Author Topic: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs  (Read 482 times)

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Offline rangerrebew

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If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« on: December 08, 2025, 11:46:43 am »
 
If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs      
By Stephen Moore
Wednesday, December 03 2025

Getting young people in the workforce is critical to solving so many of our societal problems.
   
Polls show that the age group of Americans most worried about "affordability" are the 20- and 30-somethings. That's young millennials and Gen Z.

Why are they so financially stressed out? One reason things seem so unaffordable to young people is that too many aren't working hard -- they are hardly working.

The latest Labor Department data indicate that fewer and fewer males between the ages 16 and 24 are in the labor force. It used to be that more than 70% had a job; now less than 60% do.

Labor force participation for men even into their 30s is at or near an all-time low. Men without jobs is a prescription for social chaos.

https://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/7480-if-young-people-want-more-affordability-they-should-get-jobs
« Last Edit: December 08, 2025, 11:47:30 am by rangerrebew »
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Offline DefiantMassRINO

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2025, 12:40:24 pm »
... or move to someplace not run by NIMBY's.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2025, 03:29:58 pm by DefiantMassRINO »
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Offline Free Vulcan

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #2 on: December 08, 2025, 02:57:46 pm »
Stop wanting to live a bougie lifestyle at 21 with no job wouldn't hurt either.
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Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #3 on: December 08, 2025, 03:21:10 pm »

If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs      
By Stephen Moore
Wednesday, December 03 2025

Getting young people in the workforce is critical to solving so many of our societal problems.
   
Polls show that the age group of Americans most worried about "affordability" are the 20- and 30-somethings. That's young millennials and Gen Z.

Why are they so financially stressed out? One reason things seem so unaffordable to young people is that too many aren't working hard -- they are hardly working.

The latest Labor Department data indicate that fewer and fewer males between the ages 16 and 24 are in the labor force. It used to be that more than 70% had a job; now less than 60% do.

Labor force participation for men even into their 30s is at or near an all-time low. Men without jobs is a prescription for social chaos.

https://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/54-state-of-affairs/7480-if-young-people-want-more-affordability-they-should-get-jobs

A lot of them have jobs. Unaffordability isn't just a spoiled zoomer/millenial thing. Particularly housing (which as Rino said is due to NIMBY's and other issues). But tariffs take a bit too.

Offline DefiantMassRINO

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2025, 03:30:40 pm »
Housing (at least in Mass) is all NIMBY's.
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Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #5 on: December 08, 2025, 04:16:27 pm »
A lot of them have jobs. Unaffordability isn't just a spoiled zoomer/millenial thing. Particularly housing (which as Rino said is due to NIMBY's and other issues). But tariffs take a bit too.
Sorry. I have to ask. How much ave tariffs cost you, and on what sort of items?

I'm curious, because I have not felt that pinch.
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Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #6 on: December 08, 2025, 05:28:43 pm »
Sorry. I have to ask. How much ave tariffs cost you, and on what sort of items?

I'm curious, because I have not felt that pinch.

I've certainly noticed the cost on items but that predates Trump by a few. Tariffs haven't really helped though, that's for sure.

Online berdie

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #7 on: December 08, 2025, 07:19:37 pm »
Stop wanting to live a bougie lifestyle at 21 with no job wouldn't hurt either.


That is the crux. You won't start out living like you will later life after working for years. And that starts by getting a job when you are young.

Online Kamaji

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #8 on: December 08, 2025, 07:24:19 pm »
It’s not just laziness on their part.  Things are objectively more expensive - the cumulative result of prior bouts of socialism, including the skyrocketing “minimum” wage.
Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy

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Online Timber Rattler

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #9 on: December 08, 2025, 08:15:58 pm »
Well, kids are getting jobs, but companies have cut the hours back so much that they are only given 20-24 hours per week, in order to avoid that 30 hour threshold, when fuil-time benefits kick in.  Can't live on that. 

Moreover, a lot of entry-level places just aren't hiring.  So Moore is way out of touch here.
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Online Wingnut

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #10 on: December 08, 2025, 09:13:05 pm »
 :whistle:  Life is much too hard today, I hear them say.  But life was hard when we were young I say.
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those
You will get an overdose.
You don’t become cooler with age but you do care progressively less about being cool, which is the only true way to actually be cool.

Online DB

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #11 on: December 08, 2025, 09:29:24 pm »
If someone cannot produce more than what they are paid, they won't get a job. The higher the minimum wage, the higher the barrier to being employed.
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Offline roamer_1

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2025, 10:18:23 pm »
Well, kids are getting jobs, but companies have cut the hours back so much that they are only given 20-24 hours per week, in order to avoid that 30 hour threshold, when fuil-time benefits kick in.  Can't live on that. 

Moreover, a lot of entry-level places just aren't hiring.  So Moore is way out of touch here.

That's right... I have spoken to several young lads that have expressed the idea that there's no percentage left in it.

Ten or fifteen bucks an hour, laying down a 30 yr mortgage on a half million bucks is a long, long ways away.  Used cars cost almost as much as new, so trying to get into decent wheels is also hard to do... They are casting every which way for alternatives. That's why I run into so many that are trying van life and off-grid

They're priced all the way out. Why try?

Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #13 on: December 09, 2025, 07:25:53 am »
One monthly cost that is still way up is electricity prices.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #14 on: December 09, 2025, 09:40:34 pm »
If someone cannot produce more than what they are paid, they won't get a job. The higher the minimum wage, the higher the barrier to being employed.
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Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

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Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #15 on: December 09, 2025, 09:42:42 pm »
One monthly cost that is still way up is electricity prices.
What policies did that?

(NET Zero, war on coal, war on natural gas, windmill subsidies, solar subsidies, environmental regs.)

It takes time to build a power plant, and many functioning and reliable ones were prematurely retired and now, AI is competing for the capacity out there.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2025, 09:43:30 pm by Smokin Joe »
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2025, 01:22:23 pm »
What policies did that?

(NET Zero, war on coal, war on natural gas, windmill subsidies, solar subsidies, environmental regs.)

It takes time to build a power plant, and many functioning and reliable ones were prematurely retired and now, AI is competing for the capacity out there.

I don't disagree with you, this started under Biden, but besides housing, electricity prices are absolutely up. Even our monthly gas bill is like over double what it used to be. Gas does appear to be down.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #17 on: December 10, 2025, 01:46:00 pm »
I don't disagree with you, this started under Biden, but besides housing, electricity prices are absolutely up. Even our monthly gas bill is like over double what it used to be. Gas does appear to be down.
While under Trump the rate of change (price increase) has slowed (that's the inflation part), stopping prices from rising does not deal with the increases that came about during the Biden Administration. Those prices will not magically go down because they have stopped skyrocketing.
Actually, it didn't start under Biden, but Obama, with his 'War on Coal'. We have a 500 year supply and coal-fired plants provided a stable power base for decades.
The Obama/Biden legacy is even more expensive electricity.

Gasoline prices have been somewhat relieved by less expensive Oil--we kept drilling, and despite the loss of over a million barrels per day capacity during COVID (plugged and abandoned stripper wells that produced<20 BOPD that will likely never be brought back on line) much of that lost daily production has been replaced by drilling new wells, especially in the Permian Basin, but in other areas as well. Some things can be addressed and fixed more quickly than others, and the industry is ever looking for more economical and efficient ways to produce more oil.
Electricity is facing increased demand ('data centers') which puts pressure on prices even as still functional coal fired power plants have been prematurely retired. The Green New Deal is not done sucking the green out of your pocket.

As for housing, Biden brought in 20 million (and multiplying) people and paid them to come here, be here, and that has put pressure on the housing market. In one, he hampered supply, in the other he increased demand. Both will cause increases in prices that will be sustained until either the demand drops (deportation), or the supply increases.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline DefiantMassRINO

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #18 on: December 10, 2025, 02:27:14 pm »
Dem / Global Climate Change policies limit and constrain supply.  Scarcity creates value.  As demand increases, but supply remains constant or reduced, prices will increase.

Want to lower cost of housing?  Build more housing.
Want to encourage new construction?  Stop sequestering available land for 'preservation'.

By Government and NGO's creating a scarcity of land available for development, land prices increase.  Higher land prices means fewer 'affordable' homes unless developers build Cabrini-Green style apartment towers.

Also, property taxes would be lower if towns were not building $660 million high schools (Lexington, MA).

Government is the cause of the affordability crisis.  Dems want us all to we welfare serfs beholden to them for our existence.

Who will provide housing subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide utility subsidiers (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide food subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide healthcare subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide education subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government

Who will tuck us in at night? - Nanny Government
« Last Edit: December 10, 2025, 02:31:03 pm by DefiantMassRINO »
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Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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Re: If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs
« Reply #19 on: December 10, 2025, 03:07:58 pm »
Dem / Global Climate Change policies limit and constrain supply.  Scarcity creates value.  As demand increases, but supply remains constant or reduced, prices will increase.

Want to lower cost of housing?  Build more housing.
Want to encourage new construction?  Stop sequestering available land for 'preservation'.

By Government and NGO's creating a scarcity of land available for development, land prices increase.  Higher land prices means fewer 'affordable' homes unless developers build Cabrini-Green style apartment towers.

Also, property taxes would be lower if towns were not building $660 million high schools (Lexington, MA).

Government is the cause of the affordability crisis.  Dems want us all to we welfare serfs beholden to them for our existence.

Who will provide housing subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide utility subsidiers (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide food subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide healthcare subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government
Who will provide education subsidies (for some who are more equal than others)? - Government

Who will tuck us in at night? - Nanny Government

This. I remember there was talk a few decades ago of breaking the stranglehold the AMA had on medical degrees, to make more medical doctors, more hospitals etc. Seems we've just given up.