Welcome To America. Leave Your Hopes (And Your Wallet) At The Door
Victor Davis Hanson writes for Tribune that "young people have been had," calling the young now "the lost generation":
Millions of so-called millennials under 30 must purchase health insurance -- estimated at about $1,700 a year -- that they will hardly use. Their premiums supposedly will subsidize older, in-need Americans who cannot pay the full costs of coverage that they will draw on frequently.We forget that young people are already targeted for a number of government redistribution plans. Of America's age cohorts, the under-30 bunch is the least likely to be employed, and the most likely to work at low-wage or part-time jobs.
Millennials already pay high payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare coverage for the elderly. Yet most economists predict that both programs will soon prove insolvent and will not be able to extend the present level of benefits to young contributors when they retire.
We are currently in the greatest economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The now normal 7 percent unemployment hits the young especially hard. Their jobless rate typically ranges from two to three times higher than the national average. Requiring employers to provide Obamacare coverage will spike unemployment and again do the most harm to those first entering the workforce.
Young people in America owe in aggregate about $1 trillion in unpaid student loans. While in theory some of their interest rates are subsidized, many are not and range from 5 percent to 9 percent at a time when mortgages can still be had for about 4 percent.
...It is often easy to caricature the young. Today's youth see expensive iPhones and iPads as necessary as a prior generation's cheap pencils and pens. Some younger people wear sneakers and shades that cost more than three months of health care premiums. Suburban kids are as likely to be playing video games on weekend mornings as cutting the grass and raking leaves.
All that said, the aging '60s generation has far more to answer for. We are handing over a very different America to our young people. They have received a worse education than did prior generations at a far greater cost in mostly borrowed money.
There are fewer job opportunities and higher taxes. Others ran up the huge debt; young people will largely pay for it over the next half-century. Early marriage and child-raising, a nice house, two cars and pay-as-you-go college for the kids are all becoming a fantasy of a bygone generation.
via @reasonpolicy
If only unemployment was 7%. We have millions of long-term unemployed who simply aren't counted anymore. If you assumed the historical average labor participation rate among working-age Americans, it would reveal an unemployment rate north of 11%.
That said, the declining American standard of living didn't just begin with the current economic downturn. I'm 43, and my parents are either among the last of the Silents or the first of the Boomers, depending on which date range you use. My standard of living will never come close to what theirs has been. To the extent that I was at least able to move out and get a place of my own, I see many of the younger generation has it worse still. I am clinging to the middle class only because I never had kids.
Pirate Jo at December 22, 2013 5:59 AM
As far as ObamaCare goes, I'm not going to so easily give these kids a pass: they voted for this sh!t sandwich not once, but twice. Perhaps in fewer numbers in 2012, but still for the author of this particular piece of pain.
Eat up. It's what's for dinner. Mostly because you can't afford to buy food.
We'll see if they vote against Senators and Representatives who voted to pass that legislation come November. I'm thinking if they vote at all, they'll vote for more of the same: yes I'd like a free lunch, please, keep borrowing money and putting on my credit card.
I R A Darth Aggie at December 22, 2013 6:48 AM
Right now the max penalty for not pre-buying insurance is going to be 2.5% in 2016. So the $7.25 per hour (minimum wage) full-time minimum wage employee earns $15,080 annually.
So the 19 year old earning that is going to probably qualify for Medicaid. The 19 year old that is making $30K is going to look at the ($1700*12) $20400 bill compared to $750 tax penalty and is going to say fuck it.
And that is if he can find a job because the small machine shops are going to be closing down because they can't find a college educated liberal arts major that wants to get his hands dirty.
Jim P. at December 22, 2013 9:16 AM
The 19 year old that is making $30K is going to look at the ($1700*12) $20400 bill compared to $750 tax penalty and is going to say fuck it.
You forgot the deductible you have to pay first.
Also under the ACA do your co pays for visits, meds, and purchases for OTC meds count towards your deductible?
lujlp at December 22, 2013 9:44 AM
" can't find a college educated liberal
arts major that wants to get his hands dirty."
This. Of course, it might be art history, or women's studies, or theater - anything not too demanding...
a_random_guy at December 22, 2013 12:18 PM
Politicians: helping to ruin the country since 1789.
mpetrie98 at December 22, 2013 1:46 PM
"I'm not going to so easily give these kids a pass:"
Please, like Boomers never elected a bad president.
But yeah, it's those damn kids. Totally and completely. Certainly the AARP, an organization that now has a huge amount of Boomers in it, would never have supported something like that.
http://www.aarp.org/health/health-insurance/info-04-2013/how-affordable-care-act-helps-you.html
Elle at December 22, 2013 1:47 PM
If the AARP were any tighter with the democratic party, it would be incest.
The AARP also funds many of the gun control groups.
I don't think there is much crossover membership between the AARP and the NRA.
Isab at December 22, 2013 4:39 PM
It sounds like you grew up in the same time frame I did. Once you realize at 18 that high school has given you zero skills and you never really want to see inside the doors of a college or university you could look for something (usually through contacts) that starts as sweeping up around the milling machines.
The thing that scares me is that unions are now doing things that require you to have college level courses.
I know of a guy that wants to eventually be a master electrician, but has some very mild learning disabilities (edge of dyslexia type things). Even the union is wanting to send these guys through college courses when all they really need are cheat sheets on ohms to volts to hertz for 97% of their work.
So pretty much everything is getting corrupted.
Jim P. at December 22, 2013 6:52 PM
Those machinist shops you guys speak of, they will be gone in less than twenty years with the invention of 3D printing. I can't wait until I am wearing seamless pants, and when my kidneys fail, the doctors will simply print myself a new one.
My generation will be paying for the elderly while simultaneously automating the middle-class sector with self-checkouts and vending machines.
Cat at December 22, 2013 7:08 PM
"they can't find a college educated liberal arts major that wants to get his hands dirty."
Why the fuck would they? They're liberal arts majors, they went for a general university education, not to a fucking Machinist Vo-Tech Training School. Yeah, we need bus drivers, but if you've got the determination to work your way through four years of advanced education, bus driving is your second choice of employment.
What Cat says - my neighbor is a (forcibly) retired machinist. No American jobs to speak of that require his level of skills. Punch up a design, toss in the materials, wait for the machine to finish the job. His lifetime of experience is worth very little here.
One of the real reasons we're fucked is because some shmoes decided competing internationally on price instead of quality was the way to go.
Now the ditch diggers are using Made in China shovels and it won't be long before the fat cats extend H1-B visa privileges to foreign ditch diggers.
Crucial labor that can't be found inside America, you see.
//endrant
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at December 22, 2013 9:41 PM
"Millennials already pay high payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare coverage for the elderly. Yet most economists predict that both programs will soon prove insolvent and will not be able to extend the present level of benefits to young contributors when they retire."
Dear Millennials:
Welcome to our world.
Sincerely,
Generation X
Cousin Dave at December 23, 2013 7:01 AM
I don't think there is much crossover membership between the AARP and the NRA.
Well I'm a member of both. But only because I get a good discount on my car insurance via AARP. Other than that, I don't give 2 shits about 'em. I don't support any of their other shenanigans, other than paying for my membership. But as soon as I can get good car insurance elsewhere for what I'm paying now, I'm done with them.
Flynne at December 23, 2013 9:52 AM
Well I'm a member of both. But only because I get a good discount on my car insurance via AARP. Other than that, I don't give 2 shits about 'em. I don't support any of their other shenanigans, other than paying for my membership. But as soon as I can get good car insurance elsewhere for what I'm paying now, I'm done with them.
Posted by: Flynne at December 23, 2013 9:52 AM
I personally would rather pay more rather than send my dues directly to the democratic party.
If you have any way to qualify for coverage with USAA, i recommend you try them. Used to be very restrictive, but they have loosened up quite a bit.
Another thing you can do, if you are a good driver, and have had few claims, is to call the company you have now, and ask them if dropping your AARP membership will change your rates any. Companies don't like to lose responsible drivers.
Usually the cost of auto insurance is very dependent on how long you have been with a company. So, if you change it will go up regardless, but then will come back down after you go a couple of years claim free.
If you have teenage drivers, it wont be cheap anywhere.
Isab at December 23, 2013 1:50 PM
What Isab said. I would die, starving in the cold before I'd give AARP a dime.
MarkD at December 23, 2013 7:26 PM
When I get there it will be either The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) or the National Association of Conservative Seniors (NAOCS).
May AARP die on the vine.
Jim P. at December 24, 2013 5:09 PM
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