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“Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise” link
This is trending on Twitter so might as well discuss it here anonymously.
I know more than a few people say it’s just vibes and the data is good but I think this article makes a strong point that a real loss of social capital has actually made younger people poorer. And I believe this links into the fertility debate because the goods that you could buy before with social capital are especially needed with children. Having kids has gotten very expensive. I think everyone knows education, housing, and health care have boomed in costs. Being single means you don’t need to take on these costs. You can have kids if you are poor and live off government resources or you can have kids if you are rich but it’s a financial disaster for the upper middle class.
I largely come down to diversity (mass migration) and the Great Migration killing American social capital that the boomers had. Before these things occurred we had cheap urban housing because people weren’t afraid of their neighbors and cheap public schools. And homogenous urban environments have a lot of social capital for their residents. Also you had cheap babysitters because your neighbors were like you and you trusted them. Your kids could just go to the park alone. So childcare was free. I feel comfortable blaming diversity on rising housing costs (zoning the poor away from good communities) and for rising educational costs (falling public school quality).
So yes I think today’s generation is poorer in a lot of ways that really matter due to less social capital (but richer in other ways). And I do think the ways we are poorer today are especially bad for fertility where you now need to buy those goods in the market but they were free before.
Me ex left me about 5 years ago.
Previously we were splitting mortgage and utilities that came out to (for ease of calculation) $2000/month.
When she left, she got an apartment that cost (again, ease of calculation) $1500/month. I kept the house/mortgage/utilities and pay those fully out of pocket.
So I'm spending $1000/month more than I would be in the counterfactual where she stayed (was paying $1000 for housing, now $2000). She'd spending an extra $500/month (and I didn't even count utilities and such for her). We'd cumulatively have $1500/month 'extra' if we stayed together. Over a year that's $18,000. Over 5 years, that's $90,000. So I would, individually, be $45,000 richer (probably more! I could invest more!) in that counterfactual. That's several vacations, a new car, that's a new roof on the house or other major renovations.
I am doing well for myself. Salary is fine, debt is manageable.
I would be doing much better if I could find a reliable partner to shoulder either part of the bills or the housework or, ANYTHING really. Financially the 'hole' I'm in compared to the one where I'm happily married is getting deeper by the month.
And there are millions of people in similar situation, could be partnered but are not. Those folks don't, strictly speaking, show up in the economic stats as 'struggling.'
And that's before we talk covid-induced inflation and the attendant increase in prices of housing, vehicles (and insurance, and repairs), and medical care.
So yeah, there are some feedback loops out there that can make someone doing fine 'economically' still be struggling. Big one: difficulty finding affordable housing means more living with parents which means harder to find a partner, which makes it harder to afford housing, AND means there's more housing demand (if people start moving in together, that reduces demand on housing and lowers prices!).
And being clear, I'm not angry at her about it. I've processed and moved on. But I'm acutely aware of the price of being single, if for no other reason than to help me calibrate how much I should 'compromise' to bring a new woman into my life.
I'm almost afraid to jinx myself, because I have such a good thing going, but I'm eternally grateful my wife and I made it through so many trials and tribulations. We survived losing jobs, lockdowns, health issues, values drift, relocating. Then the usual things like having kids, buying a house, etc. I truly don't know what I'd be doing with my life without her and the life we've built together.
All that said, somehow, I'm making 50% more in take home pay than my last job, and yet with a stay at home mom and two kids, my budget is stretched thinner than it's ever been stretched before. I heard some random anecdote/joke on a woodworking channel. Dude knew some guy who had 6 kids, and he asks how he can afford so many. Guy says "Well 6 kids costs the same as 3 kids". Dude just goes "WTF?!" and guy responds "No matter how many kids you have, they cost everything". And that's about right. No matter how much money you make, there always seems to be something the kids "need", or in many cases need. Like being kept out of public schools run by fucking machines.
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You are talking about it’s cheaper to have essentially a roommate - a childless relationship.
I was highlighting how it’s much more expensive today to NOT be single but have a child bearing relationship. Costs sky rocket in that situation because you need to live in areas safe for families with good schools or pay for private school. Family health care is expensive.
A childless relationship is really just being single with a roommate. And yes that’s cheaper.
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I have to work to remain silent when some of my longtime married friends complain about money. Several couples I know have been married since law school (so 20 years now, sigh), they have been sharing rent/mortgage/expenses since then, they bought houses during the 2015-2020 3% interest/lower prices sweet spot, the ones working for governments got some loan forgiveness during the Biden jubilee, etc. They are $300k plus ahead of people who married later and bought houses later (to say nothing of being way ahead of chumps who were foolish enough to pay off student loans). The world's tiniest violin is still too large when they complain about money.
My ex is the one who convinced me to buy a house, which turned out to be EXCELLENT timing. Closed in November 2019, right before Covid arrived and locked us all indoors and shot housing prices through the roof. Miraculous timing. That's a silver lining in the whole situation. Without her I'd probably even now be stuck without a house! Drastically different life course.
She also left right as interest rates were at their lowest, so I refied into an even lower interest rate (with the help of a good friend).
I am exceedingly lucky in this regard. My youngest brother just bought a house with his wife (and kid!) and his payment is twice what mine is. Its a good spot, though.
There's like six times in those previous 5 years where I might have ended up having to sell the property if things had gone differently, due to sudden expenses or dips in income. The immediate aftermath of a hurricane was a rough one for me. But I pulled it out each time.
It is only recently, like the last six or so months that I've felt like I'm not constantly 1 bad month away from a serious lifestyle downgrade.
It really sucked at the time.
DINKs get no sympathy from me.
I bought my first house in July 2008, so basically the top of the market before the housing bubble burst. Sold it 5 years later for basically the same amount, which considering the overall housing appreciation trends of the past 30 years is REALLY sad.
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Part of why people are single is that women expect a provider in a marriage. If they are asked to pay half the rent they will naturally leave much more. Dual income marriages are not really an option under normal human nature and so being dual income is not the solution to the problem. It's more like a huge part of the problem itself, that people think it should even be needed.
I absolutely love to take on the provider role, but there's some additional authority that I expect to come with that that a lot of women ALSO don't want to grant. I.e. I will make final decisions on any big spending, I will dictate how the house is used, I will get a final say in how she dresses and maintains herself.
I have had a life insurance policy in place for the past two years on the off-chance I met someone worth keeping, because its just the responsible thing to do while I'm healthy. I embrace the job of ensuring she is never left destitute.
In 'exchange' I abjectly refuse to have a 'man cave.' The whole house is indeed my castle, she can have a "woman cove" and do whatever she wants with it.
I see this arrangement as utterly fair and equitable for any woman willing to help raise my kids.
At the time we split, ex and I were making probably about the same amount of money. She went on to a pretty high-paying job so I know she's doing fine in the abstract, but I've managed to build things up to the point I'm certain I make more than her now. Or, more to the point, I can easily afford to keep a SAHM if she's got "realistic" expectations as to how often and where we vacation and the level of luxury we can maintain.
The real problem is that many, many women are fully inculcating the expectations for wealth that they received either from their parents/upbringing or social media.
I generally agree that the two-income expectation has created a lot of the exact problem we're seeing.
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I feel obligated to point out that a person can share a house with someone who is not his romantic partner.
There was a period I was renting out one room to a friend who was thankfully a good roommate.
Just understand that living with roommates is undeniably a reduction in living standards, which still appears as 'struggling' (relative to the previously-expected norms).
I enjoy having my living space to myself, I enjoy a big yard, garage, etc. So I'm just not inclined to share the space with someone I'm not banging and raising kids with. I am willing to pay for this solitude, and thus far can afford it.
I'm also the ONLY one of my local friend group in my age range who owns a house at all.
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I like how being poor is referred to as house hacking.
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