Millennials

These Days Young Men In America Are Working A Lot Less And Playing Video Games A Lot More

If you could stay home and play video games all day, would you do it?  According to a brand new report that was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday, American men from the ages of 21 to 30 are working a lot less these days.  In fact, on average men in this age group worked 203 fewer hours per year in 2015 than they did in 2000.  So what did they do with all of that extra time?  According to the study, a large portion of the time that young men used to spend working is now being spent playing video games.

It is certainly no secret that young men like video games.  But the study found that in recent years the amount of time young men dedicate to gaming has shot up dramatically…

Comparing data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) for recent years (2012-2015) to eight years prior (2004-2007), we see that: (a) the drop in market hours for young men was mirrored by a roughly equivalent increase in leisure hours, and (b) increased time spent in gaming and computer leisure for younger men, 99 hours per year, comprises three quarters of that increase in leisure. Younger men increased their recreational computer use and video gaming by nearly 50 percent over this short period. Non-employed young men now average 520 hours a year in recreational computer time, sixty percent of that spent playing video games. This exceeds their time spent on home production or non-computer related socializing with friends.

Those are some absolutely staggering numbers.

But how can these young men get away with spending so much time playing video games?  After all, don’t they have bills to pay?

Well, some of them do, but a lot of them are still living at home with Mom and Dad.  According to this new report, a whopping 35 percent of young men “are living at home with their parents or a close relative”…

Men ages 21 to 30 years old worked 12 percent fewer hours in 2015 than they did in 2000, the economists found. Around 15 percent of young men worked zero weeks in 2015, a rate nearly double that of 2000.

Since 2004, young men have increasingly allocated more of their free time to playing video games and other computer-related activities, according to the study. Thirty-five percent of young men are living at home with their parents or a close relative, up 12 percent since 2000.

This phenomenon is known as “extended adolescence”, and it is becoming a major societal problem.

In the old days, most young men in their twenties would be working hard, starting families and becoming solid members of their communities.

But these days, way too many young men are living in the basement with Mom and Dad and spending endless hours playing video games.

So what is going to happen when older generations of Americans start dying off and these guys are forced to become “the leaders of tomorrow”?

I love baseball, and one of the things that you learn when you follow baseball is that hitters tend to peak around the age of 27.  Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, but on average there is something very special about the age of 27.

The reason I bring this up is to show that in many ways men from the ages of 21 to 30 are in their prime years.  If they are wasting those years playing video games, that is not a good thing for our society.

And of course this isn’t the first survey to find that so many young men are still living with their parents.  Not too long ago, a Census Bureau report discovered that one out of every three 18 to 34-year-old Americans is still living at home…

According to the Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood report for 2016, one in three Americans ages 18 to 34 are living at home with their parents.

Coming in second place is living with a spouse (27 percent), followed by other (i.e. living with a roommate or other relatives, 21 percent), living with a boyfriend or girlfriend (12 percent) and living alone (8 percent).

The fact that only 27 percent of them are “living with a spouse” is particularly noteworthy.  As I noted in a previous article, that number has fallen by more than half since 1975…

Did you know that the percentage of 18 to 34-year-old Americans that are married and living with a spouse has dropped by more than half since 1975?  Back then, 57 percent of everyone in that age group “lived with a spouse”, but today that number has dropped to just 27 percent.

I have a new book coming out later this month, and in that book I am going to talk about some of the reasons why so few of our young people are getting married these days.  Our culture tends to glamorize the “single lifestyle”, and it also tends to portray marriage as a “ball and chain” that needs to be put off for as long as possible.  But studies have shown that married men tend to be happier, they tend to make more money, and they tend to live longer.

However, it is undeniably true that it can be very tough to start a family in today’s economic environment.  The middle class is steadily shrinking, and millions of young people are working jobs that pay close to the minimum wage.  So when you are barely scraping by, it can be quite intimidating to think about taking on all of the expenses that come with raising a child.

But as so many of us have learned, there never is a “perfect time” to have a child.  Many of our parents really had to struggle to survive when we were young, and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is nothing that can replace the joy that family can bring, and we need to encourage our young people to embrace marriage and parenthood.  The family is one of the fundamental building blocks of society, and without strong families there is no way that our country is going to have any sort of a positive future.

Why Are So Many Millennials Living With Their Parents Instead Of Getting Married And Starting Their Own Families?

Did you know that the percentage of 18 to 34-year-old Americans that are married and living with a spouse has dropped by more than half since 1975?  Back then, 57 percent of everyone in that age group “lived with a spouse”, but today that number has dropped to just 27 percent.  These numbers come from “the Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood” report that was just released by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Some are postulating that the reason for this dramatic cultural shift is a phenomenon known as “extended adolescence”, while others fear that large numbers of young men and/or young women are giving up on the concept of marriage altogether.

Instead of getting married and starting their own households, many young adults are deciding that living with Mom and Dad is the best approach.  In fact, this new Census Bureau report found that one out of every three 18 to 34-year-old Americans is currently living with their parents…

According to the Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood report for 2016, one in three Americans ages 18 to 34 are living at home with their parents.

Coming in second place is living with a spouse (27 per cent), followed by other (i.e. living with a roommate or other relatives, 21 per cent), living with a boyfriend or girlfriend (12 per cent) and living alone (8 per cent).

Once the last recession ended, this trend was supposed to start reversing, but instead the number of young adults still living at home has just continued to increase.  This is going to have very serious implications for our looming retirement crisis, and that is something that I am going to write about later today on End Of The American Dream.

And a lot of these young adults are not being productive members of society at all.  In fact, this new report from the Census Bureau found that one out of every four 25 to 34-year-old Americans that are currently living at home do not have a job and they are not going to school either.

In other words, they need to get a life.  I really like how a recent CNBC editorial made this point…

One of the most memorable Saturday Night Live sketches ever was broadcast in 1986 when guest host William Shatner played himself appearing at fictional Star Trek convention. After fielding one childish question after another from costumed fans in their late 20s and 30s, Shatner loses his cool and shouts: “GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! … Move out of your parents’ basements! Get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP!”

Thirty-one years later, it sure seems like all of America needs to heed that message. Here’s why: The Census Bureau now says that more 18-34 year-olds are living with their parents than with a spouse.

But a lot of young men these days do not even want to go down the traditional route of marriage, family, career, etc.

In fact, a lot of them are forsaking the concept of marriage together.  Author Suzanne Venker says that a lot of these men are blaming their lack of desire to get married on modern women…

“When I ask them why, the answer is always the same: women aren’t women anymore.” Feminism, which teaches women to think of men as the enemy, has made women “angry” and “defensive, though often unknowingly.”

“Now the men have nowhere to go. It is precisely this dynamic – women good/men bad – that has destroyed the relationship between the sexes. Yet somehow, men are still to blame when love goes awry.”

“Men are tired,” Venker wrote. “Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.”

On the flip side, a lot of women are extremely distressed that so few men seem to have the willingness to commit these days.  So many men just want to run around having sex with an endless series of women without ever putting a wedding ring on any of their fingers.

Of course many men figure that if they can get some of the best benefits of marriage (sex, companionship, etc.) without having to make a commitment then that is a pretty good deal for them.

Personally, I am a huge advocate of marriage, but the rest of society is moving in the exact opposite direction.  According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of 18 to 29-year-old Americans now believe that “marriage is becoming obsolete”.  And for a lot more numbers like this, please see my previous article entitled “43 Facts About Love, Sex, Dating And Marriage That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe”.

But of course not all young adults that are living at home are doing it for the wrong reasons.  Thanks to our long-term economic decline, it is much more difficult for young people to find good paying jobs today than it was several decades ago.  The following comes from CNS News…

“More young men are falling to the bottom of the income ladder,” says the Census Bureau study. “In 1975, only 25 percent of men, aged 25 to 34, had incomes of less than $30,000 per year. By 2016, that share rose to 41 percent of young men (incomes for both years are in 2015 dollars).”

I have absolutely no problem at all with young adults that are living at home temporarily for economic reasons.  These Millennials are simply victims of our failing economy, and thus we should not be so quick to judge them.

And many of these young people graduate from college already saddled with tremendous amounts of debt.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of going to college has increased by an astounding 63 percent since 2006.  We assure our youngsters that they will get good paying jobs when they graduate that will enable them to pay off those student loans, but once they do finally graduate many of them are discovering that the good paying jobs that we promised them do not exist.

Today, Americans owe more than a trillion dollars on their student loans.  It has become a major national crisis, and it is financially crippling an entire generation.

So the next time you hear of a young adult that is still living at home, don’t be so quick to judge until you know the facts.

Yes, there are many that need a good kick in the pants to get them going in life, but there are also millions that are simply victims of our ongoing long-term economic collapse.

24 Reasons Why Millennials Are Screaming Mad About Our Unfair Economy

Angry Woman - Public DomainDo you want to know why Millennials seem so angry?  We promised them that if they worked hard, stayed out of trouble and got good grades that they would be able to achieve the “American Dream”.  We told them not to worry about accumulating very high levels of student loan debt because there would be good jobs waiting for them at the end of the rainbow once they graduated.  Well, it turns out that we lied to them.  Nearly half of all Millennials are spending at least half of their paychecks to pay off debt, more than 30 percent of them are living with their parents because they can’t find decent jobs, and this year the homeownership rate for Millennials sunk to a brand new all-time low.  When you break U.S. adults down by age, our long-term economic decline has hit the Millennials the hardest by far.  And yet somehow we expect them to bear the burden of providing Medicare, Social Security and other social welfare benefits to the rest of us as we get older.  No wonder there is so much anger and frustration among our young people.  The following are 24 reasons why Millennials are screaming mad about our unfair economy…

#1 The current savings rate for Millennials is negative 2 percent.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Not only aren’t Millennials saving any money, they are actually spending a good bit more than they are earning every month.

#2 A survey conducted earlier this year found that 47 percent of all Millennials are using at least half of their paychecks to pay off debt.

#3 For U.S. households that are headed up by someone under the age of 40, average wealth is still about 30 percent below where it was back in 2007.

#4 In 2005, the homeownership rate for U.S. households headed up by someone under the age of 35 was approximately 43 percent.  Today, it is sitting at about 36 percent.

#5 One recent survey discovered that an astounding 31.1 percent of all U.S. adults in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket are currently living with their parents.

#6 At this point, the top 0.1 percent of all Americans have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all Americans combined.  Needless to say, there aren’t very many Millennials in that top 0.1 percent.

#7 Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, close to 40 percent of all 27-year-olds have spent at least some time unemployed.

#8 Only about one out of every five 27-year-olds owns a home at this point, and an astounding 80 percent of all 27-year-olds are paying off debt.

#9 In 2013, the ratio of what men in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket were earning compared to what the general population was earning reached an all-time low.

#10 Back in the year 2000, 80 percent of all men in their late twenties had a full-time job.  Today, only 65 percent do.

#11 In 2012, one study found that U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#12 Another study released back in 2011 discovered that U.S. households led by someone 65 years of age or older are 47 times wealthier than U.S. households led by someone 35 years of age or younger.

#13 Half of all college graduates in America are still financially dependent on their parents when they are two years out of college.

#14 In 1994, less than half of all college graduates left school with student loan debt.  Today, it is over 70 percent.

#15 At this point, student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States.  That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.

#16 According to the Pew Research Center, nearly four out of every ten U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 40 are currently paying off student loan debt.

#17 In 2008, approximately 29 million Americans were paying off student loan debt.  Today, that number has ballooned to 40 million.

#18 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…

The problem developing is that earnings and debt aren’t moving in the same direction. From 2005 to 2012, average student loan debt has jumped 35%, adjusting for inflation, while the median salary has actually dropped by 2.2%.

#19 According to CNN, 260,000 Americans with a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage last year.

#20 Even after accounting for inflation, the cost of college tuition increased by 275 percent between 1970 and 2013.

#21 In the years to come, much of the burden of paying for Medicare for our aging population will fall on Millennials.  It is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.  In addition, it has been estimated that Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.  That comes to approximately $328,404 for every single household in the United States.

#22 In the years to come, much of the burden of paying for our exploding Medicaid system will fall on Millennials.  Today, more than 70 million Americans are on Medicaid, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#23 In the years to come, much of the burden of paying for our massive Ponzi scheme known as Social Security will fall on Millennials.  Right now, there are more than 63 million Americans collecting Social Security benefits.  By 2035, that number is projected to soar to an astounding 91 million.  In 1945, there were 42 workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits.  Today, that number has fallen to 2.5 workers, and if you eliminate all government workers, that leaves only 1.6 private sector workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits.

#24 Our national debt is currently sitting at a grand total of $17,937,617,036,693.09.  It is on pace to roughly double during the Obama years, and Millennials are expected to service that debt for the rest of their lives.

Yes, there are certainly some Millennials that are flat broke because they are lazy and irresponsible.

But there are many others that have tried to do everything right and still find that they can’t get any breaks.  For example, Bloomberg recently shared the story of a young couple named Jason and Jessica Alinen…

The damage inflicted on U.S. households by the collapse of the housing market and recession wasn’t evenly distributed. Just ask Jason and Jessica Alinen.

The couple, who live near Seattle, declared bankruptcy in 2011 when the value of the house they then owned plunged to less than $200,000 from the $349,000 they paid for it four years earlier, just as the economic slump was about to start. Jason even stopped getting haircuts to save money.

“We thought we’d have a white picket fence, two kids, two dogs, and we’d have $100,000 in equity,” said Jason, 33, who does have two children. “It’s just really frustrating.”

Can you identify with them?

Most young Americans just want to work hard, buy a home and start a family.

But for millions of them, that dream might as well be a million miles away right now.

Unfortunately, most of them have absolutely no idea why this has happened.

Many of them end up blaming themselves.  Many of them think that they are not talented enough or that they didn’t work hard enough or that they don’t know the right people.

What they don’t know is that the truth is that decades of incredibly foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us in a major way, and they just happen to be caught in the crossfire.

Sadly, instead of becoming informed about what is happening to our country, a very large percentage of our young people are absolutely addicted to entertainment instead.

Below, I want to share with you a video that I recently came across.  You can find it on YouTube right here.  A student at Texas Tech University recently asked some of her classmates a series of questions.  When they were asked about Brad Pitt or Jersey Shore they knew the answers right away.  But when they were asked who won the Civil War or who the current Vice-President of the United States is, they deeply struggled.  I think that this video says a lot about where we are as a society today…

So what do you think about all of this?

Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…