According to a report from CNN, 66% of millennials aged 21 to 32 have nothing saved for retirement. The writer of the piece suggests that this is due to student loans, high unemployment or stagnant wages. But there is a much bigger cause than that: Millennials aren't saving for retirement because they think capitalism will be a thing of the past by then.
This CNN article went viral. Much of the reason was because it completely missed how people felt and people were making fun of it.
RT if socialism is your retirement plan. https://t.co/34ABnx0SDj
— howitzer of mercy 🌹🏴☠ (@girlziplocked) March 7, 2018
It's actually very true that the millennial left is counting on the end of the world or the end of capitalism as the reason for no retirement plan. Jokes about the inability to retire have been being made long before this article was published.
The year is 2055. The only retirement plan available is vlogging yourself shrieking at kindergarten students about Logical Debate so that nihilist death cults will gift you enough Amazon credits that you can spring for the fancy bag of Senior Kibble
— YES on PROP F Czernobro 🌹 (@czernobro) March 10, 2018
my investing style is i give five bucks to chapo in the hope that their dumb asses will create socialism by the time i retire
— Frank Furtschool ☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭☭ (@kulturalmarx) August 4, 2017
My retirement plan is death
— Swan Snow (@Wan_Eyed_King) March 10, 2018
My retirement plan is death at 55: a millennial love story
— Lucretia Boredgia (@KelseyChapstick) September 30, 2017
Per Salon:
Older generations, and even millennials who are better off and who have managed to achieve a sort of petit-bourgeois freedom, might find this sentiment unimaginable, even abhorrent. And yet, in studying the reaction to the CNN piece and reaching out to millennials who had responded to it, I was astounded not only at how many young people shared Wood’s feelings, but how frequently our expectations for the future aligned. Many millennials expressed to me their interest in creating self-sustaining communities as their only hope for survival in old age; a lack of faith that capitalism as we know it would exist by retirement age; and that alternating climate crises, concentrations of wealth, and privatization of social welfare programs would doom their chance at survival.
It's a sad, sad state of affairs when those are your retirement options. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
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