The continual economic decline of the US is a major trend to watch because the recession of 2007 never ended. The number bear this out consistently, that any so-called “growth” since then has largely been anemic, and the economic base of the country in combination with various laws and social arrangement has continues to eat away at the general prosperity. This will become evident as the Boomers pass away, for while they were highly indebted, they also carried the greatest amount of prosperity to support the nation’s internal functions.
In 2012, there was a report that came from persons claiming a connection to the Bilderberg group, saying that either a hyperinflationary future or a long-term depression combined with stagnancy and inflation (stagflation, as some call it) were the two major economic outcomes. Clearly after over a decade, the latter seems to be taking place.
Millennials were the first generation to seriously feel the effects of this. Many have been forced into poverty or veritable debt slavery. Even those who are considered “high income”, which is defined as earning over $100K per year, fear they’ll have to work forever because they won’t be able to save enough to retire.
The survey was conducted by the Spectrem Group, a wealth advisory company, and offers insight for the demographic that came of age during America’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In particular, millennials that are now 30-34 years old — meaning that they likely graduated from college in the depths of the downturn, when hiring in many industries had dried up — are the most cognizant of or concerned about finances.
That “middle” cohort, scarred by memories of a dismal employment market, are also far more willing to work at a job that they might not like than their younger or older peers. (source)
Currently Millennials under 29 are said to be more optimistic, but such sentiments to not seem to be justified because many of them are not married, nor have intentions of marriage, nor did they start college until almost five years after the recession’s first wave in 2007. Likewise, they are also equally burdened with massive levels of debt, so the question remains as to how to pay it off, which is highly unlikely.
This frustration has expressed itself in the homebuyer’s market, where almost one-in-five Millennials and Zoomers regret regret purchasing a home instead of renting according to a Zillow survey, citing high interest rates and payments that are just too high as well as lacking sufficient financial supplies to be able to put down a sizeable down payment.
Speculating as to why, Josh Lehr, industry development at Zillow-owned Mortech, said getting the wrong mortgage may have driven that disappointment. For example, the Zillow survey showed 22% of young buyers had regrets about their type of mortgage and 27-30% said their rates and payments are too high. (source)
This is not because of simply poor planning. The facts are that the cost of living continues to rise, wages continue to decline either by way of less pay or simply from stagnant pay in the face of constant inflation due to money creation that results in the devaluing of one’s resources, an intentionally-expanded labor pool, an intentionally decreasing labor market due to outsourcing, automation, and outright job elimination, and a permanent instability as to the state of one’s job save in select cases.
This is largely the reason why people are going into government. Call them socialists, but who wants to work for a corporation where one lives in perpetual fear of being laid off or fired, where the work does not get easier, they pay decreases, and there is no sense of having any kind of stability? It is not wise to buy a home in such a situation, because given how expensive a home is and the bills required to maintain it, a single interruption in one’s stream of income could cause one to not be able to eat or pay basic bills such as water or electricity. What is to be said then about a major purchase such as a home?
Almost 80% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck today, and especially among millennials, a lot of this does not have to do with bad financial decisions made in the current time. Rather, it is because they have been indebted since college and they will spend possibly decades paying back a loan for a piece of paper. Less than 40% will ever become homeowners, being forced to rent perpetually. Likewise, because of the lack of stability, they cannot be expected to retire because what will they retire to other than more poverty masked by a veneer of prosperity?
Bankruptcy law does not allow for student loan debts to be discharged. Given how many Boomers are starting to die off, for those who did leave an inheritance to their children, there is a possibility than banks and loan companies will seek to garnish them to pay for their student loans- loans that their parents, families, teachers, and the rest of society firmly instructed them since childhood that taking such was the “responsible” thing to do. There is also the question of future bankruptcy law, for is it possible that the restriction of bankruptcy from student loan debts is a sign of future changes to come, where the debt slavery of the past becomes a paradigm for the future?
These are questions that will have to be answered another time. What matters for now is that the Millennials, especially the older ones, are feeling the hardest pain because the effects of the 2007 recession foised upon them at a critical time in their lives gravely injured them economically. The difference between them and other millennials is not one of financial health, but that they can feel and see the pain while the younger ones are not as aware of it but are just as badly wounded. The Zoomer generation is perhaps in the greatest danger right now, as the patterns of the early 2000s are repeating right now and lacking life experience and guidance (as all younger people lack), they do not see that they are about to embark on and possibly suffer the same hardships that Millennials have.