Money Moves: The Great Millennial Disappointment
Hi friends,
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is enjoying their weekend. I wanted to send out a (brief) newsletter with some updates and, of course, some of my latest writing.
Today I have an article on Fortune.com about The Great Millennial Disappointment—or how my generation can't seem to catch a break. The peg is President Biden's one-time student loan forgiveness being put on ice by federal courts, but it mentions housing and even the inability to get Taylor Swift tickets. It's all connected...
This quote from Travis Rapoza, a 31-year-old I interviewed for the story, about sums it up:
“I was ecstatic, who wouldn’t be?” says Rapoza of when he learned of Biden’s debt forgiveness plan. “But why would we get a nice thing? I don’t think we’re expecting anything.”
You can read the rest here.
Student loan forgiveness update
Speaking of student loan forgiveness, here's where we are on that front. Predictably, a bunch of conservative and libertarian groups brought lawsuits challenging the legality of Biden's plan. A bunch were dismissed, but two so far have teeth (or at least got put in front of the right conservative judges): One filed in Missouri district court by six conservative state attorneys general, and one in Texas filed by two student loan borrowers. Both are being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we're just kind of waiting to hear what SCOTUS says.
If SCOTUS sides with Biden/the federal government, then they say some 16 million people will have their loans forgiven pretty much immediately. That's how many applications they have processed and approved. Millions more may see forgiveness in the weeks following that. If SCOTUS goes the other way (a distinct possibility), well, I have no idea what Biden will do. He has pretty limited power to do much with student loan debt by himself—Congress decides interest rates and things like that.
As a result of these lawsuits dragging out the forgiveness efforts, Biden also announced this week that the pause on federal student loan repayments and interest accrual will be extended. Basically, they don't want people to start paying again if they are just going to get the debt forgiven.
That's especially good news for those on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness or income-based repayment plan tracks—more months will count toward the total you need for forgiveness without you actually having to pay anything.
Questions about student loan forgiveness? Email me at alicia.adamczyk@fortune.com.
Odds and ends
As Elon Musk continues to do whatever it is he's doing at Twitter, I am thinking of other ways to build an audience/get my work out. Twitter has been a really crucial tool for journalists, and while I'm certainly not huge (or even big) on that platform, it's been an indispensable way to learn about new ideas, find interesting sources, and connect with people. Since Musk has taken over, I've pretty much gotten the same three accounts overtaking my feed and a lot more crypto bots trying to scam me. Fun.
What I'm trying to say is I may be writing more here in the coming weeks and months. We'll see what that looks like.
Some other stuff I've worked on recently:
In some housing markets, seven figures is just enough to buy 'a bit of a fixer-upper'
Taylor Swift tickets are more expensive than ever—but that won't make them easier to get
NYC's pay transparency laws could be a boon for job applicants (assuming they're not looking at a $100,000 pay range)
Gobble gobble,
Alicia
P.S. Past newsletters live here.
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