“Over one-third of GenXers report having saved less than $10,000.”
You guys have savings?
In your 50s you’d honestly want a lot more than that. And many, many don’t. It’s terrifying for end of work life ahead.
41 here…no home, no savings. Work till you die, then get written up for insubordination for choosing to go to your own funeral instead of coming in.
Lol I’m stealing this
End of work life? What’s that? You guys get to stop working before you die?
At the 3:00 mark, the differences between the mean figures and the median figures are stunning. A small handful of people are doing very well, and it skews the averages ridiculously.
It’s not isolated to Gen X. Wealth is largely transferred as early inheritance, always has been, therefore it’s just rich keeping getting richer. The only thing that changed after we got rid of monarchy was that social status was determined by wealth and not by birth. Given that the wealth of upper class was not redistributed - nothing could really change. There was a brief moment in time after WWII where high taxation of the rich changed things but it was quickly resolved in 70/80s when we went back to tried and true exploitation of the masses.
This is your reminder to join your local socialists, whoever they might be.
Another thing that’s affecting basically everyone is increasing levels of personal debt.
https://www.creditkarma.com/about/commentary/americans-have-a-net-worth-problem-and-its-not-positive
About a 1/3 of Americans in general have 0 to negative net worth.
Every time you see a headline article about income/wages going up, unemployment going down… remember that it is very, very difficult to find good numbers on debt levels, as they take far more effort to measure than many other metrics which are reported much more directly and more routinely to government entities.
This, and absurd housing/rent prices, are the main reasons you get the mismatch between the ‘good’ economic picture painted by the headlines people usually publish more, and the perceived reality on the ground of growing poverty and financial difficulty.
The lower class just has more and more debt that grows much faster than the minute income increases or inflation lowering. If you’re paying 20 to 30 to even 40% on credit cards or microloans or payday advances, for basic necessities you need to survive, inflation lowering from 4% to 2% or your wage increasing by 4%, while your rent or needed downpayment to buy a house jumps 10% in the same year… such minute but heavily publicized boons are basically meaningless.
