Challenges in the Shadow of the Baby Boom

[soccerluvof4]

Thought business Insider did a good job with this piece and just thought I would share some very interesting charts.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-financial-state-of-gen-x-and-gen-y-2014-7 

[Cheddar Stacker]

Thank you for sharing this. The author of the original presentation (Bill Emmons) that this writer provided data from is an enormous wealth of knowledge. He works for the St. Louis Fed and I've seen 3-4 of his presentations over the last few years on the current economic conditions of the nation and our region. The graphs he is able to put together due to all the data they have available to them are just astonishing. These are great, but they only scratch the surface of some of the great stuff I've seen from him. I wish I had his access.

[Leisured]

Thank you soccerluv. I wonder whether the ratio between mean and median incomes could be a quick way of measuring inequality of income. I want to point out that the incomes of those over 65 looks good, because they are usually not working and their income is a combination of social security and investments. I am Australian, and do not know if the term 'social security' is correct for state pensions.

[matchewed]

I'm glad for the details. However I don't necessarily see how it is really all that different from almost any other time in history regarding the asset gap between older folks and younger folks. That will always be there by nature of the difference years and years of saving, investing, and working will have between generations.

But I like that the last three slides can actually see the benefit in some of the "bad" things you hear bandied about when generational financial fear articles discussions are published.

[arebelspy]

I'm glad for the details. However I don't necessarily see how it is really all that different from almost any other time in history regarding the asset gap between older folks and younger folks. That will always be there by nature of the difference years and years of saving, investing, and working will have between generations.

Agreed.  I don't see much "news" here, and could see a similar article being posted 30 years from now, a few years after some future recession, with how the older folks had recovered and the younger ones not yet.

Overall I don't think there's much to worry about here.

[Beric01]

Agreed that there's not a lot of news here.

People need to stop leveraging debt to buy homes that they can't afford. People need to diversify - all your assets in one category (homeownership) is a bad thing.