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To people under 25: Are you nervous about your economic future?
XX55XX
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am.
Right now, I am living comfortably with my parents as a university student. (I opted to live at home to save $10,000 per annum on my education.) The commute is somewhat rough (I don't have any friends at school, save a few random people I know from high school who go to my college), but life is bearable. I major in accounting/information systems.
However, after having failed to land an audit internship for next summer with one of the Big Four accounting firms (had only one first-round interview, was rejected for the second-round), I am getting nervous. I graduate in less than nineteen months. I still don't have any relevant internships under by belt. I am applying to any relevant accounting internships like crazy, but with a crappy resume that I can only spin so far, I don't know if I will be able to pass muster past the screening process. Even most staff accounting positions don't look so good because many of them require at least two years of relevant experience.
I don't know about you, but I am terrified about my economic future. If another recession does come crashing down (Euro crisis ain't looking so good for us), my degree in accounting/information systems might as well be useless. I will likely be underemployed for a long while, and my degree will depreciate in the meanwhile. And when hiring does pick up, companies are more likely to hire recent graduates over people like me.
I wished I majored in engineering, but I guess I might need to cold-call local CPA firms and work for free just so that I will have a chance for fulltime recruiting with the Big Four next year.
Are you nervous about the future? Are you worried that you might be relegated to living with your parents for the rest of your eternity? Are you worried about being unemployed/underemployed? Are you worried about not being able to marry or start a family of your own? Are you worried that you might never achieve true financial independence? Has our generation been shafted?
Right now, I am living comfortably with my parents as a university student. (I opted to live at home to save $10,000 per annum on my education.) The commute is somewhat rough (I don't have any friends at school, save a few random people I know from high school who go to my college), but life is bearable. I major in accounting/information systems.
However, after having failed to land an audit internship for next summer with one of the Big Four accounting firms (had only one first-round interview, was rejected for the second-round), I am getting nervous. I graduate in less than nineteen months. I still don't have any relevant internships under by belt. I am applying to any relevant accounting internships like crazy, but with a crappy resume that I can only spin so far, I don't know if I will be able to pass muster past the screening process. Even most staff accounting positions don't look so good because many of them require at least two years of relevant experience.
I don't know about you, but I am terrified about my economic future. If another recession does come crashing down (Euro crisis ain't looking so good for us), my degree in accounting/information systems might as well be useless. I will likely be underemployed for a long while, and my degree will depreciate in the meanwhile. And when hiring does pick up, companies are more likely to hire recent graduates over people like me.
I wished I majored in engineering, but I guess I might need to cold-call local CPA firms and work for free just so that I will have a chance for fulltime recruiting with the Big Four next year.
Are you nervous about the future? Are you worried that you might be relegated to living with your parents for the rest of your eternity? Are you worried about being unemployed/underemployed? Are you worried about not being able to marry or start a family of your own? Are you worried that you might never achieve true financial independence? Has our generation been shafted?
XX55XX on
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I'm not "worried about the future" in the sense I fear some calamity like the great depression; this may be whistling through the graveyard in light of recent circumstances but there are safeguards against a collapse that gigantic and I don't think people would tolerate it anyway (in the sense that I think there would literally be a revolution if our standard of living adjusted downward that drastically.)
with that said
I do think that our generation has been "shafted," and we face a pretty substantial change in economic circumstances and expectations compared to those that were handed down to our parents by their parents. The downward pressure on the economy right now is going to have a huge impact on our ability to accumulate longterm wealth (not in the sense of being rich, but of being able to buy a home and do the family thing.)
I'm personally fortunate enough to not have substantial education-related debt, so my current under-employment is tolerable in light of low expenses and good health. Still, it sucks.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
On the one hand, I'm in a field that's always been pretty risky (film);
On several other hands, though, things don't look so bad.
-I'm college educated, and while the economy as a whole is suffering, unemployment is mostly focused in the blue collar sector.
-I've proven to myself that I can get enough basic work to keep a roof over my head and food on the table--which at the moment is all I really need. I think it's important for people in my age bracket to set their sights on the appropriate living style, which doesn't cost that much, particularly in low-rent areas of the country.
-I'm lucky enough to have parents willing and able to support me, which really makes all the difference. They're the reason I went to a top school, the reason I left that school with almost no debt (well, that and a hefty scholarship), and the reason I was basically able to move back home for the last 8 months and build up some real savings.
That said, I've been broke, and I've been hungry, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to stay away from that in the future. When I'm not feeling optimistic, I'm usually feeling resolute, not nervous.
Many have gone into post-grad education (teacher training, masters etc.) in the hope that'll it'll give them a foot up, or that things will be better next year. Those who haven't gone down that route decided to get short-term retail jobs, whilst searching for graduate jobs. Most can't even get a retail job.
My future is safe enough for the next few years, but I'm aware of the effect rising food and energy prices are having on my stipend, and that with a a science funding freeze getting a post-doc after will be harder than ever.
So I guess I am quite worried.
You've never actually been broke or hungry with parents who support you like that.
Unemployment is not just in the blue collar sector.
How many other people were you living with when you paid for everything on your own? What about those of us in areas with a higher cost of living? The minimum wage doesn't really scale, just the well paying jobs do.
Well, I don't invest into retirement, 401k, money markets, or other such plans linked to the abstract financial market because I don't think those things (as they currently are) will exist when I retire. I see it as throwing away money I have now for money I most likely won't have later.
I'm in a profession where the vast majority are permanent part-time workers and things don't look to improve in this sector anytime soon. What does this mean? Basically, I need two part-time jobs in the same field in order to get paid 43% of what a full-time employee makes in the same field. I do more work and get less than half the pay. I don't hold a grudge against the full-time employees like some might because I see this situation as a systemic problem with cuts, cuts, cuts! The % of over-worked part-timers in my field will only increase unless there's major investment, and I don't see that happening anytime soon either.
Overall, I guess you might say I'm not worried because I'm not invested with the future I currently see in America.
edit: oh, I guess I'm not under 25 but I'm 28, sooooo, close enough?
I think that the current environment for academics isn't anything particularly new. Positions have always been sort of hard to get a hold of, pay has never been great when compared to the industry, and so on. It's just that now most states are cutting back funding to universities and the NSF is tightening its belt too, so getting money to do research is harder than it used to be.
In the worst case, I'll give up on being an academic and go do something in the industry. I can't imagine I'll have a hard time finding a good job with a doctorate in the hard sciences.
Basically, I'll just echo what someone else already said, we're not going to be absolutely crushed economically as a generation, but we're not going to enjoy the same things previous generations did. Owning a house is going to be a thing fewer of us do than our parents did. Retirement will be later, we'll probably not see the money we've paid into SS (not that anyone ever does, but I would guess the program will be cut back substantially before we retire), etc.
Even as recently as three or four years ago you could get a well paid job in the oil industry here (Aberdeen) without much in the way of qualifications if you knew where to look. I missed that boat and now the jobs are gone, the few that are left are being competed for by redundant veterans of the industry with years or even decades of experience under their belts.
It's really frustrating but I've had to come to terms with the fact I'm not going to be anything like as successful as my parents were. Our generation are going to have to work our entire lives to pay for the baby boomers mistakes and support their pensions when they all retire.
Rigorous Scholarship
I'll probably be able to pay my bills for the rest of my life considering I don't make a stupid decision where I work or piss off my boss.
^ This. The boomers did a pretty terrific job of fucking us in the ass without lube.
Well done, assholes.
Overall, we'll be fine if we can somehow adopt a responsible fiscal policy (long odds on that though). We just need to aim lower and accept that our lives aren't going to bear any resemblance to the people on the MTV Cribs episodes we watched growing up.
Yeah, and if you earnestly believe the market will change in a way that investing in things is throwing money away, the future will be a Mad Maxian hellscape and you should start stockpiling ammo to ward off the cannibal rape gangs.
You're a reasonable person.
I've met a lot of people who aren't reasonable people and think that if you aren't living like the people on Entourage, you're a fucking loser. In many ways our culture of consumption is toxic.
Where I live and in my industry (architecture), jobs are being lost left and right and NO one is hiring. Currently, the economic future for me looks terrible.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I wouldn't even know what to do with half that shit. I just want a nice living room to have a nice tree without crowding into a corner and overtaking my tv and couch and have 2 rooms for guests or friends that are visiting. That'd be nice.
Fucking boomers fucked the economy so nope!
I just want a living room where I can use my Kinect without having to move the coffee table AND the couch.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I'm much more worried about my long-term ability to reach all my career goals (i.e. to work on the cool things I want to work on) than I am about my personal financial conditions.
I would be delighted to live in a flat under a bowling alley if I had the ability to actually own it without crippling myself financially.
1. I worry about finding another job that pays more but has real security.
2. I worry about not saving enough money
3. I worry about cancer not because of family history or anything but because it fucking ruins you financially
4. I worry about being unemployable when I'm 60 something.
I am currently getting my PhD (as many of you know) in a niche biological science (Entomology and genetics).
Right now, with the current climate of cuts to pure science funding AND education, both my current prospects are looking frightening.
I don't even mind playing the "post doc to professor" game; I just want there to be money so that I get paid better than I was in grad school, if at all.
Now, in theory if I were to drastically shift my focus and work a bit to re-train myself I could have quite a few lucrative positions, but honestly? That isn't worth it to me; I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing agricultural entomology for the USDA, or medical entomology for the US Military. I spent two years in a job I despised because the pay was good, and am not doing that again.
You may comment that I am being "selfish" or "naive" or stupid or any other adjective to describe my unwillingness to retrain, but the thing is I would also be happy with a Tenure or assistant professorship appointment at some college somewhere....but most colleges have been reducing the number of tenure and associate/assistant professor positions due to economic problems and budget cuts, so the prospects for the actual job I am training for are dwindling quickly. To top it off I personally have about 15k in college debt (I got VERY lucky) and my fiancee has about 20K (also lucky). That isn't horrible, but if I can't secure something with at least a 40k+ salary it will be very hard to pay those off reasonably (my fiancee is going back to school when I get my PhD, so I will be the main earner then).
Anyway, basically I am a little bit worried but hope things get better. Really all we have to do to make me feel better is increase the amount of funding to the NSF to make it a little bit less of a ridiculous fistfight to get even meager funding.
To make this more political, this is why I am not ever voting Republican until they change the stance of the party at large back towards a pro-science approach. If anyone remembers Palin's (I think?) comment about how funding fruit fly genetic research was pork-barrel spending...That is basically what I do, but using dung beetles.
Anyway kind of rambly.
TL;DR- yes, a bit
Sure, I'll admit my lack of investment is irrational, but I'm certainly not going to invest in a system that is flawed at some pretty basic levels, and then decides to fix those flaws by excarbating them. At the moment, I spend that cash giving to charity and other worthy organizations. If it screws me over in the long run, so be it. At least I'll have (yes, emotional again) the knowledge my life was a net gain to society, not a loss.
I think I'm a lucky exception, though - I paid for university with crappy retail and telemarketing jobs in the summer and part-time during the school year, but I also lived with my parents and had a scholarship for about 40% of my tuition, so my student loan is already paid off. My girlfriend has a secure government position that pays really well, and we have no debt or dependents. For most people, the situation is not so favourable, and I think I owe a lot of it to a job falling into my lap right after graduation.
I'm 33, BTW.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Unless in your old age you become a burden on the system due to your inability to provide for yourself and end up being cared for by taxes. Why wouldn't you just save the money in some other way, if you don't actually want to invest in standard investment forms?
I might be able to climb the ladder if I got serious about it, but when I see the people suffering, starving and dying I feel like the worst human being for even considering it. The pursuit of money isn't going to do anything to really help me without ending up causing a metric fuckton of pain to someone else somewhere. Knowing my prosperity costs the lives of people elsewhere it just feels weak and hollow. Not to mention I can't even see my girlfriend most times because I have to work weeks and she's only able to get free time during the middle of a workday which puts a real cramp in my ability to have a life.
I went from having paid-for healthcare and dental to the company trying to push me into a health savings account which to me sounds like they're trying to bait and switch us so the HSA people can screw us over by adjusting the terms 5 or so years down the line. (So now I have no insurance, since as I explained to my Boss, if I have to pay for it, it is not a "benefit" to me, it is a "cost.") I never even got to use my healthcare when I had it though because the stupid processor recorded my birthdate wrong and wanted me to fill out ten kinds of forms and snail mail them back to fix it. Which I absolutely refused to do because it's just simply ridiculous to require that much paperwork in the age of the internet.
If I had to guess I'll get modest salary raises to keep pace with inflation but that's going to be about it. My performance is already starting to fall because I care less and less about what I do, and making DTC advertisements for pharma companies (mobile app versions specifically, some doctor only stuff but mostly direct to customer) makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Because I know in the end what my stuff will be used for and I know how much it'll destroy the system of Doctors actually prescribing "Helpful" things for their patients.
I kind of want to quit and just do occupation stuff, but I've already got a car loan to pay back since I had to get a car for this job and I still owe my parents a ridiculous sum of money since they "loaned me" starting cash to put a down payment on the car and cover my moving expenses. Before this I had been working as basically a wage slave my entire life so the raise in my standard of living was nice. But now I'm caught between saying "fuck it!" and hurting them with all the debt I've wracked up but maybe having a chance at feeling happy and like I'm not an objectively horrible human being, or sticking with this job and slowly dying inside knowing entirely what my job does to people.
It's quite the conundrum.
I'm 36 and have been unemployed for two years and have also exhausted my supply of shit via scare-related means. Sacramento has one of the higher unemployment rates in the nation on account of having a lot of government workers in a state that fails at government. You need to have crazy amounts of experience to qualify for even the most low-end jobs, and the idea of "entry level" here is laughable. I can't imagine being fresh out of school and trying to find work here, when someone with ten years experience is still offered fresh-out-of-school wages.
There are other people my age I consider successful. My brother found work as an engineer. My sister is close to finishing medical school. A friend of mine moved away to work on oil rigs. An acquaintance moved to a state with a better economy and is doing well. Another acquaintance started his own publishing company and last I heard he is able to fully support himself in a very humble existence. There's more stories but it goes on. We're all under 25.
I don't think all of my friends are going to be so lucky. But I don't think it's abnormal for one's early adulthood to be spent making less than ideal income. There are a lot of people who are frustrated by the economy. Some react with denial and retreating to their comforts. Others are quick to blame some one.
I'm also worried about my parents. They've always been paycheck to paycheck and in debt. They're closing in on retirement and constantly stressed about losing their jobs. They will probably end up needing assistance. They're both incredibly healthy for their age and have the family history of living into their 100s. My siblings and I discuss how we're going to handle that. I'm worried my parents may need to live with me. I will provide, but i'm not too enthused.
I don't think our generation is abnormally shafted. I think all demographics are worried about their economic security. I think we're in a changing economy and people can't approach employment and consumerism like we could 5 years ago. I think there are some good things that are going to come from this. But it is painful to watch my demographic get so frustrated.
I just want space for my eight wives and thirty-two of the world's stupidest children.
What is it that you do? Unless you're a mercenary, I doubt what you do actively harms others. So don't feel bad! You need to eat and survive too.