Current Events > Are millennials struggling because poor work ethic?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://i.imgur.com/2G9xeJh.png

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They are some of the laziest why me type of people I have ever met.

I would go with yes

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Yes

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Literally starting my adult life in 2008 during the recession.
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They're supposedly the generation with the highest education rates and all the technology past generations could only see as the stuff of science fiction, so it is logical that may be a missing factor.

Talking to them, it isn't that simple. Lazy isn't right so much as entitled. They are willing to work, but don't seem to think they should give their best at any job not part of their desired career path. Hence, you get a lot of people stuck at dead end jobs because they won't look into more demanded jobs, and their performance in the ones they have doesn't encourage a raise or promotion.

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First of all, aren't most people here millennial? I don't know why people are talking about them as an external group.

Secondly considering the graph, don't you think there is more of an effect than ever of older wealthy people gatekeeping the young out?

Some young people are entitled, but I hardly think the previous 2 generations were paragons of perfect employees. Am I wrong?

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I know I sure am.

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Poor work ethic isn't the reason Millennials aren't getting paid well.

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blablablax17 posted...

Literally starting my adult life in 2008 during the recession.

this is actually a huge part of it

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Tmaster148 posted...

Poor work ethic isn't the reason Millennials aren't getting paid well.

I know when I was managing at a pizza shop it sure as hell was the reason.

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gatorsPENSbucs posted...

I know when I was managing at a pizza shop it sure as hell was the reason.

Just because you have poor work ethic does not mean an entire generation does.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

I don't know why you even bothered with the graph as it's entirely irrelevant to the question you posed.

The graph shows how extremely they are struggling, so it is quite relevant. Compared to other generations millennials are really struggling to share in the economy. So the question is "is it laziness as many people claim?"

To me that graph seems to imply some systematic unfairness. Unless we millenials are truly shit tier people and boomers are god tier perfect workers.

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"Poor work ethic" is the staple boomer-waving-his-walking-stick-at-the-young-whippersnappers line when it comes to Millennials.

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I have a good work ethic, it's just that you constantly get hit with negative reinforcement. When you have people doing bottom of the barrel jobs, on their feet dealing with people all day for 8-10 hours, in a time when the dollar feels weaker than ever, some people are going to say "wow, you know what? this religion of work is uhhhh bullshit"

but people are so brainwashed, they get PISSED if they hear that. "the religion of work isn't bullshit, you're just lazy, entitled, yadda yadda"

it's really just that people are realizing their entire lives will be dedicated to raising bottom lines for corporate fatcats who are probably boomers who don't give half a fraction of a shit about their employees.
I can't complain too much about my current job, but the thing is, my job isn't that good either, but the bar can sink so much lower, and I've had those jobs, so I know where people are coming from

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joe40001 posted...

So the question is "is it laziness as many people claim?"

the answer is "no"

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like it immediately devolves into a pissing contest, "i work X amount of hours and i'm proud of it, blah blah blah"
great, imagine if you didn't have to, though

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Look at how long the other generations have been gathering wealth. Once they start dying due to old age, millennials will become by far the wealthiest generation to ever have existed.

Millennials are off to a slow start due to 2009 but it's picking up. And yes, they could be further along if they were more conscious with their money and spending decisions.

I lol when millennials that hate other millennials talk as if they aren't millennials.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

It shows that 30 year olds are less wealthy than 50 and 60 year olds, which I find not shocking and there are a multitude of reasons why that could be, making it impossible based on just a graph to pinpoint laziness.

Bro do you even read graphs?

It shows that controlling for age each generation is getting less and less of the economy than the previous one. A 30yo millenial has half as much wealth as a 30yo Gen Xr did, which looks to be about 40% of as much wealth as a 30yo Boomer would.

The graph shows that at 30 a millenial would make about 1/4th as much as boomers did when they were 30, so are boomers really 4 times as good of workers/people?

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isnt the issue that millennials arent buying houses, investments, high value assets etc & not that they dont have high salaries?

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Loud_Pipes posted...

Look at how long the other generations have been gathering wealth. Once they start dying due to old age, millennials will become by far the wealthiest generation to ever have existed.

Millennials are off to a slow start due to 2009 but it's picking up. And yes, they could be further along if they were more conscious with their money and spending decisions.

The fact at 35 boomers had 20% of the total wealth, whereas at 35 Gen X seemed to have like 8% certainly doesn't bode well for millennials (some of which are about 35)

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Romulox28 posted...

isnt the issue that millennials arent buying houses, investments, high value assets etc & not that they dont have high salaries?

do you not see a correlation there?

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Romulox28 posted...

isnt the issue that millennials arent buying houses, investments, high value assets etc & not that they dont have high salaries?

Do they have good salaries?

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Romulox28 posted...

isnt the issue that millennials arent buying houses, investments, high value assets etc & not that they dont have high salaries?

Not like millennials are being paid enough to allow them to do such things in the first place. The main issue being that wages have stagnated and things like housing have massively increased their cost making it pretty hard for millennials to buy houses.

It's what happens when the boomer generation went out of their way to build these expensive houses and now are unable to sell them because they don't pay the newer generation enough to do so.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

Bro, nothing I said about the graph was false and nothing you said about the graph would help anyone even come close to pinpointing or not pinpointing laziness.

The graph demonstrates the gulf of economic position. It's up to people to respond where they think that comes from. Though I would think the bigger the gulf the more likely there is some gatekeeping shenanigans are at play.

Let's say a 30 yo millennial had 1/1000th the wealth a 30yo boomer did, I think that would be enough of evidence that something fishy is going on.

With the seeming 4x it is right now, it's up to people to discuss in this topic, but it is relevant data to the discussion for sure.

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We just grew up watching our parents work themselves to divorces and health problems and determined that was not for us

Tmaster148 posted...

Just because you have poor work ethic does not mean an entire generation does.

Hahahahahahahha

my sides

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Tmaster148 posted...

Poor work ethic isn't the reason Millennials aren't getting paid well.

This.

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Stagnating wages.

The idea of doing more for less? Fuck that. Youll get the work ethic that you pay for.

Pay shit? Ill work like shit. Pay good? Ill work and appreciate the job like I am.

cmiller4642 posted...

We just grew up watching our parents work themselves to divorces and health problems and determined that was not for us

Millennials are not unique to that life experience. Millennials response to seeing their parents work hard to provide for them is.

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Romulox28 posted...

isnt the issue that millennials arent buying houses, investments, high value assets etc & not that they dont have high salaries?

Most of us live paycheck to paycheck with barely anything left for us after expenses. Good luck finding the money to buy any of that.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

They have less wealth and somethig fishy is going on has no relevance by itself to laziness or not having laziness. You'd benefit from a basic statistics class.

???

We are discussion an economic gap controlling for age. One of the most common responses to why millennial are struggling is "they are lazy".

If there is something fishy going on (aka institutional shenanigans that bias the rules against millennial and younger generations) then by definition some if not all of the economic gap will be explained by this. If it is explained by this then it is not explained by laziness.

I really can't wrap my head around your logic. It's like you are saying "finding Bob was the person who did the murder has nothing to do with whether we think Alex did the murder".

Yes it obviously does.

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I work full time at a job I love that does a ton of good. I've literally saved lives. I take shifts all the time, I do overtime and overnights when needed. I'm still struggling to get by.

Nowadays a 4.0 GPA means nothing without extra curriculars and knowing the right people.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

It's not like that at all unless you can show me where exactly in that graph laziness is. All I see from that graph is that laziness maybe possibly is one of many possible answers, but the graph is inconclusive on laziness.

Like I said, a 1/1000 disparity would logically suggest institutionalized bias as a reason for the economic disparity, as 1/1000 disparity in work ethic is improbable.

It is up to people reading the graph if they think the 1/4 disparity is in keeping with the comparative work ethic.

The graph is relevant though because it informs the "institutionalized bias" vs "laziness" debate. The graph does not show laziness, but it can reflect "institutionalized bias" which we established is an explanation for the economic struggle that would suggest against laziness as the reason.

Put simply if 100% of the reason was laziness, then 0% of the reason could be institutionalized bias, and if 100% of the reason was institutionalized bias then 0% of the reason could be laziness. Since the chart is provides data relevant to the likelihood of institutionalized bias then it also provides data relevant to the likelihood of laziness as the primary explanation.

Also I don't know why you are busting my balls over this, because even if the chart was 0% relevant to the likelihood of institutionalized bias, it would still be relevant to the overall discussion of the wealth gap because it demonstrates the wealth gap.And so at very worst my topic is "Is bad work ethic the reason for millennial wealth gap?" and OP is data that shows the gap.

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Worker productivity has skyrocketed in the last 10-15 years but wages have remained stagnant. Why should I should work harder than I absolutely have to keep my job. Want me to work harder? Pay me more. Don't feed me the line about "well if you work harder you might get a raise". It doesn't work like that, i'm not going to do pro bono shit in the hopes that I may get the money I deserve out of it. You want extra, pay extra.

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JustMyOpinion posted...

You really should take that stats class. Btw, the answer isn't laziness.

Not that I'd be any less right if I didn't, but I have,

You should take a losing an internet argument with dignity class. I just got done very clearly articulating the thing you challenged me on and your only response is to go back to throwing shade.

Ok

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joe40001 posted...

https://i.imgur.com/2G9xeJh.png

Is this adjusted for the size of the demographic?
"Baby boomers" are called that, because there were a hell of a lot of them made between 1945 and 1960-something.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Is this adjusted for the size of the demographic?
"Baby boomers" are called that, because there were a hell of a lot of them made between 1945 and 1960-something.

I don't think it is, but any way you look at it that is bad for millennials, there are more of us than gen x and you can see the numbers right there

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