Affordability and Young Adults' Mental Health
The Atlantic published an article recently about how young adults have the worst mental health of any age group in the US.1 It’s based on a survey conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Making Caring Common Project.2
The study’s findings differ from my experiences as a young adult, when I felt relatively carefree and surrounded by friends. But so much is different now. First and foremost: affordability.3 The cost of any kind of reasonable lifestyle has skyrocketed. And it’s gaslighting—or, as I like to call it, avocado-toasting—not to acknowledge it.
So, here we go, a rough accounting4 of my mid-twenties: as a young adult living in L.A., not quite three years after graduating from college, I made a little less than $45,000 and had:
My own “bachelor” apartment in Westwood ($775 per month) with free parking
A used car (later upgraded to a new Honda Civic for about $15,000)
Car insurance ($100 per month)
A full tank of gas each week ($1-$2 per gallon)
PPO health insurance through work (about $225 per month, I think?)
A gym membership ($35 per month)
A gourmet grocery shopping habit
An active social life that included restaurant meals, movie nights, concerts, museums, tai chi classes, art classes, and dates.
Yes, that was a while ago, so $45,000 then equates to about $80,000 now. But the truth is: a similar lifestyle in a desirable major city, even on the higher inflation-adjusted salary, is essentially fiction for today’s twenty-somethings and even many thirty-somethings.
A more likely configuration today involves two or three roommates, a struggle to afford health care if not on a parent’s plan5, and a decrease in privacy and quality of life. It should be obvious that worrying about finances more and struggling to afford a plain-old regular life would lead to greater anxiety and depression.
Although health insurance, out-of-pocket expenses, and car insurance all cost much more now, the T. rex in the room is housing, and how unaffordable it has become for anyone working a regular job outside of finance and Big Tech.
I feel like this point is not discussed often enough with concrete personal-finance snapshots from more affordable times—which is why I’ve provided my numbers as a concrete point of comparison to show just how insane prices have gotten, especially for housing.
In my mid-twenties, I was working in journalism, not a high-paying profession back then and probably even lower-paying now when adjusted for inflation. I had a nice life—and a creative one. It used to be possible to choose a relatively lower-paying job and still live independently and with enjoyment.
I’m sure Boomers can tell even more affordable stories about their early housing costs.
The lead researcher described in The Atlantic’s article was “taken aback” by the study results showing young adults have the highest rates of depression and anxiety. But I am not at all surprised. It’s not young adults’ fault that many of them can’t afford a middle-class lifestyle. It’s objectively much harder to get started today, and living independently likely requires a six-figure salary in desirable locations. Stretched finances breed anxiety and curtail future options.
People need opportunity and hope. Maybe we don’t just fight inflation by building starter homes; maybe we also fight hopelessness, stress, and mental illness by building housing—and by offering an understanding ear to young adults who are struggling in the meantime.
Hill, Faith. “20-Somethings Are in Trouble.” The Atlantic, August 26, 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/08/young-adult-mental-health-crisis/679601/
Weissbourd, Richard; Batanova, Milena; McIntyre, Joseph; and Eric Torres; with Shanae Irving, Sawsan Eskander, and Kiran Bhai. “On Edge: Understanding and Preventing Young Adults’ Mental Health Challenges.” Making Caring Common Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education, October 2023.
There are other contributing issues: perhaps social media, a shift to online rather than in-person interactions, a lack of opportunities to practice low-stakes independence before graduating from college. But affordability is a big one—and the study confirms this.
Figures are approximate but close enough to get the point across.
Though at least you can get healthcare if you dare to have a pre-existing condition, which is a major improvement compared to back then.
Similar synopsis and outcomes here in the UK. Lots to think about from this article. I wonder if a time will arrive when people can no longer look back at a time when life felt simpler, less costly when they were younger, similar to those who were affected during the US great depression. Or are we already at that inflection point again, just less noticeably and more temporally. A true period of depression if you will.
A nice synopsis. I think that part of the challenge of mental illness is we managed to ignore and sweep under the rug for most of our history of walking upright and perhaps only started thinking seriously about it in the last 40 years. Now we may be finally focusing on mental health parity. It was a Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, who championed this only 20 years ago. I enjoyed returning to your writing.