You’ve heard of baby boomers, millennials, Generation Z and Alpha, the Silent Generation. Maybe a few of you have even heard of Generation X (wave, hi). But have you heard of the sandwich generation?
For nearly seven years, I’ve been helping grow a Facebook community of working professional mothers in the tech space called Moms in Tech. It’s been a labor of love as most volunteering is, and today the community is more than 18,000 strong of undeniably impressive mothers leading, starting, advising and growing businesses that hundreds of millions of people around the world depend on while sharing in the increasingly complex experience of raising children in today’s society. I often refer to Moms in Tech as my second brain.
These days, I lead community engagement and put together workshops and webinars on hot topics throughout the year so we can stay on top of “all of the things.” This past week, I facilitated an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session with a Bay Area based Certified Financial Planner that, over the last few years, had found her niche in empowering working professional women to take control over their finances and build a plan for the rest of their lives.
While there were a wide range of questions over the course of our two-hour AMA, one couldn’t help but notice the sheer volume of inquiries tied to either saving for college or saving for elder and long-term care. Sometimes, members asked about both at the same question in the form of, “I’m lost on how exactly I’m supposed to be planning and saving for both of these things at the same time.”
And this — this is the epitome of the sandwich generation.
You are in this cohort if you have living parents over the age of 65 and children under 18 or are financially supporting adult children. One might initially think that those in the sandwich generation are either spending equally at both ends or spending more to support their living parents, but the truth is that nearly 60% of people aged 45-60 with adult children are financially supporting them in some manner, and more often than not the focus of elder care is a bit of financial and a lot of emotional support.
This is an increase from 44% a decade ago, according to Pew Research. Today, half of Americans in their 40s have both a living parent over the age of 65 and children under 18 or adult children they are financially supporting. And between now and 2030, 10,000 Americans are going to turn 65 every day so more and more millennials and Gen Xers continue to join club sandwich.
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By now maybe you’re wondering why so many adult children are requiring financial assistance from their parents. Well, the answer is complicated yet simple.
Housing is often the single highest expense a person has. In San Mateo County, you need to make more than $200,000 a year to afford to comfortably rent a market-rate two-bedroom apartment. The median income for a family of four is $186,000 and if you make under $154,000 that family qualifies for low-income housing.
The primary driver of housing prices is supply and demand. When there is not enough supply, prices go up. According to the San Mateo County website, between 2010-16, 79,000 jobs were created, yet, only 3,844 new housing units were constructed. From 2017-19, another 5,600 homes were built but 30,000 jobs were created. Perhaps the goal was never to catch up, but it certainly shouldn’t be to stay impossibly behind.
The truly fascinating thing about all this is that those who sit comfortably in their homes with low-interest mortgages or paid-off homes have absolutely no view into how serious the situation is unless they are one of those sandwichers providing financial assistance to either their parents or adult children struggling to afford the cost of living. I don’t know how to change this, but it is a very real impediment to implementing policy that can help solve this problem.
Going back to the members of Moms in Tech who were asking very detailed, logistical and thoughtful questions about how to survive being a sandwicher — the levels of stress and concern were palpable, even through the device. You could tell that these women — incredibly accomplished in their own right — fully understood that most Americans will never be able to save to the levels required to support both young and aging simultaneously in this country. No one should have their stasis be at these levels of stress, but it’s incredibly common amongst sandwichers. It’s something that keeps me up at night because I just don’t know how long it can continue like this, but we need to do something.
Annie Tsai is chief operating officer at Interact (tryinteract.com), early stage investor and advisor with The House Fund (thehouse.fund), and a member of the San Mateo County Housing and Community Development Committee. Find Annie on Twitter @meannie.
Thanks for your column, today, Ms. Tsai. In your last sentence, you write, “…I just don’t know how long it can continue like this, but we need to do something.” What is that “something”? “Affordable” housing cannot be built unless subsidized by other homebuyers and/or taxpayer monies. The cost of building housing has increased considerably due to tacked on fees, assessments, mandatory this and mandatory that, ultimately reflected in home prices. Home builders would prefer to build offices or labs where they’ll make money. As for adult children, stop financially supporting them – tell them to get a job, even if they must leave our Bay Area bubble. As for children under 18 and living parents over the age of 65, they can always sell their house and take the proceeds out of our Bay Area bubble and move to another state or another region where prices are affordable.
If folks are unwilling to move out of the Bay Area, then they start by electing representatives that do not continue the policies that have brought issues detailed here. Sure, they’ll need to stick it out but there is potential hope in their children's futures. If they and their adult children continue electing the same folks with the same policies, then they get the government they deserve. And nothing will change while getting progressively worse.
Will there be a future column on your thoughts about what the “to do something” might be? Or what the advice is to the questions being asked by these Moms in Tech members? Or there is no advice, only commiseration (which may also be helpful)?
Dear Annie - more sob stories that do not help. If parents are still supporting their adult children, they have done lousy job raising them. If they had made it very clear that the kids are on their own after 18 or after graduation, they would have found a way to fend for themselves. Isn't that what we did? There are exceptions but those should not be the norm. You have never struck me as a helicopter parent, but now I may have to reevaluate my opinion. It seems this generation has discarded the terms accountability and responsibility. Strangely, in my multi-million dollar neighborhood, I see mostly young couples moving in, What is their excuse?
I don't mind helping those who need help, but subsidizing the parent of a Mom or Dad in tech is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps we should stop evaluating needs of individuals and look up a level higher (parents and offsprings) if kids are doing well they can help pay for their parents. Or have them move in in exchange for child care. Not financial advice but for people in general it is best when there phases of are completed as quickly as possible they are college, having kids, and buying real estate (waiting for the forever home is pointless) the longer these three phases take the higher the likelihood one encounters a problem and it becoming the financial equivalent of having cancer.
You are assuming all of these people are high income earners, when that is not the case. A lot of people in the tech space work for the government in technology roles, or in customer service at tech companies, or non-profits, or for small businesses, or are small businesses themselves not yet paying themselves living wages in order to put money back into the business. This is a big misconception because where we live, we hear about large funding rounds and large exits, but 95% of people working in tech never get exposure to that world.
Returns on businesses are much higher than real estate. Those who make it have no obligation to share when they .ale it. Not a fan of having government go into debt and hold the bag for these people. When it comes to income people want other people to pay their fair share, the similar fair share approach would be for someone making more money to occupy market rate units, but that is not the case they choose to occupy units ideal for lower and middle income.
Meannie, most of the jobs you mentioned pay incredibly well and the employee receive incredible benefits, especially government positions. And if someone decides to work for a "non-profit" and don't earn enough to pay their own way then it's on them. They could supplement their income by working at In and Out Burger or McDonalds etc.. 20 hours a week and make ends meet. I'll do the math for you 20 hours x $20 = $400 a week, $1,600 a month, $20,800 a year. No more tears or complaining please.
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(6) comments
Thanks for your column, today, Ms. Tsai. In your last sentence, you write, “…I just don’t know how long it can continue like this, but we need to do something.” What is that “something”? “Affordable” housing cannot be built unless subsidized by other homebuyers and/or taxpayer monies. The cost of building housing has increased considerably due to tacked on fees, assessments, mandatory this and mandatory that, ultimately reflected in home prices. Home builders would prefer to build offices or labs where they’ll make money. As for adult children, stop financially supporting them – tell them to get a job, even if they must leave our Bay Area bubble. As for children under 18 and living parents over the age of 65, they can always sell their house and take the proceeds out of our Bay Area bubble and move to another state or another region where prices are affordable.
If folks are unwilling to move out of the Bay Area, then they start by electing representatives that do not continue the policies that have brought issues detailed here. Sure, they’ll need to stick it out but there is potential hope in their children's futures. If they and their adult children continue electing the same folks with the same policies, then they get the government they deserve. And nothing will change while getting progressively worse.
Will there be a future column on your thoughts about what the “to do something” might be? Or what the advice is to the questions being asked by these Moms in Tech members? Or there is no advice, only commiseration (which may also be helpful)?
Dear Annie - more sob stories that do not help. If parents are still supporting their adult children, they have done lousy job raising them. If they had made it very clear that the kids are on their own after 18 or after graduation, they would have found a way to fend for themselves. Isn't that what we did? There are exceptions but those should not be the norm. You have never struck me as a helicopter parent, but now I may have to reevaluate my opinion. It seems this generation has discarded the terms accountability and responsibility. Strangely, in my multi-million dollar neighborhood, I see mostly young couples moving in, What is their excuse?
I don't mind helping those who need help, but subsidizing the parent of a Mom or Dad in tech is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps we should stop evaluating needs of individuals and look up a level higher (parents and offsprings) if kids are doing well they can help pay for their parents. Or have them move in in exchange for child care. Not financial advice but for people in general it is best when there phases of are completed as quickly as possible they are college, having kids, and buying real estate (waiting for the forever home is pointless) the longer these three phases take the higher the likelihood one encounters a problem and it becoming the financial equivalent of having cancer.
You are assuming all of these people are high income earners, when that is not the case. A lot of people in the tech space work for the government in technology roles, or in customer service at tech companies, or non-profits, or for small businesses, or are small businesses themselves not yet paying themselves living wages in order to put money back into the business. This is a big misconception because where we live, we hear about large funding rounds and large exits, but 95% of people working in tech never get exposure to that world.
Returns on businesses are much higher than real estate. Those who make it have no obligation to share when they .ale it. Not a fan of having government go into debt and hold the bag for these people. When it comes to income people want other people to pay their fair share, the similar fair share approach would be for someone making more money to occupy market rate units, but that is not the case they choose to occupy units ideal for lower and middle income.
Meannie, most of the jobs you mentioned pay incredibly well and the employee receive incredible benefits, especially government positions. And if someone decides to work for a "non-profit" and don't earn enough to pay their own way then it's on them. They could supplement their income by working at In and Out Burger or McDonalds etc.. 20 hours a week and make ends meet. I'll do the math for you 20 hours x $20 = $400 a week, $1,600 a month, $20,800 a year. No more tears or complaining please.
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