Let me let you in on a little secret: leftists hate thrift. Likely more to the point, they believe saving money is a fool’s errand when what they are really aiming for is your reliance on Big Brother for everything you need for life. (defined as what Big Brother thinks you are entitled to!) While many blame America’s consumer-driven, marketing-oriented economy, I don’t find that persuasive.
Habits of People under 45:-
Supporters of a Big Brother world are supposed to be selfless, protectors of the weak, and hold utilitarian beliefs. But, in real life, they are some of the most avaricious individuals on the face of the earth. While vociferously rejecting all things material, many live the most consumer-driven life imaginable. Let’s take a moment and check off some of the habits of many under 45 today:
- The aforementioned Starbucks—average spend per visit is $3-$8, with 49% of revenue from customers aged 25–40. The average Starbucks consumer spends $1,200 to $1,500 a year, with the number even higher for the 18-34 age bracket.
- Cell phones—97% of individuals own a smartphone and pay an average of $120 and $160 a month for their plan.
- Internet access—the average cost is between $65 and $105 a month
- Vehicle—74% of the under-50 crowd own a car. The average all-in cost of a car today is $965 a month. Notably: In 2024, 1.73 million vehicles were repossessed – the most since 2009, during the Great Recession, according to data from Cox Automotive and Experian.
- Housing—55-60% of adults under 50 own a home, and 40-45% rent. The average rent today is $1,750- $1,900 per month. For home ownership, the average cost is $3,500 to $4,000 a month.
- Other indulgences—food and beverage, which are frequently delivered—add about $400-$500 a month. Subscription and digital lifestyle add another $50 to $120 a month. Fashion and personal aesthetics rack up another $200-$400  a month. Fitness and wellness memberships, apparel, and such average another $100 a month. Travel and mini-trips are de rigueur among young people, though no monetary figures are readily available.
However, the best available information indicates that young people under 35 spend an additional $9,200 to $24,000Â a year on discretionary spending over what a frugal, involved, and wealth-building individual would spend. Discretionary is an innocuous term that is not nearly as appreciated as it should be. Another way of looking at it is that the choices young people make keep them poor and dependent on the government to help them get by. What they fail to understand is that Big Brother does not work for free. He taxes, restricts opportunities, and sets the limits of many’s freedom and success. We see this in a multitude of ways, large and small.
The average available cash resources for someone under 35 is $3,240. Surprisingly, it isn’t much better with age: the average 75-year-old has ready access to only $9,300. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, especially those under 45.
Under 35s have:
- Lower incomes
- Higher student loan burdens
- Higher rent burdens
- Less time for compounding
- Higher discretionary spending (travel, dining, subscriptions)
This is why the median savings is so low, despite the average being much higher.
These numbers are far worse than they were 30 years ago. It’s reasonable to ask what has changed. While I don’t think K-12 ever did a very good job of preparing young people for the financial realities of life, the best available information indicates that most students graduate without a meaningful financial education. Worse, their parents are frequently as clueless as they are.
Why?
There’s a real answer here, and it’s not “kids these days.”
What you’re seeing is the predictable outcome of structural, economic, political, and educational forces that make it unusually hard for young adults to develop financial competence before they’re thrown into the deep end. I believe that this is by design. It’s not a big jump either to connect lack of financial competence with reasoning in general!
If your quest is to create dependency within people, you must create instability by removing predictable structures, obscuring the real costs of adulthood, and ensuring that the skills required for self-sufficiency are never clearly taught. Does this feel familiar?
Almost all of us know at least some young people. I know that many of the ones I know are not on the traditional success path that my generation pursued. Quite a few lack basic experiences, like failing, picking oneself up, and reengaging with the world. Others live fantasy lives that involve a deep relationship with screens rather than with human beings. Others never cut the string with their parents, who continue to provide for their children far into adulthood. The emotional maturity/profile of our young is not sustainable.
Adults under 40 often display a different emotional profile than adults did 50 years ago, shaped less by innate traits and more by the environment they’ve grown up in. Today’s young adults navigate a world defined by rapid change, economic volatility, and constant digital comparison, which can delay the development of long-term confidence and resilience. Emotional maturity emerges later because the traditional stabilizers—affordable housing, predictable careers, early family formation—arrive later or not at all. In contrast, adults in the 1970s typically entered stable roles earlier, gaining responsibility through lived experience rather than prolonged uncertainty. Younger adults today are often highly self-aware to a fault, empathetic, and expressive, but struggle with sustained stress tolerance, delayed gratification, and long-range planning. Their emotional landscape is less linear, more adaptive, and more reactive to external pressures, reflecting a world that demands flexibility rather than predictability.
Conclusion:-
We began this essay by demonstrating that young people’s financial life choices limit their ability to follow in the footsteps of far more successful generations. What we have not stated is our final nexus issue:
The damage done to our young people was not an accident. As we’ve come to understand how DEI arrested their development, we’ve abandoned the incredibly important values of competence and meritocracy.
It is not enough to recognize the problem; we must confront an entire system of individuals and groups, from teachers’ unions to dedicated Marxists and to the many who despise capitalism and worked for two generations to ensure Johnny can’t read and understand history. These are our enemies as surely as any foreign nation that invaded us.
We will be unable to fix the problem until we reach a mutual understanding of the dangers we face. Future generations must return to the lessons, ideas, and principles that guided us for more than 200 years. The Starbucks effect must come to an end as we return to reason, sanity, patriotism, and individualism that is America.
God Bless America!
Allan J. Feifer—Patriot
Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com. Read additional great writers here.
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