
3 Out of 4 Millennials Have Received Financial Help from Parents After College - pissedinSEC
http://financeography.com/3-out-of-every-4-millennials-have-received-financial-help-from-parents-after-college/
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ChuckMcM
That's really sad, 1 in 4 millennials don't have parents that care? I think by
their thin definition of "help" they would find that probably 9 out of 10 baby
boomers received "help". I had help from my in-laws when my wife and I were
putting together a down payment on our first house, I helped my eldest
daughter come up with the first security deposit for her first apartment after
college. My middle and younger daughters have both been "helped" by the ACA
because I can keep them on my company health insurance plan.

Pretty poor excuse for journalism in my opinion.

EDIT: see my response for toomuchtodo for my actual perspective here, once
again I've been schooled in how written communication is so different than
face to face conversations. Added to my favorites list as a reminder to
contextualize, contextualize, contextualize ...

~~~
toomuchtodo
Hey Chuck! Millennial here (just turned 34).

My father and mother were divorced ~18-19 years ago (one of the most
financially devastating events that can occur in your life) due to my mother's
alcoholism. It took him years to break even, and at 64, he has less saved for
retirement then I do. He continues to work a full time job as long as he can
to save for retirement (he believes he'll make it through retirement on his
own, while I'm sure I will have to support him at some point; I am fine with
this). My mother is disabled, legit disabled, but not from her many years of
alcoholism; her lower spinal column has been reconstructed due to a
degenerative bone disorder and she has MS. The Social Security Administration
deems her as not disabled, as she can still stand for ~3-5 minutes at a time.
I support her entirely until she can collect social security at 62 in three
years. (EDIT: Before the ACA, she was much worse off; her medications were
costing me upwards of $1000/month, causing me an incredible amount of stress
between my wife and I [my moral compass does not permit me to deny my mother
necessary healthcare], and I was seriously contemplating transporting her
pharmaceuticals across the Canadian border to lower the monthly financial
outlay). My younger brother refused to help me with any of her financial
expenses; we have not spoken in over 2 years.

Don't be so quick to discount parents didn't help because they didn't want to.
In most cases, I'm confident the problem is they simply can't. I know I'm not
alone in speaking to others about this. People out there are suffering, badly.

EDIT: This is far more than I'd ever really care to share in a public forum,
but people need to know what is going on behind the curtain causing people to
take the actions that they do. Do you want to know what True Grit is? I will
teach you.

EDIT 2: (ffs HN throttling)

Chuck: I hope you didn't take my comment as calling you out. Nothing could be
further from the truth! Personally, I'm seeing _a lot_ of people in bad shape
financially and personally, and its not being reported on, or when it is
reported on, people don't believe it.

So I'm here to give a first hand PIREP of the situation. And it is fucking
bad.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, wow.

My initial take on this article was "This is a crappy piece of journalism
which takes some arbitrary facts and tries to use it to criticize
millennials." My observation is that generally crappy journalism can be easily
exposed and lampooned by inverting the headline's wording which doesn't change
its meaning but flips its implication. So "3 out of 4 millennials get helped
by parents" flipped is "1 out 4 parents of millennials don't help them." The
first might be interpreted that millennials are slackers and the other might
be that baby boomers are lousy parents. _Both implications are unwarranted and
wrong._ And that is the hallmark of crappy journalism. There is no
interpretation of this headline which conveys useful information.

As a parent, and having been around thousands of parents and read many surveys
of parents, there is a common theme. The majority of the time they want to
help their kids in any way they can. It is instinctual. Further, any
assistance parents give their grown children can be interpreted as "financial"
assistance, from babysitting the grand children to giving them the old sofa
that has been in the basement for the last 10 years. And that _in no way_
reflects on the character of the children, aka the millennials, in this piece.

That said, I never intended to imply that parents who could not help their
children should be criticized. My use of the inversion device would have the
headline imply that, and I would disagree with a story based on that just as
much as I do the current one.

~~~
notacoward
> "3 out of 4 millennials get helped by parents" flipped is "1 out 4 parents
> of millennials don't help them."

"Don't help them" != "don't care" so that's not inversion. _You_ added that
negative implication. Maybe you didn't mean to. I'll take you at your word on
that, but attempts to deflect the reaction back to the OP seem disingenuous.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I am not attempting to deflect reaction, it is real and it is heartfelt and I
understand how people reached the conclusion that I was insulting parents who
did not provide financial support to their children.

I wrote it poorly and had I been talking face to face with someone one I hope
I would have seen them getting angry and immediately sought out the
disagreement between what I thought I was saying and what was being heard.
Here its a bit more difficult and it once again reminded me of that.

To your specific criticism, you are correct that _I_ added the connotation.
When I read the original title I also added the connotation that "have
received financial help" was "are slackers". And I disagreed with that
strongly as well. You can receive help from your parents and not be a slacker.

And I recognize that for some portion of the people reading here they read my
headline inversion literally rather than as a critique because of the lack of
context. If I were to rewrite it, it would have started with

"I disagree strongly with the implication of the headline, you might as well
write 1 in 4 parents don't help their millennial children and I would
_disagree with that too._ "

And then we could talk about the poorly defined notion of "help" and the
question of privilege and whether or not that is an objective thing or a
subjective one, and if its objective how do we define it.

------
overcast
You can thank the Feds for handing out gigantic, cheap, guaranteed loans to
millions of kids, without regard for their future financial stability. Schools
see this easy money, jack up prices year after year, and now we have an entire
generation of people who are completely broke with shit degrees. There used to
be a time when kids could work their way through school doing summer jobs.
That time was before the federal government got involved. Sad really.
Thankfully I was one of the few to land a good job before school even
finished, and I'm still only just paying it off this year, 11 years later. I
can't imagine the photo/art/liberal kids paying off my debt.

Also. Bankruptcy does not wipe out school debt!

~~~
taurath
The states used to subsidize funding and stopped - what could be done better
here? I don't see states raising taxes to cover education any time soon.

~~~
overcast
Making school affordable enough that students can actually WORK student level
jobs to pay for it. If easy money wasn't being handed out, the schools would
have no choice but to lower their fees.

I stepped onto the RIT campus as a freshmen in 1998, and total costs per year
were north of $35,000. Expecting a clueless kid to understand what that means
is insane.

~~~
mjevans
A new New Deal, where everyone can HAVE a job, and if the government can't
help you find one that fits your needs they pay you to retrain instead.

------
coltonv
The majority of comments in this thread so far are along the lines of "How is
financial help defined in this context???" yet it's described in the article:

"The type of financial support varies substantially. Nearly 30 percent of
those receiving help accept health insurance and approximately the same
percentage welcome assistance with purchasing a home or renting. Auto
insurance was another big contributor, with 26 percent of young people
receiving help to pay for it, and 23 percent getting help with utilities."

Come on people, don't start typing out a response if you haven't even looked
at the link. Especially considering it's like 10 sentences total and anyone
could skim it in a minute flat.

------
tdb7893
Pretty much everyone I knew who wasn't an engineer has had their parents help
them somehow after college. Between the cost of buying/renting a place and
paying off student loans it seems that you need a lot of money to be
financially independent and the job market isn't great for many college
graduates.

~~~
tedajax
Even as an engineer I needed a loan for relocation from my parents. My job
paid to relocate me but it was just a reimbursement and I didn't have the
money for a cross-country move up front.

~~~
exhilaration
While nothing beats getting an interest-free loan from your parents, this is
something you could put on a credit card - especially if you're able to pay it
back it back with your first few paychecks before any interest accrues.
(Assuming, of course, you can get a card with a decent credit limit while
still a student.)

~~~
douche
Unfortunately, a lot of those kinds of expenses are precisely the ones that
you can't float on credit as easily, and must have cash in hand (or in check)
to cover. I've never rented anywhere that would let you pay a security deposit
or first-month's rent on a card. Even things like movers often enough have
worked on a cash or check basis, in my experience.

------
dexwiz
The quote is based on a UBS Investor survey of "affluent and high net worth"
investors [1]. And the milleniums surveyed have 6 figure incomes. So a far
from the average.

The actual break down of the top assistance assistance categories are Health
Insurance, Buying/Renting, Auto Instance, and Utilities, so bills. The
insurances are probably from being on their parents' plans. This is pretty
consistent with what I hear from people I know. Their parents aren't paying
for everything, but they do take care of 1 or 2 of their bills for their
children.

[1] [https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/ubs/microsites/ubs-
investor-...](https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/ubs/microsites/ubs-investor-
watch/documents/investor-watch-the-ties-that-bind-2Q2016.pdf)

------
jdhn
What is "financial help" defined as? The article was very vague as to what it
is.

~~~
epx
Same doubt I had. My father lent some money so I could buy my house, but I
paid back, and I had lent money to my sister some years ago, so it is more
like a "family cash flow management".

~~~
Frondo
That is absolutely help. Borrowing from the bank of Mom and Dad is something
that was simply never an option for me, or most of my peers. Mom and Dad were
struggling, too.

When you're poor, and your family's poor, a lot of options are closed off to
you. I know some people who were given old cars by parents; I always had to
buy my own. That's just a couple thousand dollars for a used car, but that
stuff adds up when it's not just a car, not just a loan for a house, but
everything taken together.

------
throwaway2016a
I'm one of those 1 out of 4... because I am successful enough to not need
it.[1]

My father did offer to help with the house but he wanted to charge an interest
rate that would have made it cheaper for me to take private mortgage insurance
so that is what I did. After all, I benefitted from the record low interest
rates.

But my brother, who is not a millennial did get help with his house and his
small business from my father when he was my age. And I think I am the only
one of my friend's who has a house that didn't get some assistance from their
parents (or my wife's parents).

But I'm an exception not a rule. I don't think any less of the 3/4.

[1] By successful enough I mean I make a reasonable (but not great) salary and
work hard. So does my wife who is at least as successful as me in her
engineering career. Unfortunately I have yet to have an app or company of mine
sell for millions yet :)

------
zerognowl
Millennials don't exist, according to Adam Conover:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ)

I'm careful using the word "Millennial" these days and increasingly skeptical
of online articles with the word "Millennial" in the title. Thanks to shows
like Adam Ruins Everything[1], I am more informed on a variety of topics. (I
learn visually and prefer to watch his videos instead of read an article).

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX2R0b_mqrQ&list=PLuKg-
Whduh...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX2R0b_mqrQ&list=PLuKg-
WhduhkksJoqkj9aJEnN7v0mx8yxC)

------
NullCharacter
Thank god for the military, America's backdoor to the middle class. Best
decision I've ever made.

------
countryqt30
"after college" — it's really saying nothing.

In fact, I expected it much higher - it essentially includes the parents'
legacy. Considering this, it's dramatically low, right? :D

~~~
spyspy
"Financial assistance" is also very vague. My parents gave me $20 for the
train because I wasn't carrying any cash over Thanksgiving. Does that count?

~~~
omegaham
I'm more interested in the secondary statistic that they gathered, that being
that "two-thirds say they couldn’t get by without their parents’ help." That's
easier to quantify.

------
erobbins
Wow, you've lived a privileged life.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Are you equating parents helping their kids with "privileged life" ? I'd
certainly agree that people who have no parents have a harder life, but simply
having parents doesn't seem to rise to the level of privileged that you imply
here.

~~~
jonknee
I think it was probably all the down payment for a house talk.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Probably, for what it was worth the seller took back a second mortgage, my in-
laws loaned us $10,000, we sold all of my Intel stock (about 500 shares), and
dropped down to exactly $500 in our checking account to make that work. The
interest rate was 12.2% on our mortgage (adjustable) which only adjusted every
6 months by at most 1.5pts and was tied to the LIBOR index. My wife and I are
both engineers and were both working (pre-kids) so we made it work and ended
up being able to pay off the loan from the in-laws and the seller after just
over 2 years (28 months to be exact). But its true, I was only three years out
of college and my wife and I lived in a house the bank owned but would let us
keep if we kept paying them on time :-)

------
cryoshon
hey look, we're the most impoverished generation, and so, we require help from
our parents.

thanks, student loans!

