
Why Are 20-Somethings Retiring? - breitling
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-04/yellen-s-job-puzzle-why-are-20-somethings-retiring-
======
hwstar
It shouldn't be called retirement. It is probably more like a temporary
hiatus.

Also, it isn't just 20-somethings. US employment has been somewhat of a raw
deal in the last 15 years for all age groups. Some people have realized that
working to live just isn't worth it.

There's a lot of bullshit work assigned in a typical corporate job, and this
'impedance mismatch' forces some people with financial strength to quit and do
what they really want to do in life even if that means living on a much lower
annual income.

~~~
krisdol
They're defining retirement as "you don't have a job and aren't looking for
one", which is an egregious stretch of a definition. They're not financially
independent or retired, they've given up looking for work worth doing.

~~~
mrec
If they're neither working nor financially independent, what are they living
on? Not a rhetorical question; I don't live in the US, and am a bit vague
about its welfare system.

Is this essentially about people moving back in with family?

~~~
fapjacks
We have nothing approaching basic income or housing that anybody could live
off reasonably. Either these kids are living with parents, living off parent's
money, or are living out of their cars. There is no in between here. I suspect
that it's the former, which is really giving an awful impression about what is
possible in the States. The vast majority of Americans need to work their
asses off just to make rent. If you don't do that, you are either living off
someone else's money, or don't have a house. End of story.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>We have nothing approaching basic income or housing that anybody could live
off reasonably.

State welfare programs, section 8, food stamps, "earned income credit",
medicaid, SSI, TANF, SNAP, etc. There's lots of aid in the US. Over 100m
people nationally are on some level of means tested welfare. That's pushing
one third of this nation. National spending accounts for $1T in welfare
spending. That's slightly less than Mexico's entire GDP; a country of 122m.

[http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.p...](http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf)

The narrative of the US not having any welfare is asinine. In fact, the
spending is staggering. When I lived in poorer neighborhoods in Chicago, most
of my neighbors were on a fair amount of welfare to the point where they never
had to bother getting a job. If you're willing to live in an urban area and
live a modest lifestyle its largely trivial to game welfare benefits for a
living.

~~~
jrjarrett
>>>We have nothing approaching basic income or housing that anybody could live
off reasonably.

>State welfare programs, section 8, food stamps, "earned income credit",
medicaid, SSI, TANF, SNAP, etc. There's lots of aid in the US.

I question this response with the qualifier of "living off reasonably."

I'm certainly lucky enough not to need any of that, but from what I
understand, it's barely subsistence existence.

------
tinalumfoil
> When you're in your twenties you should be spending that time really
> exploring and thinking about the things that give you meaning. Once you
> start growing up and living a life more you won't be able to do that again.
> -Digit CEO (from video)

I hate the idea that once you leave college and get a job your life of having
fun is over. As though fiscal irresponsibility is necessary for finding your
life's "meaning" and you can only do that in the four years you spend at
college. I really have to question someone that found their life's meaning at
a point in their life where they couldn't bother to be financially responsible
for themselves.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I hate the other end of that idea (reality) - that you have to grow up and be
responsible and stop having fun or be spontaneous in your life, because from
now on it's career, marriage, career, kids, career, retirement and death.

~~~
eanzenberg
Which are all choices you make.

~~~
steve-howard
Career is certainly not a choice I make. It's a necessity. Hell, I'd probably
enjoy it more if I didn't need it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Same here. For me personally, any task can be turned from fun to misery by
setting the single bit labeled "work".

------
nickbauman
Totally anecdotal: A few months ago a friend was down by the Mississippi river
park in downtown Minneapolis where there were a group of young homeless guys
drinking under a bridge trestle. Turns out these guys had undergraduate
degrees with massive student loan debt. They explained they'd decided to
become homeless because they didn't see any way to ever pay it back.

------
jophde
Yea, I am sure the percentage of 20-somethings who are actually financially
independent is less than .0001%. Everyone else inherited money or gave up all
hope of finding a real job.

~~~
DINKDINK
300e6*.0001/100 = 300 people in the USA.

There's probably more than 300, 20 year olds who are living off private
incomes.

~~~
cobaltblue
Even worse, he said of 20-somethings (not out of the whole population, and not
just 20 year olds) which leaves a start number around 45 million, or a mere 45
people in the USA.

It's actually pretty easy to become financially independent before you hit 30
if you finish college on time (while you're 23) and get a 6-figure job out of
college, and work for a few years with a small (sub-25k/yr) annual cost of
living.

~~~
pc86
It's also "actually pretty easy to become financially independent" if you hit
the lottery. Both our examples aren't really conducive to an actual
discussion.

1\. The number of fields allowing a new grad to get a six-figure job are very
small.

2\. The number of places offering the above while also allowing the new grad
to live in an area where they can have a sub-$2k/mo footprint are incredibly
limited.

3\. Of the people who are actually able to take advantage of the above, the
majority of them will have no interest in doing so. For every highly-
compensated employee at Google living in a van in the parking lot there are
several in houses they can't afford with credit card and student loan debt to
boot.

4\. Gaining financial independence for the sake of gaining financial
independence is sort of a pointless goal.

My guess is if you collected every person in the US who retired by the age of
30 and removed those who inherited money, won the lottery, and started a
business, you could fit them in in a single large room.

~~~
cobaltblue
It's far easier to do a CS degree and get hired as a software developer (while
not blowing your income on insanely high rent in San Francisco city-proper --
yeah you'll have to suck up a commute, live with roommates, or live almost
anywhere else with a tech scene) than it is to win a lottery sum over
$500k-600k. And there are more options than software -- just because the
number of fields is small doesn't necessarily make it any harder if those
fields are in high demand and you have the ability to work in them. This is
actually conducive to an actual discussion, on HN, because a lot of us here
have done this, are doing it (may have passed 30 though), or are still in high
school and looking to do it.

Re 4. it's only pointless if you foresee nothing afterwards. To me there's
nothing wrong with wanting to have "fuck you" money (not just being
"independent") without really knowing what you'll do when you get it, you can
figure that out later and you'll have many options available to you -- a lot
of us just keep working, with the added benefit of being able to drop
unsatisfying jobs without any anxiety of not being able to find a new one.

~~~
jophde
You must be CS Undergraduate

~~~
cobaltblue
Nope, just very close to the fully financially independent group under 30. I
work for a living.

Not sure that you understand that financial independence can be just as simple
as a function of your total invested assets and expected future annual costs
given the reasonable assumption that in the long run your investments will net
you at least an average 5% return per year. Is that assumption guaranteed to
hold? No, but it's reasonable, and that's what buffer room is for. My rent is
$1300/mo, with utilities it's usually around $1500/mo, for a 3-floor house I
share with a friend. With miscellaneous other expenses like food and
entertainment I end up with living expenses in the neighborhood of $25k/yr,
rent is my primary expense since I have no debt. When my investment assets
reach $600k, 5% growth nets me $30k/yr (I'm ignoring taxes). So long as my
average annual expenses does not exceed $25k/yr, and my average return stays
at or above 5%, this is sustainable indefinitely.

And this isn't the only path to financial independence, it's just really
straightforward for higher-than-average earners not burning an insane amount
of their income on rent. (Mortgages are a different story.)

------
Spooky23
I know a guy who was an IT generalist making decent money, who met and married
a woman who is a physican when she was in med school. Her first gig was to an
impoverished rural area (to accelerate payments of med school loans), so he
quit and went with her.

Now he's a 30-something stay at home dad. He does a few remote consulting
gigs, more to stay in touch than for the money.

------
seizethecheese
Summary: the percent of people aged 20-24 who answered the survey an
employment survey as "retired" changed from 1 to 2%. Bloomberg then finds a
narrative and beats it to death.

------
swagv
The article did a poor job of explaining its titular premise, imo

~~~
twothamendment
Agreed, and the video in the article had some advice that needs updated. What
20-year old is going to spend less because their credit card is frozen in a
block of ice? I don't touch mine that often. There are so many ways to pay,
service that already have the card number. It isn't a bad idea, just a bit out
of date. I think I could freeze mine for most of the month and not change
anything and I don't use cash.

------
tracker1
Grr... autoplay video with a toolbar that auto-hides.

~~~
shawn-furyan
As a bonus, if you accidentally scroll down far enough to kick off the
here's-a-random-unrelated-article misfeature, then you're rewarded with a
second autoplay of the video!

------
CountSessine
_Fewer people willing or able to take a job might eventually cause a shortage
of workers, leading to surge in wages and longer-term inflationary pressures,
according to Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice
chairman._

 _" We're going to be running out of labor as we go through time,'' Blinder
said on Bloomberg Television Dec. 31._

Oh, my. I hadn't even thought of that. I guess we'll need to expand the
availability of slave-labour employer-controlled visas and guest worker
programs, won't we? Let's forward this to our lobbyist.

------
VLM
The numbers involved are extremely small. Twice nothing is still roughly
nothing. My suspicion is at least some young women married an (older?) guy and
are doing the stay at home mom thing. Its not like the economy is booming,
they're not missing out on anything. "Maybe when the economy is better, and my
kid is in preschool, my art degree will really pay off"

------
marshray
Perhaps more are working for under-the-table wages.

------
erroneousfunk
John Keynes and the 15 hour work week make the news rounds every now and then:
[http://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-
we-...](http://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we-would-be-
working-15-hour-weeks-why-was-he-so-wrong) Perhaps we were wrong in predicting
that he was entirely wrong. Obviously, companies themselves aren't going to be
huge proponents of providing "part time" workers with full time benefits or
providing opportunities for occasional employment, but people are finding ways
through more creative methods that may not quite register as "in the
workforce" according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. People stay in school
for much longer because they can afford to (okay, yes, student loans are a
problem, but there's also not a critical "you must be in the workforce
otherwise your family farm will fail and everyone will starve" motivation),
how hard they work is more often seen as an "option" rather than a survival
need.

------
PaulHoule
Nothing gets in the New York Times unless it interests people over 50. Back
when the boomers were young there were huge numbers of article about hippies,
drugs and all that stuff because old people like to read about what young
people are doing and try it out for themselves. It makes them feel young. Old
farts have been obsessed with iTunes, iPhones, iPads, and all that i-stuff for
Apple as long as they've been making it.

I think people of all ages and social classes are in a bad mood these days.

I saw some rich guy on CNBC this morning and he was pissed because we don't
appreciate everything rich people do for us and it is not hard to find pissed
off poor people. Lots of old people like Trump because they are pissed off
about this or that.

People are pissed off about health care, obamacare, etc. It is so ungrateful
when you consider that 200 years ago people had no idea why infectious
diseases made you sick, there were no painkillers, no psych meds, no blood
pressure meds, no insulin or thyroid hormone. No antibiotics, antivirals, no
heart surgery, warfarin, etc. For almost all of human history faith healing
was the first line treatment for everything and now people are pissed.

People get pissed off driving and don't think it is a miracle that we have
cars, roads, gas, mechanics, etc.

Anyway you've got to get over this idea that any generation is special; often
it is much more like 10% of the boomers did it, and 30% of X, and 50% of Y and
70% of the Millenials do it -- most generational change is a "diffusion of
innovation" situation.

If you want to understand the post 2000 period you have to understand the
1960s and 1970s and a good book from that era is

[http://www.amazon.com/uncommitted-alienated-youth-
American-s...](http://www.amazon.com/uncommitted-alienated-youth-American-
society/dp/B0006BMZYC)

and it explains a lot of things like the hippie phenomenon and then the cult
boom, school shooters and why people who don't have it bad join ISIS, all
that. It is also the first academic book to use the word "postmodern".

He says "Our age inspires scant enthusiasm." and that is it. People don't
really believe anything they are told and just go through the motions. For
instance, look at defined contribution pensions. There has been Republican FUD
against Social Security since it began, and now we have these private plans
which might work if people had money to put in them, and some of us are
fortunate enough to do so, but a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck --
personally I still think investing in the stock market is the best massy thing
to do, but looking at the chart of the last 20 years I am not going to blame
anybody who thinks it is a casino.

People are not committed, they are not engaged, they don't feel like
stakeholders, they don't feel that they are valued, they see organizations
such as schools, colleges, the military, corporations as exploitative,
treating people like racehorses, burning them out, throwing them away.

At my local startup incubator there was this conversation I just couldn't take
from some guy who had all this bullshit and weird ideas about networking and
at some point it's like "bud... if you are talking to a VC they want to hear
you are working on product and talking to customers"

Yet, disengaged people see something like "Y Combinator" and they see it like
Harvard Business School, a credential, social proof because if you are
disengaged you aren't experiencing the joy of learning, creating, etc.

~~~
xwkd
Funny. Faith in institutions created a great society. People worked together
for the common good. Then, the corruption and abuses of power in those
institutions left that society disillusioned; uncommitted. Everyone became
disengaged and individualistic. What happens after that? It really seems like
a pattern in large social structures. Maybe it isn't, though. It's hard to say
without generational bias. Any sociologists want to chime in?

~~~
VLM
In the old days culture would just transform to relieve old stresses (while
planting the seeds of new stresses, usually)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_culture)

In the modern era that can't happen because we've fine tuned mass media and
marketing and educational indoctrination such that there is only one correct
culture, that being the culture of the recent past. The one true life path was
laid out for you before you were born, and if the world doesn't cooperate, you
need to try harder.

In the long run you can't stop cultural transformation, but trying to hold it
back via weird new artificial technologies means when it does snap it'll be a
doozy, make the '60s look positively tame in comparison. Imagine trying to
advance, say, 50 years, in a just a couple years. Things that work will be
fun; things that crash and burn under the intense acceleration will not be so
fun.

The snap will likely be fairly unpredictable. For example the dominant culture
today is intensely progressive. The snap will almost certainly not be
perfectly in phase or perfectly out of phase with progressivism.

------
DickingAround
They're not retired. They're probably selling drugs. Not kidding.

We have a lot of drug selling inmates (0.5% of Americans are in jail for
drugs). It's also an industry people can get jobs in without experience and
that booms in a recession. These retired kids are probably being honest in
saying they're not just 'staying at home'. They're probably selling drugs.
It's a job. Just not one they want to list on a survey.

~~~
DickingAround
I think this is a possible/probable explanation? Anyone who downvoted it want
to explain why the downvote?

