Bloomberg reports on a new trend among adults under the age of 35, traditionally a group that is the most mobile in the US.
That's changing, the story says, "as members of the millennial generation, the estimated 85 million born from 1981 through 2000, prove less restless than their forebears. The standstill may be holding back recovery in the labor and housing markets." Indeed, there is evidence that these young people are delaying a lot of life decisions, including marriage, having children and buying first homes.
The story goes on to say that "while the decline in mobility is more pronounced among the young, older Americans, too, have become less inclined to pull up stakes. Among all Americans, 11.7 percent moved in 2012-13, just above the 11.6 percent all-time low reached two years earlier … Economists and demographers say a combination of relatively low-paying opportunities, the burden of student loans and an aversion to taking risks explains the reluctance to relocate. Student-loan debt rose $114 billion in the year ended in December to $1.08 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."
That's changing, the story says, "as members of the millennial generation, the estimated 85 million born from 1981 through 2000, prove less restless than their forebears. The standstill may be holding back recovery in the labor and housing markets." Indeed, there is evidence that these young people are delaying a lot of life decisions, including marriage, having children and buying first homes.
The story goes on to say that "while the decline in mobility is more pronounced among the young, older Americans, too, have become less inclined to pull up stakes. Among all Americans, 11.7 percent moved in 2012-13, just above the 11.6 percent all-time low reached two years earlier … Economists and demographers say a combination of relatively low-paying opportunities, the burden of student loans and an aversion to taking risks explains the reluctance to relocate. Student-loan debt rose $114 billion in the year ended in December to $1.08 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."
- KC's View:
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Funny … my first thought when reading these sentences is that it is extraordinary that we have a system in which student load debt, accumulated by people trying to go to college, is crushing … and the beneficiary is the banking system. The government subsidizes the banks, but not the students … which strikes me as a lousy sense of priorities. Especially, because if the analysis is correct, it hurts the country in a lot of different ways.
