I need to sit down and really think about these numbers and what they mean, what they don’t mean, and what they should mean and shouldn’t mean.
At least in my experience, the biggest thing that’s changed between now and the 1980’s when I graduated from high school, is the cost of higher education and the disconnect that has opened up between what entry-level jobs pay and what rents and mortgages cost. I was raised in the ‘Born to Run’ state, so it’s not surprising that virtually everyone I knew left New Jersey as soon as they turned 19 years old. A lot of us came back, at least for a time, but we all had the ability to uproot and find work and pay rents, even if we occasionally got a little help from home. And this was in spite of a nasty recession that hit right around the time most of us were graduating from college.
For me, I was able to split a nice two-bedroom apartment in a nice part of Los Angeles for about $400 a month, my credit hours cost only $105, and was only that high because I wasn’t a citizen of California, and while work was difficult to find after the recession hit, it paid enough that I could get by as long as my parents gave me a little help.
The kids I know in a similar position today, simply cannot replicate that experience. And most of them choose to go without a car of their own and to stay at home. Obviously, if their parents have the money and are willing to pay, they can still go off on their own, but it’s not real independence, or even semi-independence. Most kids wind up deeply in debt if they want a college education, and it’s not as clear that the education they get will immediately show a pay-off on investment.
It’s probably easier to control the cost of education than it is to control the cost of housing, so that seems like the more fruitful way to go.
Still, I’m surprised that people are roughly as positive about this economy as they were right before they reelected Reagan in a landslide. I don’t dispute the numbers, but I don’t understand them.
