Did Millennials Kill the Luxury Goods Industry?
Recently there have been topics related to the “Death of dining out” or “Young people aren’t buying luxury goods”. These statements may be true, but not because young people don’t want to …
I am a Gen-Xer (Gen-Y is nonsense) myself, I was born in 1977 to another Gen-X couple, who in turn were born to “Boomers”. The Baby Boom was the last generation that had the promise of a good education, living wage, and stable retirement … it all went downhill from there.
In 1975, A student earning minimum wage at a full time summer job (12 weeks) was able to pay for college with money left over, by 1990 the situation drastically changed plunging students into cumbersome lifelong debt! [buzzfeed, https://www.buzzfeed.com/gregschoofs/how-much-college-did-your-summer-job-pay-for?utm_term=.spKojlVoe#.jj9O2vpOZ]
IMG Credit https://kqduane.com/2013/01/14/seven-deadly-sins-are-vol-3-essay-5/falling-off-the-cliff/
Not only that, the same worker was able to enter a trade-job directly out of high school before the decline of occupational education in favor of University Preparation Courses. Students are literally being taught the only way to succeed is to adopt tens of thousands of dollars in debt! [Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/05/30/the-death-of-shop-class-and-americas-high-skilled-workforce/#e3332df541f1]
So where does that leave Millennials?
Even McDonalds encourages burger-flipping applicants to have (or be in the process of) an Associates Degree from an accredited school. FOR A MINIMUM WAGE JOB FLIPPING BURGERS! These “entry-level” occupations are now requiring 2-5 years of “experience” to earn less than the living wage!
Why? You might ask. Because people need money to live and stakeholders want profits. This creates a false demand curve. Instead of the curve showing the true demand for wages, it shows that workers will accept what they can get and the “floor” is set at the regulated minimum wage.
So are Millennials killing Luxury Goods? NO! Greed is, and it will only hurt the businesses that refuse to seed the economy in the long term.
Higher education in USA is enormous money making business. True, life evolves and changes with each generation. But its us - the people that accept the changes, little by little they are imprinted in our heads and we go along with it. It's a catch-22 - you need a job to pay your bills for the simple "luxury" to live safely somewhere, and to have a better job you have to pay massive debt just for the "chance" of a better life. Like the dog who continuously chases it tale.
I think we do accept the changes to a degree. At the same time, we are indoctrinated as children to believe that this is the way of things. From second grade on I was taught over and over that the only way to success was a "stable" career and the only way to a good career was a 4 year degree.
As an adult I can slowly change my own attitudes, but I feel we need to get more opportunities into the minds of our youth to get out of the debt trap.
It's definitely that the employment market has changed. I dropped out of school for that purpose. I had an idea to be debt free early. If I can't buy it cash, I don't need it.
That's a good principle, but there are sometimes valid reasons to leverage debt. For example, if you can invest debt for a quick ROI and continue making a profit, then you should use someone else's money to make money.
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