Awesome article, will finish reading later...but one question. The charts don't seem to match up. You show that young people's incomes are going down, and you show that they are (now) at the bottom of the pile... but you don't really show that they didn't used to be at the bottom of the pile.
All countries have adopted varying degrees of socialist policies, where the young workers 20-45 are the most heavily taxed in order to pay for retirement programs and government pensions for the elderly. The problem is that is exactly when those young workers need their money most to raise their own children. The collapse in birthrates is largely tied to heavily taxing people at the age they need to become parents. The elderly who receive those social welfare payments are usually wealthier on average than the young workers paying the taxes. We need a generation of grandparents who prioritize their grandchildren over their own comfort, and vote to end the social welfare. Short of a major repentance and change of heart, they will cling to their goverment paychecks until their economy collapses.
I wonder if part of the issue is that life expectancies have increased relative to when many of these policies were introduced to combat senior poverty. When combined with people having children later on average, that would contribute a lot to the average age of inheritances being so late.
Agree with everything 100%. Recently the Missing Middle Substack in Canada pointed out that young male incomes have stayed steady since the 1970s while older male incomes had skyrocketed. My own dad was able to drop out of university in the 1970s, take a factory job and be living in a house with a family by age 30. Not likely anymore!
I would also mention the impact of student debt. Once upon a time tuition fees were nominal and could be paid with a summer’s work. They have shot up everywhere since the 1990s and now we tell young people, congrats for graduating, now you have to pay us back for your education!
I knew one young woman with a 6 figure law school debt whose boyfriend didn’t want to marry her because of her debt. Even if she wanted to focus on being a mom, that option was going to be hard to pursue.
Awesome article, will finish reading later...but one question. The charts don't seem to match up. You show that young people's incomes are going down, and you show that they are (now) at the bottom of the pile... but you don't really show that they didn't used to be at the bottom of the pile.
It would be nice to see something more than a tweet as evidence for the age of inheritance.
All countries have adopted varying degrees of socialist policies, where the young workers 20-45 are the most heavily taxed in order to pay for retirement programs and government pensions for the elderly. The problem is that is exactly when those young workers need their money most to raise their own children. The collapse in birthrates is largely tied to heavily taxing people at the age they need to become parents. The elderly who receive those social welfare payments are usually wealthier on average than the young workers paying the taxes. We need a generation of grandparents who prioritize their grandchildren over their own comfort, and vote to end the social welfare. Short of a major repentance and change of heart, they will cling to their goverment paychecks until their economy collapses.
I wonder if part of the issue is that life expectancies have increased relative to when many of these policies were introduced to combat senior poverty. When combined with people having children later on average, that would contribute a lot to the average age of inheritances being so late.
Agree with everything 100%. Recently the Missing Middle Substack in Canada pointed out that young male incomes have stayed steady since the 1970s while older male incomes had skyrocketed. My own dad was able to drop out of university in the 1970s, take a factory job and be living in a house with a family by age 30. Not likely anymore!
I would also mention the impact of student debt. Once upon a time tuition fees were nominal and could be paid with a summer’s work. They have shot up everywhere since the 1990s and now we tell young people, congrats for graduating, now you have to pay us back for your education!
I knew one young woman with a 6 figure law school debt whose boyfriend didn’t want to marry her because of her debt. Even if she wanted to focus on being a mom, that option was going to be hard to pursue.
Great analysis and recommendations.