even though for several years I made payments that were supposed to go directly to those loans but instead went to pay for a cruise and other things. I also paid for half of her college education but no thanks for that either. I should mention that at the time I was divorced and attending graduate school at night and living in a room at my mother's home because my ex left me almost penniless. I worked 2 jobs and went to school at night. My son also demanded car insurance, a rent deposit and other things. I said yes but only until I could no longer do it. About 19 months after the divorce I found a good paying job and began investing in my retirement, real estate and the stock market. I retired after almost 45 years in 2012. With the great assistance of my new wife of 19 years and hard work by both of us, we are multi-millionaires. We own our $800,000 home in Florida and we have cash flow for retirement provided by more than $7 million. We cruise the world, go out with friends, play golf, and do as we please. My wife recently battled breast cancer six months ago and is now doing well. We plan to continue to live and enjoy life while we can.
Recently my son, a well to do lawyer, asked for $100,000 for his new $1.1M home. We said no. He earns over $350K.
We continue to say to no. The kids hate us. So do 3 of my wife's daughters. We did enough. Stand on your own.
203
@Jay
A $350k earning lawyer asking his parents for money, I never thought I'd hear that one!
47
@Jay
What was this job that allowed you to to amass $7 million?
24
@Jay
Amen, and good for you. The only person who’s entitled to the money you earn is you. Your kids should be ashamed of themselves.
30
My 30-something son and his wife were told "if you can't afford it, you don't get it" when growing up. As a result they have been fully self-supporting since graduating from high school. They have excellent careers and just bought a house as a result of only living where they could afford to live. My daughter in law is getting her second masters for free from the university where she works - because her education is free. My son is getting his degree for free paid for by his employer. My 20-something nieces and nephews were raised the same way and own houses, have degrees, careers, and are debt free. It's not that hard with realistic expectations.
44
The 23 year old discussing homeownership laments that she missed out on almost TWO years of earning, immediately post college, due to the recession.
I guess things really were different for us Gen Xers. I feel badly that things are distilled so purely around money at this point for young folks. We’ve always been capitalists, but the expectations seem unreal now.
I have a 21-year-old employee who asks for a raise every month, lives at home, drives a luxury car, expects to be paid more than his colleagues who contribute more to our business. The current mindset: how does it play out it later in life? I guess we’ll know when millennials are running the show.
17
This article highlights a really bizarre paradox going on in America right now. On the one hand we have a very low unemployment rate. On the other hand we have a whole generation living at home with Mom and Dad, and who are saddled with a $1 Trillion student load debt. And many of those who do find jobs are existing on a long series of low-paying temporary jobs.
Here in Minnesota I see evidence of underemployment and unemployment everywhere. But at the same time the State is claiming a 3.1% unemployment rate.
So which is it? Is there a growing labor problem in America, and are we being fed fabricated jobs data?
21
@W Many people have left the ranks of the unemployed, and are not counted, because they are either living with their parents, or have been unemployed so long that they are no longer counted.
14
@Fran
You are describing the 'discouraged worker' issue, and you are correct they are not counted in the unemployment figures. However, that doesn't tell the whole story.
There appears to be another group: people looking for work that are never offered jobs. By creating this sub-group in the job market, the unemployment figures can be manipulated. The advantage for doing this, by the State, is to lower payments for unemployment insurance claims. The advantage for employers is to reduce unemployment insurance premiums. Thus, both the State and the business community obtain an economic advantage by creating a whole class of 'unemployable people'.
This seems to be accomplished through employment databases, which are maintained by job recruiters and temporary agencies (middle-men who, today, pretty much control the labor market). It appears to work by denying job offers to people who have made too many claims for unemployment insurance. This can reduce fraud, but in many cases it can target people who are repeatedly laid off without any fault of their own, such as when companies furlough employees during a business downturn. This, together with the discouraged worker problem, appears to be the main reason the Minnesota rate stands at 3.1%.
2
@Fran Coming from Europe where unemployment figures are counted differently, I've always wondered why people believe the US unemployment rates. They are based on the number of people collecting unemployment insurance. But unemployment payments stop after 6 months, at which point these same people still looking for work are no longer counted. It happened to my husband previously, and is now happening to a friend of ours who is living in our basement.
8
It’s great if parents want to help and can afford to help. My boomer co-workers tell me stories of how their kids have become ungrateful and expect them to pay rent, buy homes and cars. So, the kids can spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup, vacations and lavishing their kids with every new technology. While the boomers sometimes visit their aging parents in assisted living facilities and at their homes on the opposite coast. But mostly helicopter parent their kids making decisions for them because they have the power of the purse. Stay tuned boomers, your kids and grandchildren may occasionally visit you too. So the cycle continues.
3
I'm a 61 yo baby boomer, single, and never thought of asking my parents for financial assistance to buy a home. They paid for my BA for goodness sake!! I paid for my masters degree. I bought my condo at age 45. The bigger issue here is affordable housing and the outrageous cost of a university education. I now am caring for my 92 year old dad and proud to do it.
23
@Amy Marta
It depends on the family and their attitudes. I'm another boomer/Gen Xer in my mid-fifties. My maternal grandparents helped my parents buy their first house (when they were in their 40's), and both my paternal and maternal grandparents helped pay partial college tuition for all of their grandkids. My parents decided they would do the same if they could afford it, and over the years helped my brother and myself with down payments on our first houses, and are planning to help their grandkids with college tuition as well. They have also helped with some unexpected medical bills in the past. I should point out, however, that neither my brother nor myself have ever expected them to do so; in addition, we paid for or took out loans for our own graduate school tuition, and have both taken time off to take care of first my dad, and now my mom, during their own medical and emotional crisis. My grandfather's motto was "It's better to give with a warm, living hand rather than a cold, dead one." We're first and foremost a family, not a financial accountability system.
16
everything changes. if one reviews economic data from the 1900s to 2000 for North America, it becomes clear that home ownership was reserved for the professional classes up to the 1940s. Before W.W.II, when the majority lived on farms and small towns, urban dwellers lived in apartments, rooming houses and hotels. Condos did not exist. It may prove to be the case that baby boomers and their parents (through lowcost GI loans etc) are the exception in that they could afford houses whereas other generations cannot. 1945 to 1990 or so is a unique period in history, when the working class became the middle class, but it didn't occur naturally but by government mandate: govt programs after the war such as the GI loans mentioned above, and agreements with industry, such as the Detroit Accord in 1951, giving workers holidays, health insurance and pensions, contributed to growth and made homeownership attainable. but everything changes.
27
@kevin sullivan
This reminds me that I grew up in housing across from a factory that built those row houses for their workers, and I live in a town where two streets near an old factory were also built for those who worked at the factory. Companies used to provide at least a measure of security for their workers, who were likely to remain there for their lifetime. Not ideal, since I doubt they owned those homes, but at least they did not worry quite so much about housing, and must have felt at least some loyalty to the factory? I don't want to romanticize this but I do think some of the social fabric has been torn in terms of a lack of secure housing.
10
@kevin Sullivan
GI Bill saved our family and paved its success for now three generations.
College and homeownership was a fantastic ignition to economy and to our family--I am sorry it was not available to ALL vets who served.
7
The housing costs in cities such as New York, Boston, the DC area and San Francisco long ago drove the 30s age group to flee to other areas that were more affordable. I remember that well. We did not have the student debt to contend with, because college-loans had not yet been invented.
4
@Penseur
Operative word being invented !
For most of human history, children were born into jobs (e.g. hunter-gathering) and homesteads. Even now, in many "poor" countries, adult children live in what are essentially family compounds owned free and clear for generations. There is no shame in this.
When I was young and struggling, my family did not feel any obligation to help. In America, it's expected that adult kids take care of themselves or turn to the government for help. While I was grappling with disability and staving off homelessness, my parents added a sunroom to their 3,000 sq. ft. home and went on cruises.
I'm more bothered by this than by parents helping their kids a little too long.
The disparity between those who get help and those who don't is troubling. The stigma of "entitlement" is not helping.
30
With such tales of millennial woe, you’d assume those long lines were for a hot meal. Nope, the iPhone X.
Funny, they don’t all look like rich people...
5
The Times already covered this issue this past week when the First Daughter (in her opposition to Representative Ocasio-Cortez) assured us that, "I don't think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something...People want to work for what they get." Oh, wait - Ms. Trump kept her name after she got married, was given employment in her Dad's business, had no student debt, and has her pick of many roofs to shelter her and her children. So, yes, indeed - it's a great American thing to have autonomy and choice as an adult because essential bills are paid.
116
I don’t begrudge children (adult or otherwise) getting help from their parents. My only concern is that the parents of millennials don’t risk their own futures. People are living longer and the social safety net is frayed, to put it mildly. Aging comes with a whole new potential set of expensive problems: medications, illnesses, surgeries, hospitalizations, loss of regular income... And as the 2008 financial crisis demonstrated, even well-funded IRAs and other investments can lose value in an instant, leaving those who were depending on retirement funds from investments in dire straits. These parents are at an age where they are at their financial peak, and it may seem like that lifestyle will last indefinitely, but it only takes one or two setbacks for a nest egg to become well-scrambled. If adults in their 50’s and 60’s are putting more money toward helping their adult children than toward their own futures, there’s a chance that those older adults will lack needed resources as they age, and their own children, used to relying on them for assistance, won’t be able to help.
45
Please remember to report all necessary gift taxes!
3
@liberty well Liberty, yes - if you're over the annual exclusion limit ($ 14,000), you should report your gifts to I.R.S..... but they are not taxable until you exceed $ 11.5 million !!
Pretty much moot...
1
and those without generations of wealth behind them are doomed
21
Just as a side note, it’s amusing that the woman profiled values 1,000 hours of childcare from her parents at “about $6,000”. Friends and family discount rate?
44
@Peter Turman- This reminds me of a conversation I had with my brother a few years ago. My brother announced that his 2 young girls were going to attend a private, Catholic school in Maryland. I asked how could he afford such a thing because it had to cost more than his already ridiculously expensive day care situation. Nope. It seems his day care bill was larger than the private school tuition.
11
Raise your hand if you, like me, were a Gen X kid whose baby boomer parents counted on babysitting and sometimes financial help from their Greatest Generation parents. We act like these phenomena are new so that we can continuously beat millennials over the head with their alleged failure to stand on their own two feet like every previous generation. They are not new. The way we talk about it is new because we have become a society of people more willing to step out from behind the social facades Americans built for ourselves in the past. This Gen Xer (not a slacker, btw) is pretty tired of the stereotyping. Millennials, go enjoy your avocado toast (a great version of which you can make at home for $1 per serving, btw!), ignore this nonsense and get on with life. We’re with you.
31
@gmg22
No "we're" not. Boomer here. Everything my wife and I have was earned by us -- no parental handouts. I managed the busiest bar in Indianapolis in the eighties while going to school full time with two small children and a working wife, who went to school immediately upon my graduation, which occurred in four years with honors. I had a number of friends who were nontraditional students going the same challenging route. We all made it. On our own. Upon graduation at the age of 30 -- with a degree in English; not necessarily an early bankroll career track -- I began graduate school and took two courses each semester, taught two courses at Indiana University in Indianapolis, tended bar on the weekends and picked up a shift weekdays on occasion, while working full time during the day to cut my teeth on a marketing communications / management career. My wife graduated as a dental hygienist and immediately went to work full time for Reilly Children's Hospital. Our kids didn't suffer. Our parents were never asked for a handout. And life was good -- in fact, it was the best time of our lives. There is such a thing called personal pride and a hard work ethic. Sometimes you have to take a job or three that are "beneath you" and work your way up. But I must admit: I am definitely old school. And so are my kids: happily married professional millennials with children. Apple, tree?
16
Yes, inter-generational childcare, along with help or support (however minimal) from parents or grandparents is nothing new. I guess I’m Gen X & was often cared for my my grandparents. My grandparents didn’t have much cash to give, but supported my parents in the ways that were accessible to them.
I agree that Millenials shouldn’t be made to feel bad. Very few of us have gotten anywhere truly on our own power. Physics doesn’t work that way & neither do humans. Energy is collective & we’d do well to recall all the ways we have been helped along. By family, friends, community, nation, Earth, etc.
10
@Timothy Mulherin
No one is saying they want a hand out (maybe some but most don't). The economic realities of today are that it takes a lot of money to stay afloat much less get ahead. This isn't because millennials are all lazy, its just the economic realty of today. There is nothing wrong with parent's helping out their children if they can and its reasonable and warranted. (Again, I'm not saying they should be paying for their iPhone 10's). I'm not going to sit around and watch my children suffer if I can help them in a reasonable manner. Good for you for building a successful business and career but no everyone can get a second or third job just to stay afloat. By the way I am the son of immigrants who came to this country with two suitcases and not money and managed to make a good life for themselves. So I get where you are coming from
9
I’m in my mid- forties and more then half my friends bought their house with help or outright by their parents.
27
And here is where many blacks failed to build generational wealth: "Evidence suggests that purchasing a home, a life event that many hope to reach in their 30s and one of the primary ways people build wealth, is essentially out of reach in most major cities unless your family has generated a good deal of wealth." Most black parents cannot help with tuition, car loans, student loans, and house down payments. It happens to whites too but far more often it happens to blacks who typically do not earn enough to buy homes. More often than white parents, black parents are not financially able to help their new graduates, which is too bad because carrying debt goes a long way to giving a young person choices and the ability to maintain or surpass their parents social economic status.
19
@Alisa Dotson- A lot of the good paying middle class jobs were reserved for "whites only" until recently, recently being 30-40 years ago. Those jobs were policeman and firemen with good pensions and early retirement. They financed the education of the parents of these millennials and they provided an inheritance, a good financial cushion, allowing them to provide for these millennials.
9
But some of us are working to break that cycle. I’m a Black boomer, attended college with loans and grants (school was cheaper then, tho). Got myself a good job in the 80’s (that had a pension) didn’t have my kid till my early 40’s (when I felt economically stable and limited loans were paid off). My husband and I made economic choices (kept the starter house) and saved enough to put the kid through private school and college with a little left for grad school. It can be done, with some sacrifices - no fancy car or house, smaller number of kids, consistent savings plan. I wanted to set that example for my kid so it can be replicated.
12
If Ms. Palmer had to pay a babysitter, she would know that 25-30 hours of childcare per week costs a LOT more than $6000/year.
280
@Michelle
Per month, versus per week.
25hrs x $20 = $500
$500 x 12 months = $6000
7
@Michelle I think it says per month in the article.
4
Per month not per week according to the article. I tell my kids I used to get 75 cents an hour to babysit but now doing it for free, and happily.
4
This is only possible because the economic a nd real estate picture allowed t he parents to do well. Fo r th e next generation that support will not b e available.
5
The further infantilization of the American masses.
10
Seems to me that lots of grandparents have watched their grandkids for most of contemporary history, and many are thrilled to have the opportunity to do so--in fact, most of them even like the kids. Only the NY Times's narrative about freeloading Millenials could turn that time-honored tradition into a mother's "free 20 to 25 hours of child care she receives every month from her parents" that "would add up to around $6,000 a year." Don't worry, though: the article clarifies that "[t]hose who do receive parental assistance often do not fit neatly into the stereotype of lazy, entitled millennial." I guess that means they still fit the stereotype--just not "neatly."
8
@E. - It probably won't be long though before the grandparents are too old, or sick to be able to watch their grandchildren.
1
@E. I'm glad I never had children (or nieces/nephews) because I want to enjoy my retirement, not serve as a free day care center.
Want to help your children? Teach them independence. Want ruin them? Give them money.
14
@Chris
And how to budget money and time. Also how to enjoy themselves simply
2
@Chris Money does not make or break a child. How it is given, why it is given and the way the child is raised have a lot to do with it.
5
@Chris
that's what my dad says , unfortunately
1
Since the dawn of human history, grandparents have played a big role in child rearing. In face, a big part of why humans have menopause is to allow grandparents to stop having children on their own and help with their offspring's offspring.
The fact that grandparents helping with childcare is represented as some seismic shift in family dynamics really says a lot about how isolating our society has become.
19
I suppose I'm Generation X (born late 60's). When my sister and I were growing up, it was implicitly understood that once we graduated high school, and if we happened to still be living at home, we'd either be (a) in college or (b) financially contributing to the household expenses, i.e., working. My sister moved out on her own; I stayed home a few years, went to college, and then worked -- not at my "dream job," but at *a* job - being a secretary. I was not going to be allowed to couch surf while I waited for a "job worthy of my talents" -- and I would never have dreamed of asking to do that. I paid certain household bills, and later, I paid rent to my parents once my college loans were paid off. (I wonder what today's thirtysomethings are going to do when their parents are no longer around to pay for the nanny...?)
15
@Jen
Inheritence, much of the time, one presumes.
@JenThis is the truth for most people who didn't come from money, in our generation (born in the 60's, considered Get X).
The survey that says 53% of Americans aged 21-37 have received aid from a parent is an almost laughably useless metric, and doesn’t lend useful insight. They need to shave 5-8 years off the low range of that number. I mean, there are plenty of 21 year olds still in college.
I consider myself “self made”: I paid for my education (by working) and have supported myself in San Francisco from the time I arrived in 2002. -Still, before my time in SF, at 27, I once took help with a month’s rent from my social worker mom. Does that correlate in any way with the 35 year old whose parents pay for for the nanny?
Insights from a more practical and thoughtfully structured survey would benefit the story.
17
Aging boomer with two kids working and making their own way and not a dime to spare (me or them).
Next I can read about some Momo creature and female celebrities I've never heard of and their cheating scandal.
Just another day of feeling like a Space Alien who crash landed here somehow...
"xx!" AK
15
Two big takeaways here. First, we are an incredibly cruel society and we have not really improved that much since the child labor of the late 1800s. Also, the gap between the have's and the have nots is getting bigger while the population size of the have nots is getting larger and the haves are getting smaller in number. Neither of these trends bode well for the future. Hardly anyone remembers the incredible violence of our early 20th century labor movement when the have nots could not take it anymore. There will be a day of reckoning; there always is. The rich will not stop until they squeeze everything they can from us. it is just they way they are built. The question for the rest of us is when are we going to wake up and realize we do not have to live this way.
68
@Jeffrey Tierney
Excellent comment. Historical violence when the Have-nots have had enough.
Thus, the tremendous importance (to the Haves) of the Entertainment Industrial Complex keeping us amused and distracted. Today's gladiators in the coliseums and concert stages earn millions while helping to sell cheap beer and high-tech toys to keep everyone from feeling too much of anything or, even worse, thinking about WHY things are the way they are.
The top 1% are betting a lot on the rest of us NOT waking up and realizing we do not have to live this way. They'll keep as many of us anesthetized as possible. Even sadder, most will willingly submit.
20
@Jeffrey Tierney
The rich will keep the workers as oppressed as possible.
The rich would have the oppressed crawling and licking the boots of the rich begging to be fed.
Civil unrest usually follows.
5
@Jeffrey Tierney
No one is taking anything from you, nor should anyone be giving anything to you. Go earn it for yourself...or not. That’s the takeaway.
So your Exhibit A is a 39-year-old “financial expert” who chooses to have a THIRD child because her parents can shoulder much of the burden?
I think you’ve pinpointed the problem here, albeit inadvertently.
554
@Chris: And no mention of her husband, or his employment, or even presence...what's missing from this story?
46
Stopping at the number of kids you can afford to rear responsibly is a time-honored middle-class tradition.
And it doesn't only apply just to inner-city mothers on subsidies and rural folk whose pasty kids end up with ringworm.
48
@Chris I think she better hope that her parents remain healthy. 25 hours a week of childcare would be a lot for me now at 70.
24
Every ten years the NYT publishes this same piece with different dressing— absolutely none of this is “new.” Parents help their kids when they can, i don’t know any 30 or 40 year old who doesn’t lean on their parents in one way or another.
10
@Jennifer S
My wife and I are two. We both came from homes where we had to pay rent if living at home, post college.
Maybe the ethics at home have an impact.
6
@David B.
I never had a choice to live at home post college. It was always expected that my siblings and I would make it on our own. Because we knew we had to, we did.
5
@Jennifer S My parents were dead before I was 30. Uncle Sam back then didn't allow the children the unused GIBill benefits....I worked and left college with loans. The males didn't because they could get high paying summer jobs
Like the rest of my late boomer gen, I'm paying more for grandparent needs than I am receiving in babysitting.
1
If you take money from your parents, they in some sense can control you. You're in a state of eternal childishness and dependency.
Meanwhile mom and dad are not doing their grown kids any real favors. They are teaching them not to be resilient, and not to work toward their own goals.
We inhabit a vast country full of great, affordable places. No need to subsidize an adult's lifestyle choice to live in a fancy city.
19
I know it might sound shocking to the readers (and maybe the writer) of this piece, but New York City has a very large free school system. Private school costs $30,000.00 and up for a year of education if your goal is cultural and social segregation for your child, along with the education. Imagine the high quality of New York public schools if all middle class parents decided to send their kids....
If all the people who are not really earning enough to buy the expensive condos stopped buying them, who would? What would happen to high real estate prices when no boomers subsidized their childrens’ home buying?
Same thing for college: if parents refused to pay $50,000.00 for the finest, most competitive private colleges, what would happen to those institutions? How long can they survive on endowments, and, if they can, why aren’t the costs to attend lower?
And lastly, a job in finance at a company called NerdWallet.
It completely summarizes the situation in one name: childlike, silly, but about money. Kind of like grownup-ish, but in a cute kid-like way.
Could I get some cash? I really really want a condo with a roof terrace.
111
Parents of every generation want to give their children a solid start on a good life. What that requires changes over time. If you want to understand those changes, look at the social economics, not the kids. Our first “starter” home cost 2X my annual salary; our son’s equivalent starter home in the same city cost 5X his annual salary. Meanwhile, my original home is worth 3X what I paid for it, after adjusting for inflation. When everybody had a landline, every phone cost the same price and you got your own phone when you moved out. Now the additional lines on a family plan are cheap, and your kid will pay 3X what you do for her phone line. Allocating financial resources wisely within a family makes perfect sense.
It’s the economy that’s screwed up, not the kids.
83
Per Wikipedia: “Using 2018 inflation-adjusted dollars, the federal minimum wage peaked at $11.79 per hour in 1968. If the minimum wage in 1968 had kept up with labor's productivity growth, it would have reached $19.33 in 2017.” The federal minimum wage is $7.25 and has not been adjusted in 10 years. As someone who has benefited from an economy and tax policy that is obscenely biased to enrich the already wealthy, and to screw the average wage earner, I have no regrets about helping out my kids.
43
As a 40-something with a family of my own, my husband and I were lucky enough to have parents who gave us loving childhoods and then paid for college... but after that it was up to us. Separately, we figured it out. At young ages, we bought homes by saving up and then traditional loans- we had roommates help cover our mortgages, with long-term plans to save and build equity. We started saving early in our 401ks/Roths. We are now financially comfortable by our own means, and have now made the CHOICE to have children and take on the fiscal responsibility. We don't splurge on anything fancy- at times, we've gone without vehicles, new clothes, trips, ect. I see ALOT of millennials living way outside their means, and getting "help" from mommy and daddy. I ask those boomers: are you bankrolling your adult kids because your children NEED help? I surprise that you can't face the reality that your kids may appear to "fail." The other reality here is the adverse impact this bankrolling has on those who do actually have to live by their own means- just one other example of how the 1%ers screw everyone else....
10
@Jennifer Do you remember the latch key kids? Our parents were boomers and many of us were left alone while both parents worked. Whatever the reality, they were not known as helicopter parents.
Wages of this and the subsequent generation got badly whacked, and for the long term, due to the Great Recession. They accepted crappy paying jobs out of college, and felt they had no juice to be able to ask for raises. For YEARS. They saw what their families were going through with job loss, and clung to the crappy paying job they had and convinced themselves to be grateful for it.
Its almost like they are cloning the Silent Generation.
9
There are 2 schools of thought on this matter: The first points out the high cost of an education with fewer grant opportunities as I had in the early 70's saddling the graduate with much greater debt than I graduated with($5000). Wages have remained relatively stagnant in the last 40 years and it's hard to save at a 3% inflation rate.
The other school of thought involves counseling high school students on financial matters, including the long-term costs of borrowing for college (or for anything). This is done nowhere that I know of and we keep churning out graduates from college with crippling debt they had no business accruing. At age 20 I knew better than to continue with my college education financially broke and worked for three years at a variety of jobs to accrue enough savings to return to school. In-State tuition was $675/ semester. minimum wage was $1.65, I worked a work/study job @ $2.90/hr, 20-hrs/wk, and carried 20-21 semester hours with 4 labs/week. The focus was to graduate with a B.S. and find work asap. I paid my debt within a year and could focus on saving for a home, which I bought at age 30.
Unless the HS graduate has a focus on a career, I suggest they work and accrue savings. I also suggest parents have a financial discussion with their children frequently; point out the things they take for granted and the costs to the parents, they will assume when fledging. I remember well the initial shock of paying food and rent.
9
@LaPine: Bravo!!!
I would have been one of those upper middle class parents who helps their child with rent or purchase payments but my life changed after the death of my spouse. It plunged me from the top to the very bottom of income. Now, the best I can do for my son is to allow him to live in our home rent free, which allows him to save money. His college loans, which were minimal due to my "new found poverty status" are paid in full, and he has amassed both retirement funds and savings. It's wonderful that the children of these parents continue to receive help. However, we should examine the underlying causes of why college graduates cannot afford to live on their own and further, take steps to ameliorate what is most certainly a multifaceted problem. The inability of those who are well educated but less well off to establish households of their own will create long term economic problems if the situation is not addressed.
33
@j Correct- this generation will not be able to offer the same gift to their own children, if they choose to have them.
3
My husband & I help out our grown children financially and other ways when a need arises. They may balk sometimes at receiving $$ but I tell them one never knows; it may me needing help someday or another family member or anyone in the world for that matter.
It’s all good.
Is it the same issue when children help their elderly parents? Is one “ok” and the other not so “ok?” Are there rules & limits to generosity? If so, should there be?
13
@Di
Excellent comments. I have young, adult, college educated and employed children who I occasionally help financially, because I want to. I have worked full-time all of my life, as a nurse (serving others), I have savings and a retirement plan. My rationale is a portion of my taxes involuntarily goes to social services to provide for not only people who have had bad luck (which is just), but also to provide services for people who have made bad choices- insufficient education or no vocation for financial self-support, children they cannot support, substance use that prohibits them from working, and causes cycling in and out of health care using state (tax payer) funded health insurance and care of prisoners, etc. I feel no guilt sending a money gift to anyone in my own family and do not consider it enabling. Charity begins at home!
11
I am the parent of children born in the ‘90s, both of whom are still in school, one an undergrad, the other a grad student. We are happy and grateful we can assist them financially. I read this article with interest and sympathy, until the paragraph about the 30K private preschool expense, when the article just went off a cliff and became ridiculous. My own adult children are living just above a subsistence level, controlling their spending, balancing their needs and wants, and limiting unaccountable self-indulgence. Thank goodness we raised them that way. They will never ask us to fund a 30K preschool, because the answer will be “no”.
19
@Monica Hart I think it's wonderful that you can help out your kids. I just wanted to point out that depending on where you live, 30K for preschool is, unfortunately, not that crazy (though probably above average cost). I haven't been able to find a daycare for my infant that is under $500/month ($26000/yr). These daycares are all fine and decent, but nothing special at all. And they have a fair amount of staff turnover because of low wages.
Of course, pre-school tuition could be lower than that because teacher-to-child ratios are lower for the older kids. But it often is higher if you want a more "enriched" experience. And of course, I could opt for family-based care opposed to center-based, or I could just move out of my expensive town, but that would increase my commuting time, and I already only get to spend 2 hours/day with my child while he's awake.
5
People today think they are entitled to live larger lives than they can afford. Teach them basic economics so they understand how to live within their means. Smaller houses, fewer trips, etc. Move to a less expensive part of the country. Again, common sense is out the window these days! We all need to grow up.
11
If you expect to be able to employ workers full time, long term, who cannot afford to live on what you pay them; then you are contributing to the death of “Capitalism” as an ongoing and viable economic option. That situation it is not sustainable without support from taxpayers or any other possible source (parents, 2nd, 3rd jobs etc.).
If your business model depends on this, then It makes you part of the grift that taxpayers are beholden to. This is just a boomer grandparents tax as far as I am concerned. Do I have to help my kids? As I live and breathe. I am a father.
In the mean time, the wealth of the 1% has doubled in a generation. This was predictable. Calling young people lazy and dependent is a smokescreen for the wealthy.
70
Hopefully parents helping adult children will become a metaphor for a national guaranteed basic income for everyone.
6
There’s another element here that few people want to acknowledge: Entitlement.
My parents were in their mid 30s — with five kids! — before they bought a house. We worked hard and paid off our student loans early before we bought a home, without help. So this generation should expect different?
Let’s get real. In most cases, buying a place of your own will require two incomes, some dedicated frugality, and a lot of patience. But it comes with a bonus: The pride and satisfaction of making it on your own.
8
I would give anything to be a part of this narrative. I left my abusive stepfather and neglectful mother at 19 and never looked back. My 30 something millenial and genXer friends still have their names on their parents Verizon bill and get help for a down payment for a home or have the luxury of the reliable grandparent babysitting service. I've resolved I'll never own a home or have children working as a 35 year old professonial in higher education administration unless my fairy godmother comes down one day and turns one of my balcony garden beets into a magical condo.
I do envy my friends who can continue the baby boomer dream but least I can afford my rent ...for now.
18
We’ve been living in this dismal economic climate a lot longer than since 2008. I’m a young gen Xer, hanging graduated college in 2001. Cue Sept. 11. Enough said.
9
I also graduated college in 2001 - right in the middle of the dot-com bust. I managed to find a full-time job at a small company (without many benefits) a couple of months after graduation, but that all fell apart after 9/11. Still, I feel very fortunate that I managed to get through school with a combination of scholarships, part-time jobs, and help from family. I don’t have debilitating loans. But even 20 years ago, college costs were not what they are now. I
There is a feeling of selfishness and entitlement among the millennial generation. The concept of living within your means is nonexistent.
Taking out college loans and then lamenting when you are 25 years old or 30 years old that you can’t afford to buy things is ridiculous. You took out a loan, what was your plan to repay it? Why didn’t you go to a college that you could afford without taking out a loan.
The millennial generation is not saving anything for their retirement. So long after I am dead, I’m sure they will complain that they can retire when they turn 65 or 70.
7
I took out loans to go to college because I was not supported by my living parent and I had assumed I would be able to get a good job as a teacher after I completed my M.Ed. When I graduated in 2009, that was not the case. I worked at a crumby charter school for peanuts and left to become a finish carpenter. I make more as a carpenter. My loans still need paid and I needed to buy a house in a decent part of town so my kids can go to schools with fewer than 35 kids in every room and without a rotating cast of discouraged teachers.
Tell me how long term under investment in public education and profound inequality in educational quality because of a reliance on local funding was caused by my poor choices. Should no one try to become a teacher? Or have children?
Outcomes that should be guaranteed if I work hard and get an education (good housing, education for my kids, some disposable income) are being pushed out of my reach by structural economic factors.
Help from a parent would make a tremendous difference in making sure my wife and I keep from falling out of the middle class and damaging the chances of our sons to achieve their potential. However, I would much rather that assistance not be needed by so many 30 somethings. But look to changing economic trends, not impugning the character of a generation.
26
@Chris Bradley: got us to know if it is society’s fault versus your mismanagement, we would need to know what your wife does, where you chose to go to school, how much debt you incurred and why, why you didn’t succeed in your field that you borrowed money to be educated in, how old you were and in what financial state you chose to have at least two children, at a minimum. As they say, the devil is in the details.
1
The author cites the high cost of private school preschool. Bring out the violins! Once again, the NY Times' readership is assumed to be and targeted as the well to do. Private school? What % of New Yorkers do this? This focus, including your real estate section with its neverending emphasis on Manhattan and now hip Brooklyn (and I'm Brooklyn born and bred), makes me a bit crazy.
I'm a baby boomer. Never got help except in dire consequences, re finances from my parents. And as a dancer, I sure didn't make the big bucks. And no, I didn't go to private schools nor knew anyone who did.
12
I appreciate this article. I’m estranged from my younger sister, She said I wasn’t stable enough for her to have a relationship with, and if I had worked harder I would be in a better position. Our mom paid her credit cards through her twenties, then bought her a house when she was a single 31 year old recently started at her job. I did not get this level of assistance. I don’t begrudge her being helped by our mom. I do wish she acknowledged how lucky she was and stopping with the arrogant pompous “I earned what I got, I work hard” shtick. The point in the article about the shame people have for admitting their luck and privilege to the world and themselves is well taken. And having said all that, my own privilege as a white male whose stepfather paid for his college education needs to be acknowledged. In general I hope we can all let go of the shame that our inequitable capitalist system is intent on forcing on to us. If you’re getting assistance or giving it - give/receive without shaming or feeling shame. The vast majority of us are trying hard every day in a system that doesn’t care about life and the individual’s struggle. To all the peeps hustling with the deck stacked against them, good fortune and hope your journey has many moments of joy.
18
This may sound hard-hearted to some, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why choosing to have a third child is contingent upon whether your parents can provide free daycare. Focus your time, energy and resources on your first two children.
184
@Elle Muses
Good comment.
Not hard hearted.
Life is all about making healthy choices.
8
A very muddled article. At the bottom, I read a "moral" judgment about those 30-Something accepting money from their parents! Interestingly, almost all of the parents "helping" their 30-Something are foreign born and yes, middle-class with money. Yet, the 30-Something whose parents are also foreign born but a little bit over the poverty level (I live in San Diego and they are many, many families representing this group, yes all "legal" residents), help each other. This is a big difference: everybody contributes to the wellbeing and security of each other, there is not a hint of "moral" judgment; they are all part of a wonderful family nest. All of them form an incredibly-loving bond; all of them support each other beautifully without ever thinking, oh! my parents are supporting me! Oh, we are supporting them! My point: the affectionate, family ties existing in other countries is totally missing in the U.S. where the wonderful propaganda of "individuality" coupled with the notions of freedom and you are in your own reign supreme.
18
I don't understand how a family, clearly struggling to support two children, think it's a good idea to have a third.
83
This is why rents are shooting up! My neighbors can’t afford their huge 2 bedrooms that used to house a family of 5 people. There parents help, and then my rent goes up and I need to move, again. I’m 32, no help from my parents since I went to state college while working a job and after 8 years in my profession wages are going down, the skills required are tripled and I can’t get anything full time. People asking if helping with a phone or groceries is actually “help” are you kidding me? That’s $50 a month for phone and hundreds of dollars for food, if you don’t see how this hurts others in the community the problem is far worse than I thought.
7
I am reminded of a post on (I think) Ask Amy. A parent had repeatedly told her children not to worry, she was living them well-off. Well, her estate came to $7,000 for each kid.
2
A culture where we coldly quantify , in dollars, the time grandparents and grandchildren spend together. Why has it come to this?
9
I’d be interested in how this leads to greater inequities in our society. I’ve been wondering why rents been so high of late. Historically people have blamed Chinese and Russian money coming in to gentrifying areas. Now I realize it’s Baby Boomers making me paycheck to paycheck to help their own.
Explain to me again why I should be paying federal taxes for their entitlements?
2
@Allentown "Entitlements"? Are you talking about Social Security and Medicare, both of which are not entitlements?
@Allentown Until recently (in fact for over 40 years) my husband and I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of those areas with insane housing prices. Prices go up because more people move into the area in the hope of getting jobs in the high-paying tech industry. It's not because of foreign investments or Boomers or their children. It's just a scarcity of housing in a geographic area where there is limited room to build more housing. As for Social Security and Medicare, the Boomers paid into those programs for decades so no, you are not supporting them.
This is why the gift tax needs to be eliminated entirely.
Are any of the recipients of largess in this article paying income tax on the money and services provided? The phone bills, cars, down payments, housing, grandchild tuitions...are all taxable gifts!!!
4
Concerning Ms. Alvarez and her San Diego condo 3 blocks from the beach. On $75k/yr, she cannot afford to buy a $435k condo. Period. The general rule of thumb is 2 1/2 times your salary for the purchase price. That means she can afford a house/condo that costs $187,500 (if you want to stretch it, say $200k max). So fine, her parents gave her $50k towards the downpayment. Twenty percent down on $435k is $87k. Did Ms. Alvarez have the remaining $37k for the downpayment? My guess would be no. So this young woman, aided and abetted by her well-meaning parents has put a lower-than-reasonable downpayment on a condo she can’t afford, probably financed by one of those “funny money” mortgages that caused the 2008 real estate crash. People apparently never learn.
I am familiar with San Diego. We have a lot of family and friends there. None of them live 3 blocks from the beach, and they all earn way more than Ms. Alvarez does. She should have found a condo for no more than $200,000 even if it meant going way inland, like La Mesa. Then the downpayment of 20% would be $40,000, and her parents cash would have covered the whole thing plus $10k left over for, say, the first year’s property taxes, insurance, etc (all costs that a lot of first time home buyers don’t think about).
In a year or two, it’s going to be 2008 all over again.
74
@Ann
You are not familiar with SD if you think anyone here could “have found a condo no more than $200k.” Such a price does not exist.
8
That millennials exude, or that all about millennials pervades, such strident individualism is the greatest, most conspicuous social farce of all. They are tools of their making, albeit not their own, and they are the other face of the same fascist coin.
A well written thoughtful article. The animal photos are shaming and demeaning.
3
If you absolutely must live in San Fran, San Diego, Boston or NYC, well, in some respects I have no sympathy. All the liberals and progressives jamming themselves to live only in a limited number of certain Zip Codes doesn’t help us change the country. But that does make those limited number of places out of sight expensive. There are other great places to live. Quite a few, actually. With jobs and affordable housing. Be brave. And open minded. Find one of those great places and make it your own.
10
@jkk
Only someone outside of CA would call it “San Fran”. Why don’t make your own state “great”? Sure you may have affordable housing but OH lags in pretty much every other indicator of a quality of life.
2
@Left Coast - person identified himself/herself as from Ohio, so the detective work on your part not needed.
Go back and re-read - person is saying we need to blue-up other places other than coasts, so we can gain proportionate political representation...and also that relieving the housing pressure on those places will help to make them less expensive.
Why is this a “millennial” issue? People have been bankrolling their children since time immemorial, if they could afford it.
11
We paid tuition for our adult children to go to college, but they still incurred debt to get through school...books, rent, food, gas, utilities. We are trying to retire and help adult offspring as well as our parents who are in assisted living. We have been sandwiched just when we need to be freed. Our parents are living longer in assisted living and no inheritance is coming after money is drained from their estates to pay the $5,000-$7,000 a month for help as an elderly person. They were all taught to be "rugged individuals" so they refuse to live with us even though we'd love it and we've offered. They won't pay us $5,000 a month to take care of them and keep the money in the family because they see themselves as "independent". Meanwhile, our adult kids are in need of our financial assistance and we are in need of retirement, being 65 and still working full time. It is an insane world for middle class and the problem is stagnant wages. Slavery is alive and well. And now we just passed the most stupid tax packages to benefit those who are already doing fine while hurting those of us who are running as fast as we can. I hate America right now.
26
How come your kids have debt, if you paid all the tuition? They couldn’t be troubled to get a job to pay for rent, food, and books? Seriously, if nothing else, that is the error here—your kids need to have some skin in the game. Get roommates. No car=no gas costs. Eat cheap. No reason for any debt if tuition is paid, unless too lazy to get a job. That’s what it takes, but on the other hand, that’s all it takes. No more excuses.
1
This article is hilarious in the people it chooses to portray. A mother living in D.C. having her 3rd child; parents living in NYC choosing to send their children to $30k/yr private preschool; a woman whose parents give her $10k a year like clockwork on top of paying toward a condo & she has $200k in assets?!
This is the .01% of millennials who come from the .01% of the Boomer generation from the .01% of the Greatest Generation. Give me a break. As much as I love the Times, this article combined with the article, "America's Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful, and Miserable" makes me cringe as it is exceedingly out of touch.
242
@NM. I agree ......except your portrayal of this “boomer generation” group being in the top .01%. Your math is off by a factor of 1,000. The boomers described in this article are the top10%’s. And yes, many are out of touch. Most were born on first or second base, not third base. Their success is a result of our meritocracy not democracy.
A large (10%) upper middle class has emerged that does not feel rich. Comfortable? Yes. But not rich. There are millions of such people, so I wouldn’t characterize this Times article as out of touch.
The real danger to our society today is the lack of socioeconomic mobility. The fact that we are among the richest nations belies our lack of mobility. The fact that the comfortable boomers feel a need to contribute to their millennial children in order to maintain their social status illustrates this very point.
The bottom 90% faces a near impossible task. Which is why, even as a comfortable 10%er, I support universal healthcare and free community college. We will never be a classless society. But socioeconomic immobility we be our downfall.
24
This isn’t the 0.01, it’s barely the 1%.
These are upper middle class working people. The backbone of civilization. See how long society functions if you start going after them.
The 0.01 earn millions a year and don’t need help from their parents or anyone else.
9
If we want to live in a world where 20 and 30 somethings can be economically emancipated and independent of their parents, then we need to stop thinking of subsidized college tuition, maternity leave, daycare and elder care as “socialism.” And we need to have a serious discussion about what constitutes a living wage in this era, because it’s not what it used to be.
The problem is that the 1% (most of whose children don’t have to worry about tuition debt, how many children they can afford to have or where they can best afford to live) don’t want to cede a crimson penny to give back for all the advantages that helped them become so wealthy.
They equate their wealth with virtue, making it easy for them to demonize the poor as morally lacking in some way, with no acknowledgment of their dumb luck as having had any influence on their wealth.
The stupidest thing about this article is that it fails to acknowledge that this economic and social model isn’t an anomaly: this is the familial and social model of most immigrant families, from the Middle East and Mediterranean to various Asian nations. None of these cultures suffer from the moral fallacy of needing to do it all by yourself for your success to be legitimate.
The only thing that makes it novel is that white, not entirely rich people are finally doing it, marking a shift in the traditional, white, western middle class model.
13
It’s hard to feel sorry for millennials who choose to live in such costly cities for a certain urban lifestyle. I moved to Denver in 1990 as a 20 year old when it was an affordable cow town. (Not so much anymore of course!) This is a big country and cities like Kansas City, St. Louis and Albuquerque have a lot to offer. They would do well not to just cut the financial cord from their parents but from these stupidly expensive cities.
7
Private school is a want, not a need. The biggest factor in student achievement is household income, so these children of the very wealthy (I consider someone whose parents can afford $30k in tuition are very wealthy) would be fine no matte what preschool or primary school they attended.
14
There is a reason why this is happening and it can be directly tied into the overvaluation of stock market and the overpriced housing market. I can tell you why this happened but it would take too long. This was bound to happen because yes, we have essentially forced every one into the stock market, due to banks not needing our money anymore. The stock market is way overvalued and if you didn’t get in on the deal after 2008, you’re too late. Remember middle class can’t keep pace with the upper middle class and wealthy. History will repeat itself, a recession will happen and stocks will go down. Case in point, look how much equity people lost in Q4 of 2018, and yes it came back in Q1 of this year, but it will not last. Additionally, the housing market is so grossly overvalued that the younger generation won’t be able to take advantage of the gains the baby boomers and their children yielded. Case in point, you could buy a house in Long Island for $120,000 40 years ago, that house is now worth $500,000. If a younger person buy’s that house now, it will most likely go down in value or maintain that $500,000, meaning no gains will be realized. It is an ugly scenario that we set our children up for.
9
@Reality Joe
My reality is a little different than yours.
40 years ago in 1979, the DJIA hit 1,000.
Today it's over 26,000.
That beats the real estate growth you cite on a house that's essentially gone up about 400%.
Even if the market is overvalued now, it will adjust/crash, but then, over the years and decades, bounce back and do better than real estate. It always has.
The real estate market may be overvalued, too, and it will adjust.
Still, young people should do whatever they can to get into both the stock and real estate markets in a longterm strategy plan.
Real estate forces savings; and the stock market always, in the long term, goes up.
The only question is how to play one against the other. If the advantages of renting look to last for a while, you could argue that that's the way to go (losing upside appreciation but saving on taxes, etc).
But of course all those savings you have by renting should be plowed into the stock market.
2
@Reality Joe
I agree with some of your points, but differ on others. What you have seen is a cultural shift in values. College used to be relatively affordable with summer jobs, parental help and maybe a small loan. States used to make State U affordable, but in the last decade, legislatures have cut their budgets to the bone. Thus, the rise in huge student loans. A huge cost shift. The days of working for one company and receiving a pension has gone the way of the dodo bird. Employers shifted to 401k to cap their expense and eliminate their fiduciary responsibilities. Welcome to the new ownership society - you are on your own, and there is no loyalty either way. Corps are contracting out as much as they can, thus the rise of the gig economy with no benefits. As far as the stock market going up or down in one quarter, it is insignificant - you s/b a long term investor. Recessions are normal, and part of the economic cycle. As far as the L.I. house that used to cost 120k 40 yrs ago, and comparing that to its 500k value today, you need to adjust for inflation to get a true picture. Even so, I agree that wages have not kept pace. $ 120k back in 1979 was "hard money." You should buy a house to live in, and not expect it to be some wild, fantastic investment or piggy bank. The days of speculation or flipping are pretty much over. Trees don't grow to the sky, and neither will R.E. prices. The cost per sq. ft. today is ridiculous, but a recession will kill that.
@DD Your reality is correct, IF we are able to stay the course of what we've done the last 40 years, BUT, I fear that we are headed down a road that has been taken over by the radical left and right, which I hope does not bleed into the stock market. Only time will tell. I'm interested to hear your take on the upcoming debt crisis? And yes I benefited greatly by the Trump tax cuts, BUT I know many people who did not.
Every time I read a story about people being priced out of costal big cities (with Chicago often thrown into the mix), I want to scream as loudly as I can: "THERE IS A BIG WIDE COUNTRY OUT THERE!" Because there is. Perhaps these millennials need to investigate what a livable wage is in other locales. There are many, many places in flyover country where one can hold a job, pay a mortgage, and still have culture and all the accoutrements of urban living. Plus, the influx of college-educated 20 and 30-somethings would be great for stimulating our economies, too! I hate to give away the "secret" many of us discovered years ago, but seriously people. If you can't afford to live there, MOVE. p.s. This advice goes for 40-and-50-somethings who complain they are priced out of the housing market in [New York, LA, DC, Boston, San Fran, etc.].
18
@Memphis: I live in Portland which is becoming hard to afford. I rent. I cannot afford a home. That said, I grew up in the Midwest. The state from which I come has become part of the deep South. Abortion rights are being chipped away, it's a right-to-work state (euphemism), and generally becoming totally backward. I would not move back. I'd rather live cheaply in an expensive city than 'nicely' in a conservative state. (And I do not rely on parental support.)
22
@Anne Yes, but the more liberals who move here, the more liberal the state will be. Trust me, not everyone is evil in the south.
3
@Memphis: Yes, I know good people live in the Midwest and the South (and Tennessee is lovely!) But I feel like I can breathe where I live. I wouldn't, for instance, want to live in Kansas where I believe they teach Creationism alongside evolution. (I'm fine with religion, but not in schools). I suppose I could move to a state and try to change it with my one extra liberal vote, but alas I'm not that altruistic.
1
thirty-something first season final episode, Born To Be Mild includes a scene in which Ellyn goes through Michael and Hope’s financial files and finds evidence showing Hope’s parents made the downpayment on their house. I remember viewing that episode as a 30-something in a new home with a hefty mortgage, thinking, “Wish I had parents like that.” So no, that comparison doesn’t wash. Hope’s parents did help.
6
The last sentence in the article seems the most important. It's easy to notice the difference between the life stage of upper middle class millenial versus their parents at the same age. But what's a little less obvious is the gap between millenials with parents who can support them and those whose parents can't. The former can afford to take jobs in cities with astronomical rents, or to take low paid internships to gain valuable experience. That gap is creating a widening societal divide.
11
Taking out large student loans is a big mistake that has contributed to many people's financial problems. Years ago, I took out a student loan (it was very easy to get). When I had to start paying it back, after getting out of school, it was frightening because it used up a large percentage of my monthly income. When I finally got a job that paid enough, the first thing I did was pay off that loan ASAP.
Rather than take out loans for college, young people should consider going to a less expensive state school or community college for at least the first two years of college.
28
@Carolyn: Many people, who do not have parental support, need loans even for state schools and community colleges. They days of putting yourself through school with a part-time job (even a full time job!) are over.
10
Alert- less expensive schools cost money too. Not everyone can afford the tuition at a community college. Students at community colleges have student loans too.
11
It's not just major cities anymore. I live in C Washington state, have a good job and still cannot afford to buy even a starter home. Something has got to change with the costs of housing. It is insane.
10
I wonder if the person whose parents helped her aquire a condo a mere three blocks from the beach is the exception? Certainly there are less expensive places to live. That said, though, I was/am able to afford my very modest home thanks to an inheritance from my mom when she passed. However, I work two jobs to pay the mortgage and other bills while saving for retirement. I live within my means and would never consider doing otherwise. Am I that out of touch with what's happening or am I more the norm?
9
@Leroy Windscreen I'm in a similar boat. I have a good job (65k/year) and live very modestly. But between student loan debt, soaring housing costs, utilities, gas, groceries, and trying to save for retirement -- I find myself living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Life has gotten very expensive and wages have not kept up.
11
it's the kids, folks. It's always been the kids. I know I'm oversimplifying, but in many, many cases, it's the people who have children that they can't afford who end up in deep trouble. I love children and regret not having them, but I'm a creative and couldn't afford it, so I never got around to it. I can pay for my life in the gig economy because I only have to support myself.
14
The primary reason why most people over 60-years old file for bankruptcy is because they took out a home equity loan to "assist" their adult children, who were supposed to pay them back but never did.
Result - parents lose their home and the children lose-out on inheriting a home.
10
@Paul This is simply not true. The primary cause of bankruptcy in all age groups is medical debt.
8
@SML
You are correct. I had meant to indicate foreclosure, not bankruptcy. I know that there is a difference, but neither is good.
3
Really, though, when have people with parents or families with savings NOT received help from their parents? The difference is that maybe in the past these types of gifts revolved more around weddings- at your wedding you got a down payment, or something like that. But it’s really no different than today
7
@kas No, it's different. A one time payment, help with the down payment on a house, that's different than a probably pretty large check every month. Help with a major purchase is nothing like help with everyday expenses. When my wife and I moved to the city (New York) in our early 20's, we got by on our own. We got help, our first two cars were inherited from parents. But everyday stuff we paid for. All of it. We could have lived without anything from our parents. Young people today can't. Think about it, a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC is probably going to cost you $3500 a month. Even if you're splitting that with your significant other like my wife (well, girlfriend then) did, that's $1750 a month each. Based on the old rule, you should be making $70000 a year to afford that. How many 25 year olds make that? How many 25 year old couples where they both make that? Using the same rule for our first rent, we each needed to make $10000. That translates after inflation to $22800 today. Slightly different.
6
@Jeff M sorry, no. Look at the rest of the comments. The idea that before this generation parents didn’t help their kids with money and/or childcare/children’s tuition is just laughable. Parent with money and/or the time to babysit have always helped their kids in one way or another.
@kas. You're missing my point. I never said parents haven't always helped, they have. It's just different when you're helping someone even have an "independent" life, as opposed to babysitting, or helping someone buy a house. 20 somethings nowadays, and even 30 somethings, can't even pay their rent without parental help. That was not true when I was 20 something.
One aspect of the financial equation that was left out was the debt incurred by Boomer parents of moderate means who sometimes owe much more for their child's education than the child does. Somes college structured it this way. In addition many Boomers have drawn on their home equity lines to pay for college expenses. This often happened when their own job prospects and income became problematical. I would not be surpised that many Boomer parents downsized their residences in oder to raise funds as they are squeezed by these lingering college loans and the shortfall of their own retirement funds.
11
For maturity, for empathy, for the good of the country, a year of public service/hard work upon high school graduation would provide lifelong lessons in civics and independence; in meeting people from different backgrounds
As a foster kid responsible for launching myself in the 70s, I cannot weigh in on parental help, at all. I do know being a waitress, doing hard work with much responsibility at an early age, provided a strong backbone. Earned my degrees.
Though I do not recommend the US foster care system, young adults and society would benefit from broadening young people's perspective, especially with the top earners creating a protective bubble for their children.
We have a lot of problem solving to do here in the US. Late teens, early twenties, have the energy to do much good work. Adult leaders and parents need to do some adulting as well.
26
@kat perkins Kudos to you. Same situation here except on my own since age 16. Waitress, bartend, etc. you name it I did it. Paid rent, paid for college tuition, paid for my car, etc. with no parental help. This definitely made me strong and resourceful, and a saver. I wonder if I would have been "softer" if given financial assistance after age 16? No matter-I would not change a thing. My survival instincts were honed during the tough years (16-23 or so).
12
@kat perkins
Although I didn't come from a foster situation, I never got a thing from my cab driver/waitress parents (and they never had anything to give, lived their end lives in a small trailer in NJ on Soc. Sec.)
I worked multiple jobs, paid/borrowed for tuition, got an RN and worked in a pensionable job, retired last year at 65.
Never thought of parents doing anything for grown kids. I didn't even know what a trust fund was until I met some recipients in Boston. No concept of what a leg up could be. It has been an issue between me and friends who don't understand, as I keep traveling in very different circles as an adult.
10
This is not just a millennial thing.
My middle sister is at the tail end of the boomer generation, but she expected, nay demanded, money from our parents to pay for the lifestyle that she wanted, including private school and expensive summer camps for her four children.
There is also the concept of an appropriate level of financial expectation. If you graduate with a lot of student debt and you want to own a large home with an easy commute, then perhaps living in SF or NYC is not the best choice.
With all of that said, I absolutely agree that financial contributions from parents should not be hidden, as it puts perverse pressure on those who do not receive it to go into debt in order to live like their peers.
8
@HN That sister of yours sounds a real humdinger.
1
I think that many young people today have a problem with differentiating between "I want" and "I can afford." I live in one of the most expensive areas and it is quite impossible to squeeze more people here. I would move the moment I would not be able to afford it. What people do not understand is that demand and fixed supply means higher price.
28
I always figured my son would get a job and a place on his own right after college. Even though he didn't have any student loans, because he came back to San Diego for work, it made sense to have him live with us. There was no way he could have afforded to rent in this city without at least two roommates. We still had his old bedroom, and we negotiated him helping out and paying for food so that he wasn't "freeloading." We three of us have now developed an even stronger bond, and he is always thanking us for helping him.
23
With our nation and the entire globe overpopulated and the environment polluted and contaminated beyond sustainability, it is unconscionable to be bringing more children into the world.
I ask, how will these self-possessed parents prepare their heirs for the rigors of life on a depleted planet, with a destroyed environment and the desperate competition that are adding more numbers to?
For one thing, they will probably not have their own parents to support both them and this next generation.
26
I always tell my kids “It’s all heading in your direction anyway, I might as well see you enjoy some of it while I’m still alive”. I don’t see why we send people on a guilt trip about having help from their families.
My greatest joy has been time spent helping with my young grandchildren. What a luxury to have a little extra money and a lot of extra time to help my kids and grandkids.
38
As a borderline gen x/millennial who did not have the benefit of wealthy parents pay for college or a down payment on a house, I have noticed that many of my peers are not willing to sacrifice any amount comfort. They still want three kids or the house near the beach or the $300 vitamix. My in-laws, part of the silent generation, resole their shoes and shop at thrift stores. I’m not so sure my generation understands that sacrifice.
450
@FM: Yes, I don't begrudge people who have family support, but I do think many people who have it take it for granted.
60
@Anne agree folks don't know what they have and do take it for granted. As I received no parental support after age 16....I find it odd now when I see 40-somethings taking large amounts of cash from their parents because they are "in debt", need a bigger house, etc. These are the same people whose parents paid for their higher education, etc. I'm surprised these people even accept money from their parents, because in my eyes-they are well off. I prefer not relying on anyone.....since it's what I'm used to.
30
@Jen: Yes, I grew up without financial or emotional support from my parents. When I was younger and dated some wealthy guys, it didn't work. They felt they had 'made it on their own' when in reality, their parents paid for thir undergrad, grad school, their homes, etc. We lived in different worlds. And I often felt judged (rather than admired) for the fact that I did everything on my own (but was till not 'making it' according to their standards).
61
To understand this article one must accept the assumption that adults "should be" independent of their extended families. One of the travesties resulting from our economic system was the acceptance of a delusion that if you're not a completely self-sufficient individual you're a failure. It's reassuring to read that families still function in this county as a unit of support. Now, I hold hope that I will someday read an article in which younger generations begin to reciprocate that support to older generations in ways other than simply googling and paying for the best "convalescent" center for their soon-to-be-deceased parents.
30
You make an excellent point. I wish my family could have been closer to us when we raised our son. I am now bringing my father down near me to care him. My son at age 27 still lives with us even though he has a full-time job with benefits. I am actually really happy to have three generations in one city. I am appreciate a "team" approach with families. This being independent from your parents is ridiculous, as it isolates people and gives them the impression that helping each other is a weakness.
10
@JoAnn agreed!
2
I'm 54. My parents were (are) immigrants now in their 80's who were very successful financially, and encouraged me and my siblings to follow our dreams. They were (are) especially proud of me for becoming a professional musician because they were able to give me the music lessons their families were not able to afford for them.
As I had modest success in this highly competitive yet poorly paid field, they paid for college, paid my rent when I was job hunting, have helped me buy a (small) house and my first & only new car (now 15 years old), and now they are helping me with expenses related to my cancer treatment. (I have excellent insurance but the time off I've had, and will have, to take from work is chewing through my PTO at a ferocious rate and I will have to go on COBRA at some point which is 6x more expensive.)
I've started a second career in physical therapy which has doubled my income and made me middle class --- almost --- for the first time. But I don't have decades of savings to rely on and still receive kind offers of "let us know if you need help" from my parents.
Does it bother me that I haven't cut the cord? Yes, sometimes; sometimes I feel like a failure. But mostly I feel gratitude for the help I get rather than shame or resentment at needing it.
104
@Bruce you are very lucky, and it sounds like you know that. Step one is realizing the leg-up one has received, and empathy for those who have never had that opportunity. Your unfortunate circumstance, experienced by someone without the good luck of giving parents, would likely lead to poverty and/or living on the streets.
29
There are other, more humane ways of living than the doctrine of radical self-sufficiency would have us believe. You and your parents seem to understand that well. Wishing you a full recovery.
47
@Jennifer --- don't think I don't know it.
6
The reality of living in early 21st century America is that, though I'm finally making a good salary, an awful lot of it is going to help my hard-working young adult children just survive in an economy that seems hostile to young people. The economy may or may not be booming, but it doesn't feel like it for many Americans.
18
We have historically low unemployment and millions of jobs, with good salaries, awaiting people who are willing to not pay obscene prices for the right to live in NY or SF.
A simple formula;
1. State University
2. Tech, engineering, or career oriented major, e.g insurance, agriculture etc.
3. Don't even consider living in NY or SF until you are debt free and COMPLETELY financially independent. Save 10% of your salary until have the down payment in hand. (there are nice places to live all over this country, you may not want to move back!!))
44
Gosh, you are so retro that it is kinda charming.
Listen, people are interchangeable, thank god. We are different, right?
Take me, I wished I had studied Literature in college and made some career with it. But no, I am not smart enough to be successful there. Instead I have a computer science degree, make great money and have been since 1990. So I help out my children in their public service careers in major cities.
Plus I give to those in need outside the family. What else is one to do with a large income, but assist the young? That is my personal contribution to humanity. My software developer career is not a source of pride but of practicality.
My only regret is I don’t have any artist offspring.
27
@Joe
The STEM majors are not the road to riches. Much new data confirms that. Long-term career prospects are best for those who start with humanities degrees and learn relevant tech in whatever field they join.
7
We should also be talking about all the financial help and inheritance that the Baby Boom generation has received/is still receiving from their parents (the Greatest Generation). The Greatest Generation folks were the real savers and their thrift helped the Boomers who have in turn helped their kids and grandkids. This is a multigenerational phenomenon. And, let’s not ignore that many adult kids actually help their parents out financially.
15
@Cam
Completely depends on who your parents were and how they lived. Not all Greatest Generation people were as successful as described.
4
I don't think it is just this generation. I am a boomer. I remember my father telling me that parents support their children in one way or another until they are in their 30's and this was in the 1980's. Point-in-fact, I had a gas credit card from my parents that I didn't return until I graduated from MBA school at 31.
6
@Nina I think this is an individual thing. As a Gen-Xer I had no parental support after age 16 and paid rent, college tuition, for my car, etc. from age 16 onward. Must be nice to have support until age 31, I would have no idea what this is like. I'm happy knowing that the tough times made me resourceful. Knowing you have no one to rely on makes one VERY self sufficient and aware that a rainy day can come at any time-and you'd best be ready.
9
@Jen,
I wish I could give your post 100 'recommend's. Your story and attitude earn huge respect.
1
My lessons in life are from what I didn't have when I was growing up:
*Save 15-20% of income from the day you start working.
* If married, stay faithful and if your spouse also works, never take it for granted.
* If you have children, turn the TV off the first 4 years of their life and read to them and show them as many avenues to life as possible.
*And never, never underestimate the value of a fine education.
My entire family is debt-free and our child, yes, does happily live in one of the cities mentioned.
67
@Tim I think you are spot-on. Many of these baby boomer parents who are bank-rolling their kids created their own dependent monsters by not teaching them these lessons, and now can't face the scrutiny from their own friends of the failures they created/enabled.
9
The more I read about this, the more I understand that post-war prosperity and upward mobility is the exception, not the norm, in America, if not the world. Many cultures live in multigenerational households, happily or not, for economic and social reasons. The flow of generational resources through families is not a new phenomenon, and with extra hands to help raise children and care for elderly, it need not be a negative thing.
63
Totally agree with you. The Post WWll years helped a lot of poor American vets go to college and buy a home. Definitely a historical anomaly- very grateful to my father who was a middle school dropout from a very poor family who post war got his GED and then a college degree.
6
What a relief to read a story about children getting help from their baby boomer parents. I am 42 years old, so right on the cusp of Gen X and Millennial, and I am struggling with the fact that it order to be "comfortable" I will have to take money from my parents, who are generous and willing to give it. I constantly feel like a complete and utter failure for not having the level of success that I was "supposed" to have.
I am a veteran who did not retire, but left the military after 7 years to pursue a new career. I love what I do, but I'm earning what I would have earned in my 20s had I not taken the long route. I am lucky enough to afford a mortgage on a modest home (using a VA loan with no down payment I purchased it with no parental assistance), but I have huge debt from graduate school, and my income is entry-level. I have received help from my parents for home repairs.
The general sensation of being a failure for needing to take money from my parents is overwhelming, and a big element of my self-judgment is the erroneous belief that "everyone else is able to do it on their own." This is obviously not true, but few people talk about the help they get from their parents. Maybe we all need to get over ourselves and the American myth of "pulling ourselves up by our boot-straps" and we'll be a more honest and happy society overall. Then we can spend more time helping each other and less time judging others and ourselves.
96
Forget the idea that there’s some level of perfect self-sufficiency (easier said than done, I realize). It sounds like you have every reason to be proud of your professional path. Take the support, thank your parents, and enjoy your new career.
29
This is an extraordinarily alarming piece that belongs not in the Style section but the Politics section. The basic facts are that wages have not kept up with housing, medical, education and childcare expenses. Those facts are not immutable but are the result of political choices which can be changed.
In addition, the need to rely on parents' wealth will exacerbate differences in economic opportunity by race. People of color have less family wealth to fall back upon. Not only upward mobility but basic economic stabilty will be even more at risk for people of color.
A stronger safety net is not a cost beyond our means. Studies show that states which strengthen their safety nets see more business formation. That is because people will take the risk of starting a new business when they know their family's education, health and other essential services will be taken care of.
219
@Adam Friedman
I agree with you. This article completely sanitizes and emolliates the growing societal and structural problems that each generation faces with this "house of cards" economy that has evolved. That said, I guess it's just a 21st century remake of "how my poor immigrant parents worked hard so I could have a better life" meme.
16
This article hits close to home. My children have no college debt , and they have a roof over their heads. Rent is minimal since they are only responsible for condo association dues. But at least I sleep well
Knowing they are safe in their own homes bought and paid for by us. Parental love is unconditional.
21
Good job, I plan to do the same for my kids.
2
@cindy
“ bought and paid for by us”
That is the crux of the biscuit. ( F. Zappa )
Oh my, if that isn’t telling it like it is... for some.
The rest of us live in a perpetually crushing state of anxiety.
9
My family paid for college. After that we were on our own financially, and it was a long hard climb. I don't understand, however, parents continuing to provide for their kids, money for bills, money for housing, down payments for mortgages, money for cars, food, clothing, furniture, grandkids, vacations, etc etc etc. I think the animal imagery isn't correct, you need to find animals who nurture their young until they're around 50, oh snap - the only animal doing that is the human.
14
@Horatio
My grandmother and grandfather, married in 1928, were given a house as a wedding present. My father received from them a down payment on a house and a houseful of furniture as wedding presents. This is not a new phenomenon.
12
Oh, the joys of belonging to the Boomerang Generation.
My own contemporaries range from deceased servicemen, to attorneys, to financial consultants, to medical school students/graduates, and so on.
The ones that are still alive almost all depend on help from their parents, to one degree or another, and still I’ve heard horror stories about a quarter million dollars in student debt.
But for the record, it’s not my parents’ money, it’s my grandparents’. I can’t speak to the nature of all baby boomers, but there are more than a few who take credit for having achieved success which they never would have had, if not for all that their own parents provided.
14
The idea of breaking away from your family and "making it on your own" was easier a generation ago, at least in the U.S.. This notion is yet another left-over benefit of the post WWII boom from the 50's to the 70's. Most Americans didn't have to resort living with mountains of debt for all their necessities. Families could do well with 1 earner. One didn't need a $100,000 education to find gainful employment. Health care wasn't the mega-scam it is today. So, if you want to measure the value of your society by whether or not young people can emancipate from their parents, those were the days. But, of course, today things are much different. Now, luxuries are relatively cheap and necessities are incredibly expensive.
Maybe, in the long run, families living together longer and closer might be a good thing. I know from living in Italy, there is a richness and depth of family and tradition that is sorely lacking here in the states. Even this article underlines the "transactional" nature of our relationships here. Sad really.
119
@mrfreeze6
Thank you for your comment. Couldn’t agree more about the transactional nature of relationships in America.
23
It's not fair to compare Italy to the United States when these are 2 very different cultures and countries with 2 very different histories and backgrounds. American was not created and founded on the same principles as Italy. So that must be honored.
4
@Shaleia, Why not? Americans are constantly "comparing" the U.S. to other countries in the world (usually in the most condescending of ways).
13
My greatest joy is seeing my children and grandchildren happy and healthy. Why is it an issue if I choose to help them in whatever way they need it?
I'm 63 years old and grew up in a three story house with my immigrant great grandparents and grandparents living in the other apartments. This was the norm for many of my peers.
When did family helping family become a "thing"?
111
This sort of social regression characterizes the stagnation young adults are experiencing in Europe as well.
In France, it is customary to define this dramatic state of affairs as the reflection of a 'broken social elevator' preventing young people from ever contemplating a basic lifestyle superior to the that taken for granted by the previous generation. The paucity of stable and decent paid jobs largely explains their inability to really take flight and leave the family nest.
On the other hand, I am rather taken aback by the feckless mendacity of certain young adults interviewed for this article.
I even find the overly generous gifts ($100,000 ! a condominium !) to be the symptom of an incredibly unjust society mirroring old European aristocracies allowing their offspring all sorts of unreasonable frills and indulgences.
Very politically provocative, too, as the rise of political extremism in recent years indicates.
44
What happened?
Why has the cost of rent and other essentials increased so much more than salaries?
I speak from the perspective of someone who left the nest for the "friendly skies" of a major airline after college. Lived in Queens with 3 or 4 roommates for three years then in a house in Long Beach with three roommates.
Moved to my own walk-up one bedroom apartment on Beacon Hill in Boston in 1977. In 1983 bought a studio condo on BH. I was a single working woman but my airline salary was above Boston's median in '83 after a good raise. I'd look to buy off and on for years but mortgage interest rates were sky-high. In 1983, those rates had come down to about 12% and combined with my raise I was able to buy.
Then in 1986 my airline skies turned turbulent and unfriendly thanks to a corporate raider. Sold the condo a year after the strike to 'buy time' because I had fallen short of matching my airline salary. In retrospect, it was a financial mistake I never recovered from.
Again, I will ask, why is the cost of rent or a home so much more expensive today relative to salaries?
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@Mary Ann Donahue
Well, landlords consider their properties to be investments which 'must' reap the best returns possible.
On the other hand, all graduates are getting shafted by the blind greed of institutions of higher (l)earning whose tuition hikes are obscenely beyond the rates of other fixed expenses. The student debt burden is a ticking time bomb for the stability of the American economy.
7
@AE ~
Yes landlords need to get a return on their investments, but that has always been the case.
Which leads me back to my original question, why is their such disparity between salaries and the basic costs of living.
My personal anecdotal story was meant to convey that at one time, a single woman could afford to live in a great neighborhood in a major city. I was not a doctor, lawyer or high level professional.
More than the high cost of college is drastically out of sync.
14
@Mary Ann Donahue--
Re: "why is their.."
Correction-- there
1
I, too find this “snarky” and the animal imagery particularly so. Our children sacrificed as my husband and I worked our way thru advanced degrees and challenging early careers. We too had the love and support of our own parents of modest means in non-monetary ways but equally important. We don’t bankroll their salaries but we covered their university expenses, helped with early modest home purchases, paid for grandchildren schools as needed and now subsidize oldest grandson’s college expenses as needed to supplement his generous academic scholarship. We will continue to do so for all our grandchildren. Each is doing his or her part. Why would we wait until we die to see our children and grandchildren enjoy the results of years of hard work, good choices and yes, some grace and luck?
45
@TBMD Because *everyone's* children and grandchildren should enjoy success, not just those born into families with "grace and luck".
10
So glad this topic is being covered. As a 30 something living in Philadelphia with my wife and young child I have finally achieved a sense of financial comfort, and I am a lucky one. For years I struggled as a young lawyer, barely making a respectable wage while paying extremely high rent.
Meanwhile, the super rich have it easy and the poor get free housing and drive up our tax bill with exorbitant expenses for law enforcement and welfare programs.
8
@Mark: rather tha nblame the poor (who often lack the parental support highlighted in this article) for driving up the cost of law enforcement and welfare, perhaps we should blame white collar crime and corporate welfare. Most poor people are decent hard-working people trying to get by on minimum wage. Most are not breaking the law. Most could use a safety net until employers choose to pay them a living wage.
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@Mark
Wow! Actually your tax bill is being driven up by tax cuts for the wealthy, CORPORATE welfare, and the military police state used to enforce it. Good job though being the wealthy’s puppet and falling for their long-standing plan of divide (the lower economic classes) and conquer.
10
@History Buff
I vehemently support increasing tax cuts for the rich. Where in my post did I even suggest otherwise? In fact, I explicitly mention "the super rich" as a problem.
However, you are entirely glossing over the immense cost of poverty in this country, particularly in my city of Philadelphia, where hundreds of millions are spent on the police force annually.
I have noticed a pattern of cognitive dissonance in this section. It is very seldom one or the other, but often both.
Republicans refrain from blaming the uber wealthy, but Democrats are afraid to talk about inner city violent crime, which is staggering.
3
How? Easy. You live in a second- or third- tier city with a decent quality of life and far more affordable housing and overall living expenses: Indianapolis, Columbus, Nashville, Boise, Asheville, et al.
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@JBC
I'd add Kansas City to your list. Cultural opportunities and a strong sense of place and historical tradition. Like most cities in the Midwest, KC votes blue. Housing prices and eating out struck me as more affordable than here in Bloomington (as a university town).
17
@JBC
This is exactly what I thought as I started into this piece. I don't know, however, that flyover country is generally considered to be a desirable destination to many of the families targeted by this piece.
9
@JBC Asheville is affordable? People also like to say that Austin is affordable. The only people that think that Austin and Asheville are affordable are people from these "first tier cities" who moved there and made the housing market explode. Now, after a decade in Austin, I've had to move to what you might call a fourth tier city. Trickle down misery anyone?
34
I do not --nor have I ever-- subscribed to the bootstraps ethos, since I have always known people who are subsidized by some force outside of their own productivity. As the poet Shania Twain said in the ultimate diss-track, "that don't impress me much."
22
@S.C.
Exactly. I recommend that everyone read Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers' to get a grip on the realities underlying success in the real world. 'Outliers' is a pop psychology analysis about the indispensable factors dictating an individual's success. One factor stood out in mind for me : successful people NEVER do it alone, there always has to be a mentor or at least a providential encounter facilitating the individual's path.
23
"Hold the eye roll and exasperation about millennials and their failure to launch or the gushing of financial resentment for a moment, and consider the unforgiving economics of trying to make it in this country today."
Sorry, but my eyes are rolling, and I am exasperated.
I'm not seeing the point of this story. Children of folks with financial means have advantages over others that allow them to do things and live lives they otherwise could not live. When has that not been true?
The one that irks me most is Ms. Palmer, who is 39 and who says that, thanks to child care from her parents, she could afford a third child. What does Ms. Palmer do for a living? Is there a father, and, if so, where is he? If the child was conceived in the old-fashioned way, how much is he contributing toward child care? The story addresses none of these obvious questions. Also, kids aren't clothes. You don't acquire them because it pencils out.
The bottom fell out of the economy a decade ago. Ten years. If you think it's tough recovering from that when you're in your 20's, try it when you're in your 50's. Today, unemployment is near an all-time low and wages are on the rise. The point is self evident.
Every family will have its own answers. I find nothing to criticize in the Alvarez family's experience and decisions, and I wonder why that family wasn't at the top of the story instead of the bottom. Otherwise, this is just so much lifestyle fluff un-rooted in facts and realities.
139
@August West Unemployment/employment is far more complex than simply a dichotomous state. Unemployment figures do not reflect underemployment, jobs without benefits, or jobs with minimal benefits. While unemployment may be low, underemployment and jobs that do not pay a living wage have steadily increased for five decades.
23
@August West. I also have to ask why, in our troubled time, not stop with two kids -- especially if you can't afford them? The Earth is beginning to groan under the weight of overpopulation, the primary driver of the planet's sickliness.
30
@August West, there’s a lot to criticize in Ms. Alvarez’s story. She bought a condo she can’t afford by a mile, and her parents have enabled her to wind up in bankruptcy court one day. For someone who only earns $75k working for the county to buy a $435k condo is lunacy writ large. On her salary she can afford a dwelling that costs $187,500 (2 1/2 times her salary). This type of funny money financing is what caused the 2008 crash and will probably cause another one in the near future.
19
I don’t see grandparents contributing to the care of their grandchildren - even if it’s because their children can’t afford it - as anything wrong. I also agree with the choice some here have made to contribute to children’s IRAs. Having handled several estates it makes sense to do it now rather than later. This is what families do (or maybe should if they can) for each other.
14
The problem is that too many don’t acknowledge the help and too many as a result still believe the myth that “only” hard work and frugality are the keys to success, as it was to a larger extent a generation ago. This myth affects too much government policy on all levels. And really, is disrespectful to the source of the help.
12
You can’t legally contribute to a child’s IRA. IRAs must be funded with self-earned income!
4
Well, they’re doing it somehow. Maybe it’s a gift to the child who then puts it in the IRA.
I lived in San Francisco from 1984 to 1989 while I worked on my undergraduate degree. I made $9 an hour working part-time as the office girl at a Fiat mechanic shop in the tenderloin. My rent in the lower Haight was $300 a month for a room in a beautiful victorian apartment that I shared with friends. I managed to get a college degree with a Pell grant, a little help from my parents, and by working 20 hours a week. I lived well, travelled, owned a car, and graduated without any student loan debt.
In today's dollars, this would not be at all possible.
667
That apt is now $3K. Nuts.
28
@Cate $3000? Try $10,000 .
31
@aksantacruz At about the same time, I didn't qualify for a Pell grant (two working parents, so too "wealthy"), so I needed student loans. I bought a few items of clothing a year, ate in the student cafeteria, lived in a dorm with no TV, no car, no travel and of course no cell phone. The majority of my classmates (at an Ivy League college) were from middle class families or above, but lived similarly -- even if they did not all have student loans. So some of us did struggle.
14
Many suffer because of college debt. Parents, grandparents, children. Colleges meanwhile hire deans for all identities, build luxurious spa “health” centers, and offer grand food options. And spend a fortune in advertising to attract those top students. Colleges, just stop this already. These are not the kinds of things young families need to be paying for the rest of their lives.
If college years were a more spartan activity, where funding was clearly directed to faculty ( I mean, that is the point of college, right?), luxury was not tolerated, and reasonable reimbursements were available from public funds, well then, maybe young folks could afford housing. It is disgraceful that we live in a culture that barely allows young people to launch.
The whole higher education system is so messed up. Students who had not shown capacity for college level work are encouraged to take out loans for the benefit of the college. That is thief.
Housing, health insurance, many things contribute to this mess. But one key- address how colleges often sell a bill of goods and put young people in debt - just because they can. Time to recall your mission, higher education.
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Deans for all identities? Where is this happening, pray tell? I agree with your premise regarding extravagant college physical plants and programs, but most likely it is these same parents fueling that arms race as well. The privileged will always make sure their privileges remain intact generationally.
11
Public universities used to be funded by state taxpayers and state businesses. 35-45 years ago, those universities received 50-60% of their operating $budget from state taxpayers. Then, Reagan declared the need for smaller government. State funding now provides <15% of operating budgets at those public universities. Those schools have fewer tenured professors onboard today versus 35 years ago. ‘Lecturers’ now teach a high percentage of undergrad classes. (Every Major Dept had a Dean 35 years ago and they need Deans today because one of their primary roles is to bring in $donations from slums and figure out how to generate revenue from other sources.)
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@JK Agree. And how did big money athletics become so important in higher education institutions, even at tax-payer financed public institutions? Universities build expensive unneeded stadiums and sports complexes while increasing class sizes, stagnating faculty salaries, and decreasing educational scholarships.
Colleges and universities would better meet educational obligations by eliminating sports other than intramural sports.
28
And what a bitter irony it is that the young people profiled here, who have a great personal stake in America's future, are consistently among the least likely to vote.
29
Many people are living close to paycheck to paycheck. Even those with outwardly seeming 'middle class lives.' It's great tha some people have a parental safety net, but many people do not. For those who do not, it's quite precarious. mied in with the 'chronically homeless' are the newly homeless--people who never expected being homeless would happen to them. But it can and does. We need a bigger broader safety net for everyone. Wealth inequality is disturbing when so many people, who are not lazy or unwilling to work, are living on the edge.
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@Anne
If you want to provide charity go ahead. Leave the taxpayer out of it.
1
Multi generational and intrafamilial support has been a cornerstone for my family for generations. I went to college where my father worked and earned my Master's degree at a reduced rate. My two children went to college and are graduating with their Bachelor's degree, and at reduced rate since I am employed there. My parents bankrolled my first house at 0% interest and i paid the mortgage to them. I fully expect to do the same for my children. As an older adult, if someone needs cash, we pool resources and assist. Is it sometimes messy? Yes. Is it for everyone? No. But the family is the cornerstone of wealth building and political power, ask the Kennedy's, the Bush's, the Daly's, the Trump's. The myth of the "independent" American simply means you will be running by a set of rules not established with your own input. Time to watch "the Godfather" again.
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@brillodelsol On one hand, I completely agree with you. That is exactly the model I viewed within the academic and social milieu of my youth. On the other, I think of my own imigrant grandfather who literally invented himself from scratch. Smart, bold, and a bit of a rascal, he had what I believe was an innate understanding of capitalism, despite little formal education. This, however, was in the early 20th century, when the field was wide open to all comers. “There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.” (Willa Cather) Alas, how that material has become contaminated today.
2
@brillodelsol
BINGO !
The article suggests millennials open up about the help they receive from parents. I agree, but sometimes it’s not us keeping things under wraps. I received an interest free loan from my parents that helped me secure a home—with the condition that I tell nobody. I suspect I’m not alone as babyboomers probably don’t want the whole world (and the rest of the family) knowing how generous they are.
20
Family members help each other. Most of us have benefitted in some way.
Sadly, this article left me thinking about the foster kids who age out and are left with little or no support, either emotionally or financially.
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This starts with the assumption that we baby boomers made it all on our own with out any help. Families have always helped each other. It may not look the same from one economic status to another but it's always been there. As young adults we also supported each other by sharing apartments and didn't imagine we could own a nice home in a prime neighborhood while still in our 20s. I believe what I hear and read about millenials earning proportionally less in a more expensive economy but I cringe when I read about $30,000 for pre-school.
84
Actually, millennials who are blessed with parents who make the runway longer, are the luckiest people in the USA today.
I have no idea how the young people today are able to afford to leave the parent’s nest.
I am happy to know that many of them have parents who can help.
57
The rational person thinks in multi-generational terms, not the myth of the independent individual with no ties. I plan to heavily fund my adult children, I even will buy them houses. I want to put appreciating assets into their hands earlier rather than later, so that the government will have less to tax.
38
@JackC5
I prefer to keep most of the assets in case we have a long, long retirement that can be financially draining. Then the kids can (we hope) inherit a nice pile, perhaps for their own retirements. We funded some early IRA contributions and paid for most of college, and look for them to fund their own adult lives, unless something really comes up.
22
@JackC5
You make a good point, that parents should help their children and grandchildren earlier rather than later. My wife and I struggled financially living on Oahu, which in the 70's and 80's had the highest housing prices in the nation. This forced us to go entrepreneurial, and we physically built our house ourselves in 1980. We ran out of money and couldn't afford to finish it until 1986, so we lived in the unfinished shell and our little children grew up crawling around on plywood floors. Meanwhile, my parents were taking two trips to Europe every year, but we never asked for, nor did they offer, money to finish the house. Our sole surviving parent just recently passed away and my siblings and I all inherited some money, but it was 39 years ago that we needed it, not now. The lesson is that parents who are financially able to should help their struggling children when the children need the help, not wait until they die and gift the money via inheritance.
10
I couldn't afford to move out until I was 27 (almost 33 now) but the most my parents do for me now is pay for me food if I'm visiting and we go out to eat together? And even before I moved out I was paying most of my expenses myself.
Boohoo to the folks that have parents who can afford to just *give* them $50,000 or can't afford *private* preschool...I'm not going to cry over the people in my age group who went to overpriced private colleges and owe more than they make in a year in loans or are popping out kids they apparently can't really afford because they're still having their parents help them out financially...
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@Rebecca
Wow! I don’t think that’s what the article was saying. Did you notice the facts sprinkled in there like, over 53% of millennials receive assistance. So hate on over half of your peers if you like. Does it make you feel better? I’m glad they’re getting help, especially to have kids! Not glad that our unfair economic system has set them up that way, but glad they are able to get help. Those kids you’re deriding them for are the ones who will be taking care of you and I through work and taxes when we are old and infirm. Ponder that in your misplaced anger.
14
@History Buff "I'm glad they're getting help, especially to have kids!" Good god. So tired of such uncritical validation of reproduction. There are many good reasons to avoid adding more kids to this world. And many ways to better contribute to society.
30
Kids heavily dependent on their parents for financial support are missing out on one of the most satisfying experiences in life - self sufficiency. To the extent parents set their kids up for dependent status they did their kids a tremendous disservice direct payments can't compensate for. At age 18 explain the consequences of what they study in the highly specialized 21st century and make clear they'll own the outcome and carry through as they enter the world. No amount of money can buy this gift.
19
@AS
You’re clueless. We live in a world where 25 - 40% of all jobs currently will be gone (not replaced) in 15 years because of automation. Where it takes - as the article notes - as much as $80,000 - 100,000 for a down payment in many areas. I’m guessing you’re a boomer with no awareness to how fortunate your generation has been. You have never faced the economic realities that these young people are looking at. Now go enjoy your social security and Medicare. The rest of us will continue to work hard to ensure it’s funded for you. Or perhaps you have a good point. An older generation heavily dependent on a younger generation for financial support are missing out on one of the most satisfying experiences in life - self sufficiency.
10
@History Buff
I'm a college professor who helps turn out millions of successful participants in our economy every year. The only thing more depressing than the lives of these failures to launch (a small minority of college educated millennials) are the excuses we make up to explain our own failures as parents and adults.
5
@AS
Self sufficiency? You mean living in poverty is a satisfying experience? Good luck with that.
3
My daughter works in NYC where rents are prohibitive. Her salary covers her rent and essentials but isn't sufficient for any savings. Thus I fund her annual Roth IRA contribution and her 401K contributions so she can take full advantage of her employer's match.
As I see it, she's going to inherit the money anyway and since I have the means, it's better building her nest egg now than in the future.
349
@BSB Exactly right. If doable, much better to help kids and grand kids now,
47
Your daughter needs a roommate, and should move to an area that she can afford. It will help everyone: you, her, the roommate, and those remaining in NYC can have slightly cheaper rent once she vacates. Don’t live where you can’t afford.
37
@Pragmatic Observer - who says the daughter doesn't already have multiple roommates? Or that her chosen field has a deep pool of jobs outside NYC and similarly expensive large cities?
55
Many young people are simply moving to less expensive areas.
This is nothing new. As a baby boomer, I remember how many people from my high-school class ended up living in New Hampshire and Maine, because the NYC metro area was too expensive.
Smaller cities and towns have a wide variety of jobs, and offer a nice way of life for many people.
97
Agreed. There are plenty of wonderful, fulfilling places to live in the US other than New York City, Boston or LA. Needing parental help to pay for the “prohibitive expense” of a Manhattan apartment is nothing more than choosing to live beyond one’s means—something virtually Boomers would rail against as 20-somethings in their day. If the goal is self-sufficiency, and one’s income does not exceed expenses, then expenses need to be lowered or income increased. One very effective way to lower expenses is to move to lower-cost locations, such as the Midwest where housing prices are one-quarter, and general cost of living is two-thirds, of that of east/west coast cities. Another way is to evaluate one’s expense-to-income ratio prospects before signing-on to educational debt, instead of griping about the “unfairness” of one’s peers’ different situations. I have no problem with boomer parents’ mindsets that they’d prefer their money go to their children now versus in one chunk upon death; but, don’t say it’s “necessary.” No, folks, you’re simply artificially propping up your kids’ lifestyle. They can fix the ratio, they just choose not to.
12
The balance of wealth and opportunity has shifted pretty dramatically over the last 30 years away from small towns and midsize cities and toward the largest metropolitan areas. The jobs that used to be in New Hampshire or Michigan have dried up. It’s ridiculous to scold people for moving where the jobs are.
14
A grandparent contributing child-care is now the embodiment of a financial cord? And this is somehow exclusive to middle-class millenials? Sounds awfully suspect to me, when one considers that multi-generational living was considered normal when my great-grandmother lived with and helped to raise my grandparents' four children...
While I'm grateful and incredibly lucky to be financially independent and debt free, the fact of the matter is that my generation IS saddled with debt in a way that previous generations were not. One might argue that reason why these parents can help their adult children is largely because they didn't graduate from college with $150,000 in debt, only to go on to graduate school to accrue more debt, along with the degree they now need because of degree inflation and which was entirely unnecessary even 10 years ago (I'm lookin' at you, DMA!). Will we be able to do the same for our children? Doesn't seem likely; we'll still be paying off the interest on our own college loans.
Furthermore, if parents can afford to divest themselves of some of their wealth (tax free) while still alive, rather than in highly-taxed inheritance, seems rather smart to me for all involved...
74
@30-Something. Degree inflation is a result of the dumbing down of College curriculum. College should weed out the disinterested or non-focused student.
7
@30-Something: Anyone whose estate is taxed by the IRS these days must be leaving quite a pile! That tax, to the best of my knowledge, does not apply to anything under $5 million.
13
@LaPine
DMA = Doctor of Musical Arts, which most college and university music departments consider a required credential for tenure-track positions. It came into being in the 1990s, and with it an attempt to distinguish the practice of music from other fine arts, elevating its academic status to something like a soft science. The problem, of course, is not so much with music theory or musicology, but its affect on music composition and performance. Nevertheless, an entire economy grew around those qualifications that are arguably unnecessary and adversely affect the art form. Consider a Doctorate of Visual Art, for example.
11
Cut the cord - for now. Fortunately my living parent has stopped borrowing money from me for the time being. We here in SV are helping keep CALPERS on life support. Does that count?
3
Th
is analysis is skewed because it takes such a short time period and small subculture into consideration. Seems likely that the boomer generation's experience was the anomaly, and the current situation -- families helping each other as much as we can -- is the historical and international norm.
76
We are paying 100% of our children's college costs at excellent schools. After that, all done.
29
@mark: that is huge. It means your kids can focus on their studies rather than having three part-time jobs and living with continual stress. It also means they'll graduate debt-free which is also a huge bonus. I'm in my 50s and still paying off grad school.
26
@mark
Same here. Three kids, three great schools, zero student debt...and zero support after college. Fly, children, fly...
6
No. The cord is still there but the flow has been reversed since my mid-20s.
3
Could you turn this into a series and deal with a wider range of millennials from different soclo-economic-cultural backgrounds. There are hints in this narrative, but the main subjects of the article generally have family able to assist them.
What is it like for the, undoubtedly larger, percentage of this cohort who are trying to live in "an extended recession" on gig economy wages? The level of debt and under-employment I see for this age group makes their living conditions more akin to depression level subsistence than recession. Your story makes it sound like parents to fall back on is the only way to make it, implying a much grimmer story for those without that resource.
738
Yes, I have friends in their early thirties who live in economic depression, not recession, conditions: on food stamps, not able to make rent, and have bachelors degrees.
36
@KBallweg thank you!!! The NYT and so many others spend so much page space on the woes of the top 20-30%. Why not point out the far bigger problem? All of the rest of us, missing out on basic healthcare, working constantly to no avail, sick, exhausted, and drained by abject wealth inequality? Where is that story?
112
@KBallweg
The national unemployment rate in January was 4 percent--this is a 50-year low. Nine years ago, the unemployment rate was 9.7 percent. Average pay has been rising, by 3 percent during the past year.
But never mind facts.
14
Sure the knee-jerk reaction to parents still helping their adult children financially is snarky eye-rolling. But considering how the baby boomer generation (including yours truly) hasn't exactly left the earth better than we found it I think we still owe our children more than just financial assistance.
For the first time in generations, they will be earning less over their adult lives than my generation did, or than the greatest generation did. Their buying power has diminished. They are loaded with student debt that has made banks billions of interest dollars. They cannot in many cases refinance these loans.
And after all the boomers are but memories to their children, the offspring will have to figure out way to reverse the global warming that we have gifted to them.
So I say whatever I can do to alleviate the financial burden my children may be experiencing is the least I can do for them.
335
@Len Could the fact that to days young adults will earn less than their parents be due to liberal progressive government policies that take more of their income in taxes and raise the cost of goods and services due to government over regulation? As to the cost of college any thing the government subsidizes will raise in cost.
6
@wes evans I think it has more to do with the ever widening disparity between the mega-wealthy of this nation thanks to misguided Republican tax inequities and the working clas, where wages have stagnated for years while the richest .1% increase their already enormous wealth.
Yeah, more to do with that.
321
@Len - Why are they loaded with student debt? Go to a state college. I decided to attend Queens College, and was lucky to be accepted into a very prestigious Graduate program that left me less than $5k in debt. Paid it off in one year. I could have gone to NYU or Columbia or other private universities but as I told my friends, I'd still be writing checks to cover the debt as they lowered me into my grave.
My choice.
56
The whole idea of launching kids is a upper and upper-middle class benefit/"problem". In many sectors of jobs, the economy has offloaded salary onto parents. Say your daughter wants to get involved in political action work. The pay is poor and only rich kids, who have gone to the best colleges because, well, they are rich, will be able to afford to take the jobs. Pay to play. Then, who will qualify for the "real" jobs? The ones with "experience." This is just an artifact of income inequality.
199
@Midwest: I worked in social work years ago (with a master's degree) earning $12/hour because I was committed to the work. But that's not sustainable financially or emotionally (when you can't afford basic self-care like even a cheap vacation). Some of the women who thrived were women who's parents gave them stipends and paid their rent. They advanced to leadership positions; people like me got burnt out and moved on to other things.
32
@Midwest Exactly right, there is no "launching" vocabulary in the working class.
21
@Midwest @MichelleObama makes this point in her book. Reading Becoming I was struck by my blindness to the fact that (for those with employment options) really only those with resources are able to work in sectors with lower pay Like social services or political action.
26
We can just hope those adult children are there for their elderly parents when that time comes. So many stories around me of kids that do not have the time to help their aged parents, or if there is help, it is very very occasional. The kids moved away and have teens of their own, etc. Just make sure you know why you are assisting them and then do it with eyes open.
74
It's not just millennials. Some people in their 40s and 50s also get financial help. I know middle-aged people whose parents pay for a full-time nanny for their single-mom daughter; provide funds for legal representation (two different families); pay private-school and camp tuition for grandchildren; and pay for all expenses on extended-family vacations.
In addition to saving for our own retirement, we hope to be able to provide a base of support for our young-adult children if and when they need us.
21
My kids are both launched. I now contribute the max monthly to their RothIRAs, and have done so ever since they earned enough to contribute at age 16. After 10 years now, each has over $70K saved, and that will continue to grow with my contributions and earnings.
Why give it to them when I croak, when I can build it when I'm alive?
Some of the categories of support are kind of "duh" - an additional cell phone on a family plan is 10 bucks, and health insurance up to 26 is free. Are you actually counting those as "support"?
165
@Mtnman1963: It is family support when you consider some adults don't have parents helping them in those ways. Just because it's 'small' to you doesn't mean everyone has that support. And those small things add up. Consider someone with low wages who needs to pay $50 a month for their own phone and who do not have life insurance through their parents. So, yes, that's support.
41
@Anne My point is that these extremely low cost "support" items are skewing the percentages. 80+% of under-26s would probably report being on their parent's insurance, making a calculation of the percent of those 18-37 considerably misleading.
16
That statistic also doesn’t distinguish between those who received that support after 21 but while still in school and 37 year olds whose parents are still helping with the rent/mortgage. Both of my kids are launched and out of my house and both received some assistance past the age of 21- but after they finished school and started working full-time, that assistance was limited to room and board until they moved out. Yes, they got some help but unlike some of my peers, I am not continuing to work so that I can contribute to mortgage payments on a house my kid actually cannot afford ( My 29 year old daughter and her husband bought a house they could afford on their own. She wasn’t thrilled about buying in NJ , but that was where they could afford what they wanted)
20