Millennials to Employers: Show Us the Money
When it comes to company loyalty, money matters to millennials. Twenty-nine percent of millennials say that a higher salary is the biggest contributor to their loyalty, according to data released Tuesday by the Staples Advantage Workplace Index.
That compares to 20 percent of the overall workforce who place a priority on salary. The difference could be related to the fact that millennials tend to make lower wages than other workers and face higher fixed costs on things like student loans and rent.
Still, the job market is tightening, making it easier for millennials who feel they are underpaid to look elsewhere for work. The unemployment rate for millennials has fallen by nearly 40 percent since its peak in 2010.
Related: 18 Companies Americans Hate Dealing With the Most
Millennials are willing to work long hours but they want to be able to do so on their own terms. More than half of younger workers said that they work from home after the work day is over, compared to 39 percent of the all workers. Nearly half of millennials said that increased flexibility would improve their happiness.
Other important factors for millennials are office perks such as a gym or free lunches, having an eco-friendly office and a company culture that encourages breaks.
Whether or not they’re happy with their current roles, millennials are looking toward the future with ambition. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they expect to be in a management position in the next five years.
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Number of the Day: $132,900
The cap on Social Security payroll taxes will rise to $132,900 next year, an increase of 3.5 percent. (Earnings up to that level are subject to the Social Security tax.) The increase will affect about 11.6 million workers, Politico reports. Beneficiaries are also getting a boost, with a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase coming in 2019.
Photo of the Day: Kanye West at the White House
This is 2018: Kanye West visited President Trump at the White House Thursday and made a rambling 10-minute statement that aired on TV news networks. West’s lunch with the president was supposed to focus on clemency, crime in his hometown of Chicago and economic investment in urban areas, but his Oval Office rant veered into the bizarre. And since this is the world we live in, we’ll also point out that West apparently became “the first person to ever publicly say 'mother-f***er' in the Oval Office.”
Trump called Kanye’s monologue “pretty impressive.”
“That was bonkers,” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi said afterward.
Again, this is 2018.
Chart of the Day: GDP Growth Before and After the Tax Bill
President Trump and the rest of the GOP are celebrating the recent burst in economic growth in the wake of the tax cuts, with the president claiming that it’s unprecedented and defies what the experts were predicting just a year ago. But Rex Nutting of MarketWatch points out that elevated growth rates over a few quarters have been seen plenty of times in recent years, and the extra growth generated by the Republican tax cuts was predicted by most economists, including those at the Congressional Budget Office, whose revised projections are shown below.
Are States Ready for the Next Downturn?
The Great Recession hit state budgets hard, but nearly half are now prepared to weather the next modest downturn. Moody’s Analytics says that 23 states have enough reserves to meet budget shortfalls in a moderate economic contraction, up from just 16 last year, Bloomberg reports. Another 10 states are close. The map below shows which states are within 1 percent of their funding needs for their rainy day funds (in green) and which states are falling short.
Chart of the Day: Evolving Price of the F-35
The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act signed in August included 77 F-35 Lightning II jets for the Defense Department, but Congress decided to bump up that number in the defense spending bill finalized this week, for a total of 93 in the next fiscal year – 16 more than requested by the Pentagon. Here’s a look from Forbes at the evolving per unit cost of the stealth jet, which is expected to eventually fall to roughly $80 million when full-rate production begins in the next few years.
