When I talk to young people, I am often told that my ideas about what to study, when to work and when to invest are “too strict”. They tell me: “your ideas only work within a narrow scope” and “don’t worry about me, everything will work out”.
Well, I happen to know that there are many crises right around the corner that will make things tougher for the next generation than they ever were for me. Trillion dollar student loan bubble, national debt doubled to $20 trillion, entitle programs going bankrupt, cost of health care and tuition skyrocketing, job growth at 1% quarter after quarter, breakdown of law and order, etc.
So how well are the young people equipped to deal with a challenging environment like this? Are they picking good majors and getting good jobs and controlling their spending and moving out of their parents’ houses?
Here’s a new survey from the leftist Pew Research:
Broad demographic shifts in marital status, educational attainment and employment have transformed the way young adults in the U.S. are living, and a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data highlights the implications of these changes for the most basic element of their lives – where they call home. In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household.
This turn of events is fueled primarily by the dramatic drop in the share of young Americans who are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35. Dating back to 1880, the most common living arrangement among young adults has been living with a romantic partner, whether a spouse or a significant other. This type of arrangement peaked around 1960, when 62% of the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, and only one-in-five were living with their parents.
[…]The Great Recession (and modest recovery) has also been associated with an increase in young adults living at home. Initially in the wake of the recession, college enrollments expanded, boosting the ranks of young adults living at home. And given the weak job opportunities facing young adults, living at home was part of the private safety net helping young adults to weather the economic storm.
The job opportunities in the private sector are bad because of the Obama administration’s high taxes and burdensome regulations, which strangle private sector job creation. Dodd-Frank and Obamacare are two examples of bills that kill job creation. There was a good video put out by Prager University that showed how these taxes and regulations hurt entrepreneurs:
Where are the jobs for the young people supposed to come from, when the young people keep voting against the private sector businesses that create jobs? I don’t know that their parents and professors are explaining to them how the economy works. Taxes and regulations make job creation harder, and then you have nowhere to work, and just live at home.
The “weak job opportunities” that Pew Research mentioned are especially weak for young people who graduate from non-STEM programs. STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduates are able to find jobs that pay enough. Liberal arts graduates end up serving coffee. And then they vote for more environmentalist regulations and a higher minimum wage, and find themselves out of a job entirely. The jobs just go elsewhere where there are lower taxes and fewer regulations.
It’s really important for young people to get into the workforce early and start building their resume and references with work experience. Two years of work experience is better than graduate school in most cases, too. Saving works much better when you start investing early, so watch your spending.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
It would, sadly, be a tiny percentage of the population– but there’s also the folks who are living with their parents as part of a job related move.
We’re actually in that situation right now– I’m moving in with my parents for a couple of months while my husband is in training, so that we can sell the house without the kids making a mess every time there’s a showing.
Like I said, sadly a very tiny percent. But if the economy was better, and prices weren’t so insane, I’d have rented a place and just be *near* family.
LikeLike
I lived with my parents when I did my BS and MS. There’s no problem with short-term moves to save money. My worry is when there is no plan to escape because it’s just soooooo comfortable to live off your parents into your 30s. What is the plan to get out and up? A lot of young men (including many Christian apologists) seem to think that they can live at home off their parents, and still approach women for marriage. Makes no sense to me. A man works and saves in order to protect and provide. We don’t get to be happy, we’re men.
LikeLike
Is the implication here that men have to be out of their parents’ house before they’re “ready” for marriage? I don’t necessarily agree simply due to how high the cost of living is in certain areas. You can be employed full time, saving money, working a side business, and still not have enough to go solo depending on where you live.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If a man doesn’t have the money to afford a place to live, how is he going to afford a wife and kids?
LikeLike
There was a time when a man, in his teens, could be expected to still be living with his parents and courting a woman. When they married, he was expected to move out and provide for his family, meaning his wife and any children that come along. Now that we delay adulthood to 18, 21 or 26 depending on who you ask or the law in question, I think it reasonable, even prudent, to expect a man to be out on his own and responsible for himself before he is marriage material.
LikeLike
If you can manage to form your world view right, “protect and provide” will make you happy– a satisfied sort of happy. (Women with the support and nurture side, too– and high holy heck, am I almost as surprised as everybody who knew me that I like being a mother. Well, everyone except my geek group, oddly enough.)
It’s like the difference between a sweet treat and a steak dinner. One’s really quick and enjoyable, the other takes a whole lot of work– but oh, that satisfaction is so much better, and you get a warm sort of glow with others.
LikeLike
Incidentally, living off your parents into your 30s (and 40s) doesn’t tie too well with living in their house– most of the folks I know who are wholly subsidized by whichever parent indulges them the most are either in their second decade of college, or otherwise “finding themselves.” Not at home, that crimps the lifestyle.
LikeLike
What they get from their support of the Democrats is the approval of their friends and society in general (depending on region of course) and get to feel good about themselves for having compassion for women, children, elderly, blacks, immigrants (legal or otherwise), handicapped, gay, transgender, & cetera. If I have learned anything, our politics is now all about the feels regardless of actual outcome.
LikeLike
i have a friend, she is married but they live with her parents. Both are college grads; both went to the same college for computers and they make enough to own their own place but they just thought it would be better to stay with the parents for financial reasons.
LikeLike
To the title of the article, yes, free stuff, paid for by everyone else
LikeLike