NEWSWIRE: 7/2/18
- More than one-third of 21- to 37-year-olds (37%) say they receive monthly financial assistance from a parent, guardian, or other family member. Most Millennials enjoy a close relationship with their parents—and have few qualms about asking Mom and Dad for help making rent. (COUNTRY Financial)
- NH: These numbers are plausible. According to this survey, 35% of this age-group is still living with parents, which seems a bit high (see this Census report) but within survey error range. Remarkably, 37% say they receive monthly assistance, and fully 59% get help at least a couple of times a year. Most cite getting help with mobile phone payments (41%), a cinch since so many Boomer parents would gladly subsidize their ability to talk with their kids. Then comes rent (40%), groceries and gas (32%), and health insurance (32%). Roughly 30% of this age group qualifies automatically for coverage under their parents' plan--if their parents have one. The survey also asks about the age that "adulthood should begin." Here there is a socioeconomic spread: Nonwhites and Hispanics, noncollege, and/or lower income respondents tend to give a lower age, with nearly half saying age 16 or 18. White and more affluent respondents are more comfortable with older ages running up to the mid-20s. This explains a lot of the economic (and political) frustration of America's less-well-off families: Their norms point to an earlier age of adulthood, but in fact their families show a higher rate of young adults living at home--and this rate has risen more steeply in recent years than it has for white, college-educated families.
- Columnist Alec MacGillis asks why geographic mobility has declined even among Americans with no economic prospects at home. The biggest factor may be a crisis of confidence: As economist Tyler Cowen observes, “[P]overty and low incomes have flipped from being reasons to move to reasons not to move, a fundamental change from earlier American attitudes.” (Bloomberg Business)
- NH: See this Wall Street Journal essay for a piece that explores a bit more deeply the reasons for declining mobility--which is, as I recently pointed out (in "Declining Business Dynamism: A Visual Guide"), an important symptom of America's declining business dynamism. In earlier postwar decades, Americans moved a lot more quickly out of economically depressed regions and into economically booming regions. Explanations offered in the academic literature: the rise of two-income families (which makes it harder for one earner to coordinate a move with the other earner); the growing vulnerability to loss of health insurance (which "locks" people in to their current job); and demographic aging (which raises the average worker age, a trend which has always been correlated with lower mobility). In this last vein, some researchers have shown that job mobility for all age brackets is closely correlated state by state with the share of new young job seekers in the workforce. We have pointed out the role of rising risk aversion among young adults, a generational effect which explains why mobility has fallen disproportionately among the young. Another piece of the puzzle, often noted in anecdotal stories about unemployed families who don't move, may be a rising regionalism in America--that is, a growing tendency to distrust people outside your own circle. One group of Fed economists has shown that mobility has fallen fastest in states showing the largest falls in the share of adults who agree that "most people can be trusted."
- Downsizing Boomers are using auction houses to find a new home for their antiques and collectibles. Boomers are stuck in a tough spot: Their Millennial kids don’t want the stuff, and kicking precious belongings to the curb just isn’t an option. (The Wall Street Journal)
- NH: See: "Boomers Burdened with China and Crystal."
- Cities are investigating how to cope with the loss of revenue that will come with the rollout of autonomous vehicles. Cars that never get tickets and don’t have to pay parking fees pose a significant threat to city planners; fortunately for them, this future is still a long way off. (Wired)
- NH: How so like public bureaucrats to find the mere possibility of declining car use mostly interesting for how it impacts their revenues! Before you, Chicago, worry about less car-related revenue, please do something about your budget-busting employee benefit obligations. And you, Detroit, ought to worry first about attracting new large-scale employers. Once you make your cities both more livable and affordable, Millennials will have no problem paying an extra public transportation fee or a GPS-activated congestion fee. (Overtrafficked core urban areas like Manhattan ought to be doing that already.) Rule number one: Think about the consumer before thinking about the revenue.
- Researchers asked members of different generations what they are worried about—and the answers are revealing. Boomers are much more likely than Xers and Millennials to worry about national security issues (such as ISIS and North Korea’s nuclear program), while younger generations are far more worried about practical concerns like making ends meet. (RAND Corporation)
- NH: Three big takeaways from this RAND study (full text here). First, Boomers are more worried about national security issues; Millennials about economic issues. Second, Millennials are even more worried about their economic future than Boomers are worried about national security. For example, 62% of Boomers are worried about rising authoritarianism in Russia (versus 50% of Millennials). But 81% of Millennials are worried about saving money (versus 63% of Boomers). Finally, Millennials care less than older generations whether the regime that fixes their problems is, strictly speaking, democratic. As we've stated elsewhere, the rising generation is providing a powerful impetus for the populism and authoritarianism gaining ground throughout most of the world (today's election results from Mexico ought to be a reminder), and the United States is no exception. (See: "Are Millennials Giving Up on Democracy?") Here's the relevant RAND survey question:
- Nearly 40% of Millennials say they’ve avoided ordering a particular food item at a restaurant after learning how many calories it contained, by far the highest share of any generation. This health-minded approach to dining is one reason why fast-food establishments in particular face a dearth of younger patrons. (kNOW)
- NH: This finding flies in the face of the phase-of-life effect, according to which older customers are worried more about their diet and their health. Look instead to the generational effect: Millennials are left-brained quantifiers who are comfortable with standardized indicators. Plus, they have longer time horizons than other recent generations of young adults. When Boomers start worrying about what they eat, they're more likely to opt for holistic lifestyle diets (e.g., paleo, Atkins, raw food, vegan, Mediterranean, whatever) that are practically ideologies about how the whole world works. According to one survey, Boomers are more likely than Millennials (30% versus 17%) "to define a healthy eating style as including certain foods personally defined as healthy." As in: forget the numbers, I feel right about this food. Ditto for vegan. Boomers are much less likely than Millennials (36% versus 45%) to say that animal protein is healthy.
- Ford has purchased Michigan Central Station, an abandoned passenger rail depot that the company plans to turn into a vehicle innovation hub. This feel-good investment in Detroit’s infrastructure also signifies Ford’s commitment to leading tomorrow’s transportation industry. (Engadget)
- Anaphylaxis diagnoses among children (along with associated emergency-room visits) doubled from 2010 to 2016. One possible explanation is parental overcleanliness, which could leave kids ill-prepared to fight off diseases and allergies. (Blue Cross Blue Shield)
- NH: Yes, overcleanliness--the outcome of parental overprotectiveness--does explain rising rates of many allergy-related complaints among kids. The basic hypothesis is that the body's immune system needs some pathogens (bacteria, viruses, molds, varieties of foods) to "train on" early in life. Untrained immune systems are more likely to generate autoimmune problems. Peanuts are by far the dominant food cause of anaphylaxis--which is why pediatricians now recommend introducing babies to peanut-based foods sooner rather than later. But it could also be true that the incident rate is rising simply because parents have become more diligent about bringing kids to doctors whenever the symptoms are acute. We do not, as yet, have any data showing that the actual death rate from anaphylaxis is rising. Lastly, parents should be assured that anaphylaxis fatalities are rare and mostly accounted for by drug allergies among older adults. Recorded fatalities from food allergies alone run about 15 per year in the United States, less than fatalities from lightning strikes.
- Japanese political chief Toshihiro Nikai calls couples who decide not to have children “selfish.” Party officials evidently hope that instilling a sense of civic duty will help end Japan’s record baby drought. (The Guardian)
- NH: It's an interesting question. If citizens are asked to become soldiers and risk sacrificing their lives to preserve the future of their nation, could generations of young adults be asked to have enough children to ensure the same goal? Japan, it is well known, has experienced a sub-replacement total fertility rate since 1975--over fifty years, longer than any other nation. So the question may be apt. What is less well known is that Japan in recent years has witnessed something of a fertility revival. Since its all-time low of 1.26 in 2005, Japan's TFR has risen back to an estimated 1.41 in 2017. (Total births are lower simply because the age-profile of the population has shifted.) Remarkably, this uplift is occurring among all age groups. This is unlike fertility in the United States, which is declining in younger age groups, though of course U.S. fertility among young women and teens is still much higher in absolute terms. In one critical age bracket, women age 25-29, Japan's TFR is nearly equal to the rate in America.
- More than half of Millennials (51%) admit they waste too much time on their smartphones, the highest share of any generation. Despite acknowledging that their behavior is unhealthy, Millennials continue to give in to their digital cravings—which sounds a lot like addiction. (YouGov)
DID YOU KNOW?
Don't Hug It Out. The #MeToo movement may have an unintended victim: the workplace hug. Hugging has become the go-to greeting in many offices: In a recent survey of hiring managers, 65% say that hugging colleagues is at least somewhat common where they work. Proponents of the practice say that hugging and other forms of tactile communication can have a beneficial impact at work by fostering feelings of trust and job satisfaction. Now, however, more individuals (men especially) are thinking before they act. Marketing professional Josh Rubin has changed his stance on the workplace hug: “[Before], I figured [that] two grown people can do their thing. But what I didn’t consider is that the female didn’t feel enabled or empowered to say no.” No-touching policies are being formalized in company manuals—and even in the federal code. In February, a federal court in Los Angeles ruled that hugging employees may create a hostile work environment. The message? Today, it’s just simpler to go in for a handshake.
