Adulthood, lack of jobs, and slippery definitions

[phantom power]

I did my 1st two years of college at a local community college, living at home with parents. It allowed me to get my BS w/out any debt -- a huge financial win.

When I first read this article in the NY Times Magazine about how 20-somethings are delaying the supposed markers of adulthood---marriage, kids, financial independence---longer than they had in the past, I thought that the main flaw of it was that it didn’t address why financial independence was so hard to achieve. By casting the entire situation as a matter of desire and choice, the author missed the big picture, which is that people delay adulthood because the ability to be an adult requires a certain amount of privilege increasingly unavailable to young people. I tweeted about it at the time, noting the answer to the question, “Why don’t people grow up faster?” is incredibly, stupidly simple---because they are no longer any jobs for people in their early 20s that provide the means to be a full adult. Full stop. I don’t mean that entry level jobs only pay enough for a small apartment or a simple lifestyle. Often, they don’t pay enough to cover the rent on that small apartment---if they can find those jobs in the first place---and that’s why people move back in with their parents.

Which is why I saw red when I read this smarmy, self-righteous screed from some Baby Boomer. It’s a classic example of being born on third and thinking you hit a triple. She assumes that her ability to pay rent with her first job out of college is strictly because she’s so much more fucking awesome than you spoiled kids these days, and her parents were so much more responsible than the softies of today. For a millisecond, she ponders the possibility that things have changed because of financial constraints, but then dismisses that possibility with a handwave. It’s so much more fun to be self-righteous! It’s way more fun to wag your finger at young people and tell them how you lived on Ramen and beans to afford your apartment, never pausing for a moment to wonder if those kids might not be able to afford that apartment even if they lived on dog food.

Everyone I know who did a stint of living at home while legally an adult, including myself, did so out of financial necessity. That’s 100% of folks I’ve heard of doing so. In a way, it’s too bad, because the notion that living with your parents after becoming an adult is some great marker of shame is a relatively new idea, born out of the prosperity of the mid-century in America that our smug Boomer seems to think is just evidence of her super-awesome-better-than-you-ness. Throughout most of American history, family living with family wasn’t considered anything but normal, and in fact sort of the point of having a family. Indeed, I have to wonder if people who think that living with your parents after becoming an adult is non-negotiable aren’t speaking from a very narrow upper middle class perspective in general. When I was a kid, both of my parents went through stints of living with their parents after they were divorced. If you step outside of the world of status markers and fear of appearing too working class, the benefits of living with your parents in some situations are kind of obvious. It can be a bulwark against loneliness for all parties involved. It can save everyone money. (Notice how the assumption is that kids who move in aren’t contributing? In the real world, they’re often paying rent to their parents.) Atrios pointed out that the people who are preening about financial independence at an early age often were capable of this because they didn’t have to borrow to get through college. For parents who were unable to provide a free ticket through college to their kids, helping them get on their feet by sharing expenses after college is a way for the parent to help out while also relieving their own financial burden. It’s win-win for many families.

The fact that there was a brief period in American history where there was enough wealth going around that parents of all sorts of classes could provide enough for their kids to create “financial independence” at a young age is no reason to shame people who have to revert to the old ways now that our economy has reverted to the old ways of huge disparities in wealth between the classes. If you think that it’s so important for every 22-year-old to live on their own, with the illusion of having no help, then we need to return to the economic situations of the mid-century in America that allowed that to happen. And some of that may be hard to achieve, such as the far more affordable housing of that era.*

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/adulthood_lack_of_jobs_and_slippery_definitions/

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. kick. Just read the NYT article

When I graduated from college, I too had less burdens on me than the current generation - low student loans, good job climate

[Warpy]

2. Back in the mid 60s, I lived in the south and could rent

a cheap apartment and drive a used car on about thirty cents an hour over minimum wage. That was back in the good old days when minimum wage was supposed to support a full time worker, which I was. Now it will barely feed a worker who lives in substandard housing or no housing at all, meaning shelters or crammed in with relatives.

Back in the 70s, runaway inflation was blamed on unions, on greedy workers, and on anything but the OPEC cartel that had jacked up oil prices 300% and which both Nixon and Ford had utterly failed to deal with, preferring the windfall profits to the oil giants to any sort of fairness to the country. That pattern has persisted even though it is completely contrary to reality.

Sadly, a lot of people back then accepted that line of government bullshit they were being fed because they were desperate for work at any wage.

The disaster that depressed wages have caused to the larger economy has been obscured for two decades by cheap and easy credit. Now the bills are all coming due just as we have our working populations at both ends of the age spectrum facing the maximum in discrimination--the young because of lack of experience and lack of decent entry jobs and older workers because some actuarial table created by 30somethings says they're not cost effective.

So yes, that smarmy NYT article missed the point completely. Boomers didn't create this mess but the older ones are taking the worst of it right along with the youngest workers.

Just about every rotten thing in this country can be traced to suppression of wages at the bottom while a skewed tax system transferred wealth to the very top. The economy is in the toilet because the demand, long propped up by cheap credit, is no longer there.

This country needs to do a 180 change from Reaganomics if it is to recover, something the moaning cretin at the NYT completely missed.

It's the jobs, stupid, and the wages they pay.

[taupe]

10. who pays the taxes

" a skewed tax system transferred wealth to the very top"!! You have got to be kidding me.
In 2007 the top 1% of income earners paid 40.4% of all income taxes.
The top 10% paid 71.2% of all income taxes.
Is that not high enough?
The bottom 50% paid 2.89% of all taxes.
Please explain how when the top 10% pay 71% of the taxes that wealth is being transferred to the very top.

[SharonAnn]

11. How much of the income do the top 1% receive? And how much do they pay FICA on?

Since FICA (SS surplus) is being used to run the government, thta means that other taxes aren't sufficient.

Low income wage earners pay FICA but that is not usually counted in the "Income Taxes" paid.

[taupe]

12. Good point

You make a good point.

The Tax Policy Center, run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, recently studied payroll and income taxes paid by each income group. The richest 1 percent pay 27.5 percent of the combined burden, the top 20 percent pay 72 percent, and the bottom 20 percent pay just 0.4 percent. One reason that the disparity in tax shares is so large is that Americans in the bottom quintile who have jobs get reimbursed for some or all of their 15 percent payroll tax through the earned-income tax credit (EITC), a fairly efficient poverty-abatement program.

However, this does not change my point contradicting the post by Warpy "that the skewed tax system has transferred wealth to the top." This is just wrong.

[northernlights]

14. whoa. you're data is missing a critical piece (or three)

1. The richest 1% may pay 27.5% of the combined burden. But what percentage of the combined wealth do they own? (Hint: one *hell* of a lot more than 27.5%.)

2. The top 20% may pay 72% of the combined burden. But what percentage of the combined wealth do they own? (Hint: again, one *hell* of a lot more than 72%)

3. The bottom 20% may pay just 0.4% of the combined burden. But what percentage of the combined wealth do they own? (Hint: don't be surprised if they're in the negative. Eg, a recent study showed that the average savings of African American woman was something like $5.00. That's not for want of effort, frugality or morality. More like lack of opportunity.)

In other words, the percentage they pay in taxes is way out of alignment with the percentage they reap in rewards. (And what they reap in rewards tends to also be completely out of alignment with the "benefits" they bestow upon the rest of us with their "superiority.")

The skewed tax system *does* transfer wealth to the top. You need to look at *all* the data, not just cherry pick pieces.

Note: Warren Buffet has admitted, publicly and in writing, that his *secretary* pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than he does.

The current tax system has so many loopholes that the wealthy are able to take advantage of that many of them pay no taxes, despite the fact that they benefit the most from what our society has to offer.

Furthermore, corporations such as BP can pollute our environment with impunity, reap record profits and pay their executives lavishly...while paying no taxes and even receiving tax breaks.

Not to mention the financial behemoths who destroyed our economy and impoverished most of us, while walking away unscathed, their executives dripping money...and essentially running our government.

[taupe]

16. You are confusing income with wealth.

Income taxes are paid on income, but not wealth. The top 1% who paid 27% of the taxes earn 18% of the income, so they are paying more than their fair share. (Source: http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2010/02/12/how-much-taxes-are-paid-by-the-poor-middle-class-and-rich/)


Perhaps you should suggest a new type of tax based on wealth, not income. In the meantime, my comments were based on how America runs today, and that is that we tax based on income not wealth. Your argument is totally off point.

Warren Buffet's comment is wrong. I remember reading it more than a year ago. He and his secretary pay the same tax rate on capital gains and they pay the same rate on earned income. His error is that he assumes that his "job" of investing is the same as someone who has a salaried position. Investments have a different tax structure than wages, it is called capital gains. Warren Buffett pays the same tax rates on his salary as his secretary does.

Your comment about loopholes and many rich paying no taxes is just total bullshit. This gets repeated so often that many people believe it to be a fact. I challenge you to name just one loophole. (And by the way, loopholes are simply the tax code rules passed by Congress. It is so complicated that it is ridiculous.) The numbers I quoted prove that the high earners pay more than their fair share of taxes. Period.

Who are the high earners anyway? Most of them are entrepreneurs, who contribute more to America than any other group. They are not takers they are givers. I get really tired of people bashing business and entrepreneurs as if they were taking from our economy rather than creating jobs and new products.

Your rant about BP is totally off the point. But here is something interesting. I had an e-mail exchange with some friends two years ago when Exxon had record profits of about $35 billion. That year Exxon paid $40 billion in taxes! So before you go ranting about how corporations pay no taxes, get your damn facts straight.

[northernlights]

17. I'm sure you know more about Warren Buffet's secretary's salary

and tax rate, not to mention Buffet's, much better than Buffet. :eyes: Maybe you should call him up and offer some financial advice. I'm sure he could use your help.

And we all know that wealth doesn't provide any income. Funny how you segue right from wealth into capital gains. What are those capital gains again? Oh, and there are 2 different capital gains tax rates...but I'm sure you know that too.

Why don't you name a list of those high earner entrepreneurs? Aside from Bill Gates, please, who stuck us with a shitty product and used pretty dirty business tactics that put a lot of decent companies with better products out of business long ago.

[taupe]

18. Buffett is wrong.

Buffett is wrong about his secretary's taxes. The same tax rates apply to everyone. Stiglitz made the same comment about day traders and their tax rate and he is wrong too.

Earned income, like having a job, does not come from wealth. Unearned income like dividends comes from wealth. The discussion goes nowhere if we confuse the two.

It seems you are a business basher. "shitty product and used pretty dirty business tactics" That's right business is bad, dirty and evil. Everything you purchase in your life is made by some business. Why do you hate business so much?

And you never answered the question about loophole. Name a loophole.

[northernlights]

20. the same tax rates apply to everyone? really?

like, at my current income of $15K/year I'm paying the same tax rate as when I earned $120K/year? Ok....whatever....backing away slowly....

[taupe]

21. Ok

Ok, the same tax schedule to phrase it more correctly. The same tax rates. I left off the 's'. Thanks for pointing that out.

[northernlights]

28. huh?

My fed tax rate or schedule or whatever you want to call it was at $120K something like 28% as I recall. At $15K, way less than 28%.

Oh, and just for the record, at the tax classes they teach us in the financial services firm I work for, there are 2 capital gains tax rates. 15% for high income people; 0% for low, as I recall.

Back when I had a good career, I never complained at paying taxes. Of course, we weren't at war so my money wasn't being totally squandered on killing people and making enemies. I just saw it as a sign that I was doing well -- I made more and was happy to pay more into the system.

Of course, now that it's all been pissed away and they anticipated payback has been/is being stolen, I'm not so happy. But at least the death of my career, and its replacement shit job means no federal income taxes for me. The silver lining on the cloud brought to be courtesy of W and not reversed by Obama.

[taupe]

31. tax schedule

This is the tax rate schedule for married couples. It applies to everyone.

If taxable income is over-- But not over-- The tax is:
$0 $16,700 10% of the amount over $0
$16,701 $67,900 $1,670.00 plus 15% of the amount over $16,700
$67,901 $137,050 $9,350.00 plus 25% of the amount over $67,900
$137,051 $208,850 $26,637.50 plus 28% of the amount over $137,050
$208,851 $372,950 $46,741.50 plus 33% of the amount over $208,850
$372,951 no limit $100,894.50 plus 35% of the amount over $372,950

So, if you make a little or a lot, the same schedule applies.

[northernlights]

35. yes,the same schedule applies...but not the same rate

and I thought the discussion is about the actual rate of taxation versus the scheduled rate.

For example, as a horsewoman I've known *plenty* of very wealthy people in my lifetime who's horse breeding/showing/racing/whathaveyou "business" was wrapped inside a larger (profitable) business, providing a steady supply of "business losses," effectively lowering their scheduled tax rate while they pursued their hobby.

But, of course, there aren't any "loopholes" for the wealthy. Merely tax laws they can take advantage of that the rest of us can't.

[taupe]

36. some people cheat

If those are not legitimate business expenses, and I doubt they are from what you said, then those people are simply cheating. That is not a loophole, that is cheating. They should be audited.

There are rules so that hobbies cannot masquerade as real businesses. I am not sure of all the rules, but I am pretty sure that one of them is that the business must make a profit in at least one of five years.

[northernlights]

37. yup. and you'll find the wealthy loaded with those kinds of "businesses"

and not paying taxes as a result of them.

The uber-wealthy elite run the country. They will not be audited.

[taupe]

38. What is your source?

Ok, what is your source for this information. Why do you say that? That is a rather sweeping statement. I know many business people and many wealthy people and my experience is that they do NOT engage in this kind of behavior. Sure, there are always some tax cheats and some who push the envelope, but to categorically state that the wealthy are tax cheats is just BS.

[fasttense]

26. Of course you know so much more than Buffett.

What multi-million dollar a year job have you created for yourself?

Because Buffett is just too dumb to know what taxes he is paying, so you must be one of those uber uber wealthy folks.

On a side note, I can't believe you asked "Why do you hate business so much?" That sounds so familiar... Hmm, where have we heard such silliness, Oh wait, I remember now it matches up with "Why do you hate America so much?"

I really wish the right wing would get you some better talking points instead of retreading all the stupid old ones.

[taupe]

33. bashing business

When someone says this: "Aside from Bill Gates, please, who stuck us with a shitty product and used pretty dirty business tactics that put a lot of decent companies with better products out of business long ago." That is some one who hates business and I truly am curious why they would think that.

[Recursion]

27. Buffet's point is that distinction is bullshit

Income is income, or should be. The kind of income ridiculously rich people get a lot of is taxed at a lower rate than their secretaries' salaries. Warren Buffet thinks that's stupid. So do I.

[taupe]

30. capital gains vs. income

"Income" is not income. That is the whole point. If I sell my house for a gain, that is not income, it is a capital gain and I am taxed at capital gains rates. Capital gains are one thing and earned income is something else entirely. They have two different tax rates. If a person buys and sells assets, he is taxed at capital gains rates. That's how it works. It said. Has earned income through a job, he is taxed at ordinary income rates. Buffett was inferring since it is his "job" to buy and sell assets that he should be taxed at ordinary income rates.

There is no reason that the tax rate on the gain from selling my house 10 years later should be the same as the tax paid by someone in a job. They are simply two totally different things.

[Grinchie]

23. Perhaps you should find a new board that is full of dopes that can't see through your BS.

It might go better for you in the long run.

[taupe]

32. business common sense

Actually, I am just a business guy, with liberal social values, who is trying to bring some business common sense to these forums. I don't like it when people bash business all the time, because business is not evil or ugly. Sure, there are some companies that may not do the right things for their customers or employees, but my experience is that almost all businesses try really hard to please their customers, because that is how they succeed in the long run.

And when someone says the rich got rich because of the tax structure, I comment because it is simply not true. Anyone who is rich in America got rich by starting and building a company. A few people may have inherited wealth, but their forebears must have started and built a company.

[fasttense]

25. Those numbers can only be gotten if you ignore FICA tax and stock options.

Because every person who works has to pay FICA.

If you get your pay through Stock options and gambling on Wall Street you pay only 15% tax. But if you work for a living you pay 35% tax. And if you are huge corporation with historically high record profits, the federal government pays you.

Your numbers are all phony manipulation.

[starroute]

3. Don't get misled into blaming the Boomers, though

A lot more of us Boomers are now the parents of those 20-somethings who can't get established financially -- and are all too often lying awake nights over it -- than are out there shaking their fingers as those kids for not being more like us.

[Skittles]

6. yup

and as a Boomer who has been on her own since age 17, I am very well aware of the fact that a youngster today could not do it the way I did - no way

[AnnieBW]

4. Kid across the street got married yesterday - both 20's, no jobs

The kid across the street from my parents, whose parents are about the age of me and my husband, just got married. Both he and his new wife are in their early 20's. Neither of them are employed. She's looking, and he wants to go to cooking school. They're going to be living with his parents for the time being.

Things were tough for new grads in 1987, when I graduated college. I had to leave Pittsburgh because there were no jobs there. But heck, if my (now husband) and I would have told my parents that we wanted to get married and live with them when neither of us were employed, I would have gotten a boot in the ass out the door! I asked my Mom if she now understood why my husband and I waited until we were financially established to get married, and she did.

Times are tough, especially for kids coming out of college. But to add to your parents burden by marrying and adding another adult mouth to feed is just wrong.

[skepticscott]

5. And I wouldn't be surprised

if their wedding was something a bit more elaborate (and costly) than getting married in front of a judge and having a few good friends out to dinner. What people with limited means and already big debt spend on weddings these days is absolutely mind-blowing.

[XemaSab]

19. If she gets a job at McDonald's

the family as a whole will probably be better off financially than they would be if she didn't live there.

Also, are her parents giving them any money?

I think the cold, hard message is that it's REALLY hard to get by on one income, and that households with more incomes are faring better.

[diane in sf]

7. I agree with what you're saying, but don't blame it on the boomers. The job market died in

1972 and no one I know had a decent job until around 1980. We shared apartments, etc. People who graduated in the 60s (members of the tail end of the silent generation) could actually buy a house and get a car with the wages from their first jobs. This decline in the middle class standard of living is because of the war on the middle class that's been going on since the 70s.

[phantom power]

8. I think it was meant as "boomers who lack a certain self-awareness of their advantages"

:shrug:

[northernlights]

15. thank you for saying that

the 2nd wave boomers were creamed. I got out of school in 72. There was nothing out there. Nothing. I remember literally pounding the pavements begging for minimum wage work. I remember within about 6 months being down to my last $50 -- enough money to get to Boston area to move into an aunt's attic.

I didn't get decent *temp* work until 1980. It took 4 years to parlay that into a decent "permanent" job. Through most of the 80s I lived with roommates. Everybody lived with roommates.

I do know people around my age who got decent jobs, so I always felt (and they treated me) like something was "wrong" with me.

It was a bloody long time before I figured out that every single one of them got their job through connections. In every case, their fathers were executives at large corporations.

There was a large generation behind us who had a huge boost. I was shocked all through the 90s to see young 30-somethings in their McMansions and SUVs, while I still lived in tiny, old, run-down converted apartment building and drove used econoboxes after years of climbing the ladder at work. It was even more shocking to have those 30-somethings end up bossing me around, rewarded for behavior that would have gotten me fired, totally incompetent... but willing to do whatever they were told, no matter how unethical, cruel or outright illegal.

I do feel bad for younger people today with no opportunities. They're living through what I so far have survived. It sucks, big time. It is simply wrong. I don't know what we can do about it, either. The entire system is so corrupt...

[Ohio Metal]

9. I'm 28 and can't afford to be on my own

I make $12/hour and have two room mates. The three of us are barely able to pay the rent every month. My grandmother was single with two kids in 1965 and she bought a house. I can't even afford a new pair of shoes! What the fuck happened?

[Skittles]

22. anti-worker repukes

[midnight]

13. I saw red when I read this smarmy, self-righteous screed from some Baby Boomer.

It’s a classic example of being born on third and thinking you hit a triple. She assumes that her ability to pay rent with her first job out of college is strictly because she’s so much more fucking awesome than you spoiled kids these days, and her parents were so much more responsible than the softies of today. For a millisecond, she ponders the possibility that things have changed because of financial constraints, but then dismisses that possibility with a handwave.


Great response to this article that was posted recently....

[Skittles]

24. she represents repukes, not boomers

I'm a boomer and I know damn well things have changed very much for young adults than the way things were 30 years ago; in fact, I could tell that gal I became an adult at 17 - why couldn't she?

[JustAnotherGen]

29. Wow

When I first read this article in the NY Times Magazine about how 20-somethings are delaying the supposed markers of adulthood---marriage, kids, financial independence---longer than they had in the past, I thought that the main flaw of it was that it didn’t address why financial independence was so hard to achieve.


Well - according to these markers? At 37? I’m still not a grown up. :rofl: I have financial independence.

And the reason for that financial independence?

Because I never got married, had kids, and got divorced (the 4th marker of so-called adulthood).

Just goes to show – you can’t have it all. :rofl:

The main flaws I see here are the marriage and kids aspect. Especially for young women. It’s the fast way for them to end up on the poverty line.

[bhikkhu]

34. Adulthood is not decided by where you live or work

That's the one problem I have with the article, and even with much of the commentary about it - it assumes that adulthood is somehow determined by whether you live alone or support your own household or whether you have a job and how much money you make...we do have a big problem in this country, in my opinion, with far too many mental children unable to manage themselves or anyone else, but that's a different thing. Its more a problem of a selfishness so deep-seated and rudimentary that those with it are hardly conscious of another way of being; like a permanent 6 year old perspective on the world. That doesn't mean they can't move out, get a job, raise a family, etc.