I Get Why the Kids Like Bernie

 

My children are in their early twenties and just starting out. Neither one of them studied anything particularly lucrative (Film; Art). They take after their old man that way (Drama). 

But when I was starting out, I had little trouble getting a job with a Chicago restaurateur who gave me all the work I wanted tending bar and waiting tables. I did not have to deal with a 29 hour per week limit to avoid Obamacare requirements. I could get 40 hours no problem. After 40 hours I would work off the clock for tips only, which was just fine with me. All in all, I could count on about $700 per week.

My share of the rent in a clean, comfortable apartment in upscale Lincoln Park was $375/mo. Student loans? I carried a grand total of $11,000. Tuition at my high-tone, private, liberal arts alma mater was never more than $9K per year, and I paid a lot of it along the way. (None of this $55K per year nonsense.) My monthly loan payment was $197. Buy health insurance? Are you kidding? I’m 24. Who’s gonna make me buy insurance anyway! 

Nowadays, my similarly artsy kids are starting their lives out in Southern California making about the same hourly rate I did 30 years ago–$20/hr. But they can’t get 40+ hours a week from any entry-level employer because of Obamacare, which forces employers to provide health coverage to “full time” employees (a deal-breaking expense). And “full time” is 30 hours per week, not 40. That means precious few entry-level employers provide true, 40-hour, full-time work.

But here’s where it really gets bad: Their rent is three times what I paid, and their apartments and neighborhoods are worse. Their student loan debt is four times what mine was. They are legally obliged to purchase their own health insurance, which is not cheap. 

When my kids grumbled to me about this, I put it off as the same kind of gripes I had when I was doing my own struggling artist thing.

Then, as I was fielding these gripes, I had to travel to Southern California to do a jury trial. (Yes, I quit the arts for law school.) During the judge’s voir dire, he asked all the jurors about their living arrangements (Alone? Roommates? Children? etc.)

How’s this for a wake-up? Every twenty-something juror was living with his/her parents. Every one. 

Well hey, dummy-daddy, of course, they were. Given the disincentives to employers to provide full-time entry-level work, the magnitude of student debt, and the ridiculous housing costs, living with the folks is the only sure way to stay afloat if you are starting out in Southern California with starting-out skills. Get a second job? Not so fast. Let’s remember the Southern California labor market in 2020 includes about 1 million additional seekers of full-time work who shouldn’t even be there (illegal aliens), so getting even one entry-level job is a struggle. I never had to compete with that. 

I knew bad public policies had stuck these kids with excessive student debt, excessive housing costs, no full-time entry-level jobs, and a tight market for part-time entry-level jobs, but watching these young jurors confess to the judge they were living with their parents (and unsuccessfully hiding their embarrassment at it) really brought it home.

So now what happens? My kids look at their social media feeds and here comes ol’ Bernie promising relief: forgiveness of student loan debt, plenty of “affordable” housing, and an increase in pay at their crappy, part-time, entry-level jobs.

Stupid? Of course, it is. But at least it’s something. Because what are the conservative Republican remedies that will make a difference for these kids right now? Ending the government loan program? (Too late for them.) Easing restrictions on housing construction? (How many decades before rents drop?) Abolishing the minimum wage? (Hey! Wrong direction, bub!) 

I was thinking of suggesting to my kids that they (like their peers on my jury) move back in for a while. It would give me an opportunity to talk up the virtues of free markets and conservative public policy. 

I can see however that they might be too demoralized to listen, that they will keep struggling away, and come November they might, hope-against-hope, vote for Bernie.

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  1. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    Yes. Their reasoning is something like this: “I hate my job. I hate my life. I’m getting nothing out of this system. Why shouldn’t I burn (bern?) it down?”

    As a useless person about to leave graduate school, I can’t help but feel some sympathy for them. And there’s still time to win me over . . .

    • #1
  2. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Every generation must face its challenges.  We faced post Vietnam stagflation, recession, and yes, we had student debt as well, but the rates were higher,  We first had to pay for a government guarantee to a corrupt local GSE that acted as guarantor/collector should one of us default.  Student loans were a racket in our day as well, just a different racket.  But back then, student loans were primarily funded by banks, so they took some work,  You had to go to the bank, sign papers and acknowledge your debt.  Today, post the Obama takeover, once you and your parents have filed your FISA forms, the university simply writes checks on your account as the bills come due.  Many students have no idea what they owe until the first bill arrives post enrollment.    

    And as for housing, there has always been a “low income” housing problem.  Before I got married back in 198o, my then fiance and I used to go to the Harvard Square news stand  late on Saturday to bribe the purveyor and purchase the back section of the Boston Globe (the classifieds) so we could get a jump on available affordablle apartments.  We’d call for early Sunday appointments and we would not be first.  A year and a half-later, we went through a similar process to find a starter home.  Our first home was a two bedroom cape with an unfinished 2nd floor on a busy, main street in a bluecollar, mostly multi-family neighborhood in Framingham, MA.  We were two blocks from a massive old facility that manufactured office stationary and related products.  It was not a “desireable” location, but it was all we could afford.  I was a young CPA and my wife, a teacher.  This was all we could afford.

    As a child, I lived in the projects (though I have no memories of this) and in a three decker cold flat.   In fact, when my parents spoke of “low income housing” they always referred to the projects, crime ridden, poorly maintained places for the drug and alcohol addicted and the fatherless.  The projects were not just affordable, but they were for the desperate. 

      

     

     

     

    • #2
  3. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    No longer forced to buy health insurance.  The ObamaCare Individual Mandate was repealed.

    • #3
  4. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    Ray Gunner: Stupid? Of course it is.

    I have young adult children like that too.  It is a shame that 20-somethings can’t see the open borders and govt. zoning as the cause of the low wages and high rents.  Instead, they want to double down with Bernie, who promises to regulate the crap out of housing supply and open the borders with huge incentives for the worlds 7 B potential migrants.  It is the road to serfdom and Gen-Y and Gen-Z are choosing to ignore the lessons of history.

    • #4
  5. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    You can’t ignore the lessons of history if you have not been taught history.  None of today’s youngsters have been.  By design.

    • #5
  6. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    So the kids like Bernie because they’re stupid.  Is that it?

    They’re stupid because it has been Left-wing policies that have made their lives so tough, and like a heroin addict, they think that the solution is a bigger dose.

    • #6
  7. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    No longer forced to buy health insurance. The ObamaCare Individual Mandate was repealed.

    I’m pretty sure California requires it, though. Obamacare might not be the correct term. But if I understand correctly, California fines you $2k for not having insurance.

    • #7
  8. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    So the kids like Bernie because they’re stupid. Is that it?

    They’re stupid because it has been Left-wing policies that have made their lives so tough, and like a heroin addict, they think that the solution is a bigger dose.

    not entirely fair. A certain amount of stupidity is age appropriate

    And remember these 20-somethings came up during the financial crisis, which had to have had an effect. Compound that with criminal costs of college, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

    • #8
  9. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Don’t kids stay on their parents’ insurance until they are 26 now?  

    I get these gripes, but they should look for better solutions.  They should get passionate about changing state government.  They should think through what the consequences would be to go down the same road that’s been getting them no where a little bit faster because they put Bernie at the wheel.  

    But I understand why they feel like they do, too.  

    • #9
  10. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Pretty sad state of affairs.  I learned recently that my youngest granddaughter is on MediCal, the California  version of Medicaid.  I’m not sure the insurance status of her parents.  When my oldest were born, there was no insurance coverage for normal delivery.  The cost for my second son was about $350 for mother and son, total.  My second daughter was born 11 years later and the cost, now covered by insurance, was $6,000. I had health insurance for my family and my employees until I retired.  It is sad to see what has happened to health care the past ten years.  A supposed” reform” has resulted in all sorts of perverse incentives.

    • #10
  11. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    So, in other word’s, the left’s policies (Obama care, etc) created the problems that the left then proposes to solve with more of the same government intervention that created the problems.

    • #11
  12. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Part of the problem is living in California.  It’s run by maniacs who don’t care who they screw over.

    Bernie wants to take stuff like AB5 and run with it all across the country.

    The message should be:  Bernie and co. want to turn getting a job into something like the lottery.  If you get a job, wow, look at the wages and benefits!  However, most people are left holding a worthless ticket.   We want to help you get a starter job – we don’t want to bring in more competition, we don’t want to make it hard to get your foot in the door. 

    • #12
  13. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    Pretty sad state of affairs. I learned recently that my youngest granddaughter is on MediCal, the California version of Medicaid. I’m not sure the insurance status of her parents. When my oldest were born, there was no insurance coverage for normal delivery. The cost for my second son was about $350 for mother and son, total. My second daughter was born 11 years later and the cost, now covered by insurance, was $6,000. I had health insurance for my family and my employees until I retired. It is sad to see what has happened to health care the past ten years. A supposed” reform” has resulted in all sorts of perverse incentives.

    Health insurance is flat-out unaffordable. My husband and I aren’t thrilled with our premium (about $12K/year). I have no idea how young families afford it. 

    I have no idea why there haven’t been reforms yet for a more a la carte method. I don’t need pregnancy coverage, and I’ll take my chances with sex reassignment and rehab. My sister raised her three kids with nothing but catastrophic insurance on their family, and she paid cash for doctor’s visits. She came out ahead (compared to me) every year.

    And while I’m complaining, my husband just had knee replacement surgery. Our co-pay for a therapist to come to the house right after the surgery was $90. $90 co-pay for half an hour????? I’m pretty sure I could have hired someone to do it at that price. When I told the therapist, his eyebrows raised.

    I think I’m going to call him direct for the next knee …

    • #13
  14. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    In defense of Gen-Y and Gen-Z many of then view the DNC as corrupt.  They are tired of Clinton’s, Weinstein, Epstein, and bunch of Wall St. sellouts.  They like Bernie, because he promises to break that crap up.  Unfortunately for them, while Bernie is correctly diagnosing the problem, his is stuffing his pockets and promoting socialism (the worst idea of humanity).

    • #14
  15. Annefy Member
    Annefy
    @Annefy

    Annefy (View Comment):

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    No longer forced to buy health insurance. The ObamaCare Individual Mandate was repealed.

    I’m pretty sure California requires it, though. Obamacare might not be the correct term. But if I understand correctly, California fines you $2k for not having insurance.

    Okay. Yes, there’s a “tax penalty” if you don’t have health insurance.

    I have no idea what the penalty is; I clicked on a few links with no love. And I’m in a bad enough mood already.

    https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/oct/14/californians-must-have-health-insurance-2020-or-fa/

    • #15
  16. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    It is true that the problems they are facing are because of government intervention in the market, not despite it.  But I don’t expect them to have that insight. 

    When I got my first paycheck at 16, which was something like $100, I cried when I saw how much was taken out in taxes.  I became a Republican right then.   I feel bad for kids today.  But it was a 12 years before I made a decent wage after graduating -OK graduate school was in the middle but post doctoral fellows made absolutely nothing either.  We didn’t have a lot of cheap stuff from China in the stores so I had a lot of hand-me-down furniture. But I didn’t consider it abnormal or that I was entitled to more, because my parents had grown up in the depression. They told me stories of that time and how in the post WWII boom, my Dad was only making something like $50 per week when my parents first got married.  They had to save for years for a car.  So I never thought that I was going to graduate from college and that everything would be smooth.  I expected to struggle and I did.  But not too hard compared to my parents.  You have to admit that the material wealth of our children today far exceeds what we ever had growing up.  

    But all of this means nothing when you are young and scared and it seems like a lot of children are scared.  I blame the self esteem movement, lack of faith and mass media for them growing up thinking that life is not a struggle.  It is.  Always has been.

    That said,  I do wish the Republicans would take on the issue of college debt.  There was a good discussion a few months back here on Ricochet about that issue.  It would be a winning one for Trump and it does not need to involve debt forgiveness.  The college debt racket is criminal and I think it has to stop.  It might actually make an impression on our young.

    • #16
  17. OldDanRhody, 7152 Maple Dr. Member
    OldDanRhody, 7152 Maple Dr.
    @OldDanRhody

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    Today, post the Obama takeover, once you and your parents have filed your FISA forms, the university simply writes checks on your account as the bills come due. Many students have no idea what they owe until the first bill arrives post enrollment.

    This angers up my blood.  Bigly.

    • #17
  18. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Ray Gunner: Stupid? Of course it is.

    I have young adult children like that too. It is a shame that 20-somethings can’t see the open borders and govt. zoning as the cause of the low wages and high rents. Instead, they want to double down with Bernie, who promises to regulate the crap out of housing supply and open the borders with huge incentives for the worlds 7 B potential migrants. It is the road to serfdom and Gen-Y and Gen-Z are choosing to ignore the lessons of history.

    Yes the logic you emphasize is correct; the situation is as you describe it.

    But Bernie is promising them something. Meanwhile some Republicans are scared stiff that somewhere someone in the US might get 15% of  their student loans forgiven.

    And yes, what Bernie is promising is contradictory. We cannot as a nation, keep taking  in immigrants.  Especially not in Calif, as here  we have no housing and no water.

    The brainwashing with regards to immigration is so beyond the pale it is unbelievable. One of my dear acquaintances, who is almost 60 and barely eking out a living herself, ignores the needs of her daughter, son in law and new grandchild, while she attempts to do things to help out newly arrived immigrants. “I just cannot stand the idea of one woman with a crying baby being left on the other side of the border.”

    This would not be so absurd if her daughter, son in law, and their 3 year old did not live through the experience of being burned out of the home they had just bought in Oct 2017,  burned out of jobs (the businesses burned down too) and have had nowhere to live except a damp moldy “rent-free Fema” trailer.

    But the plight of those who have been burned out of their lifestyles  is not featured on the Nightly News programs even 10% as often as the persistent stories on the 14,000 desperately poor immigrants, all with adorable crying babies staring into the cameras.

    So you have Bernie promising something. And you have the continual narrative of needy immigrants. No one on the Nightly News talks about the governmental restriction on housing permits here  in Calif. And how that translates into higher and higher rents.

    Besides, crying babies have more appeal and viewer interest than housing and economic situations. We also do not have any  shows about the fact that immigrants do take jobs Americans need, and the jobs that are left have lower wages because surplus of labor always means lower wages.

    We need to figure this out, as demographically speaking, it is  big problem for getting young people to even consider voting Republican.

    • #18
  19. Chris Member
    Chris
    @Chris

    Ray Gunner:

    And “full time” is 30 hours per week, not 40. That means precious few entry-level employers provide true, 40-hour, full-time work.

    We noticed this situation last summer with our “first job” teen.  Stringent on the hours, but “thankfully” always on the same shifts to allow kids to look for another job if they’d like.  It’s insane.

    • #19
  20. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    I should also say that my first job out of college in 1982 was for 39 hours at $10, 500  per year.  Why?  So they wouldn’t have to pay me benefits.  I was uninsured for 2 years until I became a student again.  Or maybe my parents had me on their policy.  I didn’t think about it because health care hadn’t yet completely spiraled out of control.  I remember an emergency room visit in the 1980’s that wasn’t covered by my student insurance.  I think I had to pay ~$600.  I paid it off in installments. A lot, but not the thousands it would have cost me now.  I don’t know what the maximum age was in the 1980’s.  But no one fined me $2000 per year and thankfully, I survived.  

    So in addition to student loans, I wish the Republicans would get behind Trump in bringing market reform to health care.  It was disgraceful when they had the house that they had nothing ready.  Idiots.

    • #20
  21. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    The housing issue is a long term problem- see the latest National Review.  But the issue is location- live in the NIMBY cities, there are no living quarters, period.  Houses are cheap in Kansas City, and they don’t burn down due to wildfires.  I have trouble sympathizing a lot (and subsidizing at all) when someone chooses to live in California.

    Health insurance is a mess, partly because of the cost of new technology and the basic problem of sharing risk when some refuse to participate in the risk pool but demand care- but mostly because the government screwed up the market.  What our side still refuses to accept is that, having screwed up the system, the government needs to fix it.  The trouble is, every part of Congress is being paid off in some way by incumbent rent-seekers of the Medical-Industrial Complex, so they refuse to make the necessary changes; this is essentially unique to the US. 

    Until the feds take responsibility and stop taking the payoffs from the AHA, AMA, every medical specialty, PhRMA (this includes reform of the FDA), and ATLA, this will get worse.  At some point, reality (government bankruptcy) will set in and we will set the ship aright.

    In the gig economy world, some basic things have to be nationally dealt with, like it or not, even if Cato and Reason don’t approve.  Republicans had many opportunities to address health care in a free market way and refused to do so, the Sanders single payer nonsense is our reward for sticking our heads in the sand and telling the voters nover and over again that we don’t care about the obvious and visible problem.

    College costs?  You can go to college cheap- there are many alternatives (community colleges, state schools, credible and accredited on-line).  If you must go to Bennington or Yale or Oberlin or the USC film school, pay for it yourself and don’t try to stick me with the loan.

    • #21
  22. Roderic Coolidge
    Roderic
    @rhfabian

    What is it with this assumption that student debt is an inevitable part of life?  What happened to working one’s way through college?

    And why is college the only choice to make for getting ready for a career?  What about technical training, apprenticeships, etc.?

    And why do people think they have to live in Southern California and put up with the high taxes, expensive housing, etc., for Pete’s sake?

    Yeah, make a bunch of poor choices in life and you end up hoping that Bernie will bail you out.

    • #22
  23. John Hanson Coolidge
    John Hanson
    @JohnHanson

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):
    No longer forced to buy health insurance. The ObamaCare Individual Mandate was repealed.

    As  I understand it, it wasn’t repealed, only the penalty was eliminated.  So the law still says you have to buy it, but if you don’t there is no penalty.  You still have to report your insurance status on the forms.  Then as others have pointed out, individual states are free to penalize you anyway.

    • #23
  24. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Every dangerously radical movement in history was full of kids.  We avoided this for a couple hundred years because most of our kids were busy and  raised by parents.  We’ve freed them, given them power as if at 16 to 25, they know anything.  They have fresh young minds and are outstanding with math and science but literature, social studies, history, economics, simply take more time, more experience, and more study.  For some reason Americans, (and every other country I know) became too busy and materialistic to actually  parent.   Moreover, they didn’t want their kids to not be part of the group by treating them differently than everybody else.    Parenting actually takes more effort now than in the past but most American’s are too busy.  As a result others have taken on the role, and they are the same radicals that always try to play that role.

    • #24
  25. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    No longer forced to buy health insurance. The ObamaCare Individual Mandate was repealed.

    Employer provided was not. The incentive for the employer is still to avoid it. We can opt out (I’m talking the husband into that), but businesses won’t rely on that for increasing hors.

    • #25
  26. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    So the kids like Bernie because they’re stupid. Is that it?

    They’re stupid because it has been Left-wing policies that have made their lives so tough, and like a heroin addict, they think that the solution is a bigger dose.

    They are stupid because the Right let the Left teach them.

    They are destitute because the left has disastrous economic policies that are exacerbated by the right’s favored policies (the right likes open borders, too).

    • #26
  27. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Roderic (View Comment):
    What is it with this assumption that student debt is an inevitable part of life? What happened to working one’s way through college?

    I worked my way through college. I worked OT during summer and PT during the school year at the same job. I also tutored.

    I made about $300 a month at a good low-skill job.

    My college requirement was $10k a year with the Bright Futures 100% scholarship + other scholarships. I graduated in 4 years at the front of the millenial generation, garnering a good job, relatively affordable housing ($700 a month) and paid $40k in loans back in 6 years. The rest of my generation has seen increases in costs and decreases in opportunities for good wages ever since. My $700 apartment is now twice that for the same space (I had friends live there recently), my place of hire is cutting back on employment opportunities, and college costs have tripled because of the success of selling millenials (and businesses) on the idea of REQUIRED college education.

    The argument was that serious students who do community college never get out. Taking a break breaks the surge. All advice from older and wisers was for serious students to go straight to 4 year schools. All advice was if you can’t afford the tuition, financial aid was available in scholarship and loans (never well differentiated by counselors).

    I don’t understand you old people. You want to hear the perspective of young people, but you don’t want to hear it if it contradicts your own perception of life.

    Get the hell over yourselves. Your generation taught mine, advised mine, and yet you are shocked we turned out stupid and foolish.

    • #27
  28. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    That said, I do wish the Republicans would take on the issue of college debt. There was a good discussion a few months back here on Ricochet about that issue. It would be a winning one for Trump and it does not need to involve debt forgiveness. The college debt racket is criminal and I think it has to stop. It might actually make an impression on our young.

    The colleges have wildly profited and need to be responsible.  It would have to be some sort of sliding scale on income 10 years post graduation, or something like that.

    • #28
  29. MichaelKennedy Inactive
    MichaelKennedy
    @MichaelKennedy

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    That said, I do wish the Republicans would take on the issue of college debt. There was a good discussion a few months back here on Ricochet about that issue. It would be a winning one for Trump and it does not need to involve debt forgiveness. The college debt racket is criminal and I think it has to stop. It might actually make an impression on our young.

    I do too but the Democrats have no interest in solving problems and the Republicans are not much better.

    • #29
  30. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Every dangerously radical movement in history was full of kids. We avoided this for a couple hundred years because most of our kids were busy and raised by parents. We’ve freed them, given them power as if at 16 to 25, they know anything. They have fresh young minds and are outstanding with math and science but literature, social studies, history, economics, simply take more time, more experience, and more study. For some reason Americans, (and every other country I know) became too busy and materialistic to actually parent. Moreover, they didn’t want their kids to not be part of the group by treating them differently than everybody else. Parenting actually takes more effort now than in the past but most American’s are too busy. As a result others have taken on the role, and they are the same radicals that always try to play that role.

    Revolutionary War.

    Civil War, above all.

    FDR employed how many people? How’bout WWII?

    Then of course the 60s were all about crazy young Americans & those crazy kids have brought up a new form of society–the barest majority of adults are married; soon, marriage might be a minority option. So many other things have followed… Maybe this time around, it’ll be less about public violence or ruining society than last time, to say nothing of the Civil War! Lots to think about what happens in America when there are a lot of young people around with not that much to do.

    • #30
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