Also, lifestyles of the self-described “middle class” that does not get college financial aid anywhere are not the same as the lifestyles of the actual middle of the SES distribution.
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My daughter just got a bonus that was more than my first year salary as a lawyer (I did work for the state so wasn’t paid much). She’s definitely paying more in SS tax than I did.
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I’m glad for her, but of course, she’s a data point.
I see no reason to use a few data points to assume bankrate is incorrect about averages.
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The largest portion of current federal spending goes to social security. The combination of social security + Medicare/Medicaid/health makes up ~half of federal spending. People in the US living longer and having less children isn’t helping the situation. The change in age distribution is likely to make this spending balance worse in the future, with majority of federal spending going to social security + health.
Many of these benefits are funded based on collective wages across the population, so average earnings is important, not just earnings of specific individuals. While average earnings are up somewhat after controlling for inflation, the increase is nowhere near enough to balance out future spending when older. There are a variety actions that could improve the situation such as increasing immigration of persons in desired age/working group and making medical spending more efficient, but that’s beyond the scope of this thread topic.
As has been discussed in other threads, while members of this forum often focus on and choose fields associated with high earnings, this is uncommon across the full population. Most new grads do not choose to work in fields like software engineering or investment banking in very high cost of living areas, where 6 figure starting salaries are not uncommon. Instead the median earnings 25-year-olds who work full time is ~$40k/yr (both college grads and non-college grads), and a good portion do not work.
A summary of how inflation adjusted average salaries have changed for recent 4-year college grads have changed over time, as reported by NACE (source of Bankrate link above). This estimate is high compared to other sources, which may relate to average vs median or biased sample. In any case, it doesn’t suggest a huge increase in typical starting salaries from previous decades. Nominal salaries have indeed increased significantly, but not faster than inflation.
Average Early Career Earnings of 4-Year College Grads who Work Full Time
1970 – $69k ($10k nominal)
1980 – $62k ($19k nominal)
1990 – $56k ($27k nominal)
2000 – $63k ($40k nominal)
2010 – $60k ($48k nominal)
2015 – $57k
2021 – $56k
Link to a WSJ article (may be behind a paywall) re: wealth-building for those who marry v those who co-habituate. Somewhat related to this discussion since we have talked about the cost of weddings and delayed marriages.
I am not sure the study indicates which is cause and which is effect. You may feel more comfortable marrying if you have higher networth. The correct way to study this is to look at change in networth after you start co-habitating vs after you marry, after a given number of years.
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I guess a lot of people want to have a wedding…I know people who just went to the court house and got married…much much cheaper than a wedding.
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Unlike previous generations young adults today budget for their own wedding. My DD was discussing that with her boyfriend and when she told me about this conversation she was taking by surprise that we plan to cover the half of the cost and hope his parents will do the same
Is he paying for their own wedding a regional thing?
I still think in the South, it is more common for parents to pay a significant cost of a wedding.
Maybe it is a regional thing. Here in CA, specially Northern California, many of young adults make significantly more than their parents so it makes sense
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Thought it was interesting to add the pov of researchers like Kathryn Edin and Barbara Ehrenreich. At least from what I’ve read, when considering the marriage choices lower income individuals (obviously a different dynamic than those discussed in this thread), poor men and women sometimes delay marriage for similar reasons. They believe that they can’t afford weddings let alone afford marriage itself --even those who choose to have children prior to getting married. I don’t think this is the group that posters are discussing when stating " Gen Z gave up on home ownership…," but I still think it is interesting that marriage seems like an unreachable goal to both groups.
And if the parents pay they get to invite who they want.
My daughter has already told me she’s not inviting any of my friends and most of my relatives. I think she’ll change her mind when it comes time. The longer she lives here, the closer she gets to her aunts and uncles, and even the younger cousins. But she and BF will pay, so they’ll have to figure out if they’d rather have friends or relatives, or have a bigger wedding that is less fancy.
I’m pretty sure I’ll make the cut but probably won’t get a Plus 1.
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Here almost always parents, usually still the brides parents, pay. Grooms parents usually kick in something but maybe 1/4. The bride and groom generally make their own guest list with both sets of parents adding theirs. This is a wealthy area.
I have no idea what my older son’s marriage timeline is, but he’s definitely thinking about home ownership as a 22-year-old.
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Well if my daughter wants me to pay, she’s going to have a very small wedding with cake and punch. I think she wants more than that and she’s already told me I can’t invite any of my friends, not even her godmother (because if I invite one, they’ll all expect to be invited). She’ll have what she wants, but she’ll have to pay.
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Why would a parent invite their friends to their child’s wedding? I can see if the friends were very close to the children, but otherwise, I don’t get it.
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It is common practice in my neck of the woods that parents invite their own friends to their kids weddings. Heck, there were some people at my own wedding that I had never met before (from my own parents’ guest list).
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My D is getting married in September. Because she’s getting married across the country, we’re only going to invite a few very close friends of mine and DH’s. And even then I’m letting them know that I recognize it’s a big ask to have them travel that far, and that while we’d love to have them, I certainly understand if they can’t make it. If the wedding were here in our hometown, I would invite a somewhat larger group of my friends. (We’re paying.) But the majority of the invitees are definitely the B&G’s friends.
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We invited family friends. The bride and groom, in our case, asked that only those folks who they actually knew be invited…so no work folks unless the wedding couple knew them. We also invited all of our immediate neighbors plus one who had moved away because these folks watched this bride grow up. And our neighborhood is pretty close.
We were at a wedding in the spring where there were over 500 guests. In that culture, anyone important to the family is invited. We were part of the work group…and to be fair, DH worked closely with both the mom and dad of the bride for lots of years.
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Same. My dad invited his boss to my wedding. Of course our parents paid for our wedding. Back then parents always paid for the wedding
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