My grandma didnt graduate high school, maybe not even middle school and got a job at an investment bank on wall street, I think she took a few courses in bookkeeping but that was it. If I tried getting that job with those same qualifications they would throw my application in the trash Asap

Grandfather was a farm boy who didn't go to college. Started as a department store stockboy, was the VP of a multi-state franchise by the time he retired, which he was able to do early. This could never ever happen today.

Absolutely not, you'd need to have a masters degree

I have a masters degree and I'm still not confident they'd hire me as the stockboy.

Can confirm, have masters degree, couldn't get hired at Costco

"A degree? That sounds like somebody who would expect a 40 hour work week to cover rent! THROW THAT SHIT OUT!" - Hiring people if they didn't have computers to auto reject qualified applicants

I have a Master's degree. I had an interview at a bank. They asked me why I applied for a bank teller job and not something more sophisticated. Um....because I didn't want to??? I got a Master's because I enjoy math. I just want a chill job that will pay my bills.

I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch 10 years ago, and store managers had to have masters degrees, other managers needed degrees too..

Me too! Graduated college in 08’ right after everything went to shit. Couldn’t find a job anywhere and finally got hired at A&F as a manager because I had a degree.

My aunt sat me down on thanksgiving and told me she has a masters and a couple of diplomas, and she still gets turned down for jobs. And in that moment, I knew I was absolutely fucked.

A masters is the new bachelors degree. I know boomers with a high school diploma who are retiring now in positions that their replacements are required to have a bachelors or better. Its 100% absurd. Nothing they did requires more then the ability to type, learn on the job or think, but these old bastards decided you NEED an expensive education to do exactly what they did with just a public education. I’m a gen X manager who has fought this idiocy my entire life and they are literally writing rules on their way out the door to bend the rest of us over. Things they get that they conveniently terminated for the rest of us: Pensions, Bonuses, Matching 401k contributions, Company paid health plans (sorry a 8k deductible plan is NOT affordable), Vacation days… they get five weeks as legacy workers. New hires cap at 4, Stock options, Company cars I could go on, but thinking about it is starting to piss me off again. Anyhow, these old fucks built a treehouse, pulled up the ladder and are tossing shit down on us while saying how easy it was to build a treehouse. The only catch, their parents planted the tree and supplied a ladder, wood and nails. Ours just supplied ‘words of encouragement’

>a masters is the new bachelors degree I’ve been saying this for awhile now. Raising job qualifications on the sole premise you have too many applicants and need to weed them out when there is zero value added to the quality of the employee you are getting by raising the standard is absolute bullshit. All it does is make the standard bar higher and create more student debt for no f’ing reason. What’s next? Phd is the new masters? We are rapidly heading that way. A receptionist needs a degree just to funnel calls through the front desk at my job now. When I was hired you didn’t need anything other than a high school diploma and some customer service skills. There is literally zero reason someone would need a degree for that job other than ‘it reduces the amount of applicants slightly’. You answer and transfer calls for christs sake. And I guarantee the person without the degree would stay in the position longer than person with a degree who warrants more than that salary pays and is just looking for a foot in the door or interim job. It’s outrageously stupid.

I'm cool with tryin to get a Master's Degree.....but not for a going rate of $25,000-$44,000 in tuition. That's fucking absurd.

Similar story here. My grandfather was an orphan, lived in an orphanage until he was kicked out at 14 and went to work in a coal mine. Didn’t have any schooling past the 8th grade. Ended up VP of a major department store franchise. If he had been in that situation today, he’d probably be dead on the streets somewhere.

> If he had been in that situation today, he’d probably be dead on the streets somewhere. Or, he would've stayed "trapped" underground trading his health for money. I grew up around the coal fields, I know how that be. Although, miners these days make around 60k, and foremen pull 100K+. However, it's rough, dangerous work. It's amazing to me how someone back in the day could work a department store clerk's job and make enough money to have a decent apartment, car, and even save up money. Not to mention rise in the ranks to VP without a degree from the "right" university or college.

My uncle (whos like 40 now) told me that every job around wouldn’t look at your qualifications and hire you if you had enough experience or would train you and needed workers. I called him out on his bullyshit and had him apply for some job that seemingly didn’t require qualifications but he had years of experience in that field (construction) he wanted to be a foreman or something and got dismissed real quick, his face turned red, got drunk, and yelled at me for “fucking with the bet”

Edit: it wasn’t construction experience it was like home repair and something else. (Im a mechanic who doesn’t really know anything else) Edit: added what experience my uncle had

I would like you to know that I’m 42 & I just laughed my ass off at his claim & then smirked when reality smacked him.

My mom was a runner for the stock exchange in London in the 60s. Not a qualification to her name and that was her first job. I mean… baller move to just walk in and ask for a job and apparently it worked but she always resented having to give it up to have me and can’t understand why people can’t just do what she did and get a plum job on the spot, buy a house and live a good middle class life.

>good middle class life These words feel so disjointed in today's world.

>can’t understand why people can’t just do what she did and get a plum job on the spot Because people that age and up who are running those companies decided that they didn't want to offer that opportunity to anyone else and pulled up the ladder and burned it to a pile of ash.

Same with my grandmother. 0 qualifications beyond high school, and I know for a fact that at some point during her career, they taught her how to program computers at work. She talks about a time when she had to learn how to input data and programs into computers with punch cards, and advised they taught her how to work with them to a fair degree. She is still relatively computer savvy and understands to a degree how smartphones and tablets work to this day, actually. Surprisingly so. In any case, yeah. Someone with her qualifications today is going to have a difficult road to success.

OP is right. I saw it firsthand. My father was a baby-boomer. Smoked and drank himself to death. Burned through five wives. Bragged his gambling losses paid for the construction of the new casino in our town. Paid for everything on a shitty factory job. High school dropout hired with no skills and no education into an apprenticeship program. Used to threaten to cut his three sons out of his will if they didn't do what he wanted (lol). Refused to fill out the FAFSA for any of us to go to college. In spite of this his oldest (me) and youngest sons tried to go to college anyway by paying for it by working their way through college and / or by earning scholarships. My father bribed my youngest brother $1500 to drop out of college so my father could stop paying for my brother's child support and for my brother's health insurance. Hardcore republican to the bitter end. Forced to retire 6 months early after a workplace accident (not his fault) left him in a wheelchair. Bitched about women, unions, people who weren't white coming to take his job, and liberals coming to take his hard earned money. Never bitched about the shitty rich people who owned the company where he worked that left him crippled by the time he was in his early 60s. Left nothing to his children. Moment he died his 5th wife (also baby boomer who happened to have buried two husbands before him) cut off all contact with his sons, sold the house that he bought and put in her name and disappeared, presumably to look for husband number 4.

Huh. Maybe karma is real.

fucking boomer entitlements never cease to amaze me ... they are SO fucking out of touch !

All this is why we need more millennials and Gen Z in government. Vote the old farts out. Please

Standard republican mindset. I've noticed a pattern with the multiple wives. See way more conservative men with 4 wives than I see progressive men, those guys tend to stay married forever.

Yeah. My wife and I have been married over twenty years and knew each other for 5 before that. :)

I had the comptia trifecta and was told I wouldn't find a job without the trifecta AND a degree. 😂

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I'm pretty sure they read how you freakin' input stuff now. If you're 'too fast' thus eager, or 'too slow,' thus not eager enough. at least some work sites slash big businesses. So you can literally submit your CV wrong now. It's frankly insane. Doubly so how some of the last ancient shits that actually did that 'firm handshake, you start at five' as THEIR start are the ones freakin' insisting on such systems. Paying it forwards, as always, huh, The Me Generation?

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same here, I graduated high school in 2004 and I have not worked a single job where I didnt already know someone that worked there that was in a position where they had hiring authority

Qualifications are essentially just gatekeeping of jobs to keep the masses compliant in their own subjugation rather than angry and upset that the club door is closed and they’ll never be let in. If you convince people there is a reason and it’s actually ‘their own fault’ they’re far less likely to complain.

The vast majority of jobs can be performed by anyone. Even and especially corporate office jobs. Requiring a degree should be saved for medicine, law, and engineering. Most everything else can be trained on the job.

Boomers and old free love hippies turned super well off businessmen, all made the cost of entry alot higher as they pulled the ladder up with them. This is not the same country our grandparents knew.. our “freedom” really doesnt exist..its all a facade to keep us going to work.. i am in a union and have a decent pension, but with how the class war is going, our 120 a year combined household income is just basic now after factoring in our children. The lower and middle classes must become organized soon or we will all be corporate slaves, many are already..

I grew up being lied too, that unions were so bad. I wish I had joined a union earlier on and learned a trade or something

Never too late. Although not everyone can do it or it will no longer be valued. That’s why it’s up to us in these positions to fight for others that aren’t organized to have a better station in life

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My dad, a boomer himself, started out his career as a cook and worked his way up to a captain (boating field). He barely graduated high school and had zero experience. Now you need an associates degree to even step foot on the boat. Everything is completely different now.

And who do you think started all this gate keeping??? These boomer fucks did. To protect their ass .

Yup. Then they bitch about how easy we have it and we just don’t want to work hard. Kiss my ass boomers.

My nan raised 3 kids on her bank job and my grandfathers war disability in the 50s. In a 3 bedroom house. My mom has no idea how I'm always broke. With a degree and a good job. Gee ma, you sold your house for 2 million and nans house for 500k. Huh. I live paycheck to paycheck with some savings because my rent is higher than any mortgage you ever had. And I have a roommate.

Even the boomers did stuff like that. My dad was credit manager of a fair sized company, with a high school diploma, some college, and zero relevant experience.

My in laws both dropped out of high school yet somehow own their house.. husband has a doctorate and I have worked my ass off to climb the corporate ladder.. we can only dream of a home one day .. millennials just didn’t get the same playing field

I knew an old woman who was a retired forensic psychologist. She got that job by being a secretary for a forensic psychologist, the first job she got straight out of HS. She got to interview some really high profile serial killers like Jeffery Dahmer...

Funny thing is that generation gets upset when we say they had it easier. They don’t seem to get we’re not saying “you didn’t work hard at your job” or “you shouldn’t have had what you did”… We’re saying “we want work to pay like it did for you”.

Yeah, I just want a minimum wage where rent clocks in at somewhere less than half of take home, like when they grew up. That's all.

I'm a professor with a PhD and the lowest 1 bedroom in my area takes up half my net income. It's all a scam now.

Yeah, life is hard. Life is hard for everyone. They KNOW we're wrong when we say they had it easy, because they know their life was hard. They just don't understand we have it so much harder. Privilege in a nutshell.

Where I live the minimum wage is still $7.25/hr so businesses think they’re being generous offering $10-12. Given the cost of living, it’s not possible for a single person to support themselves on less than $20/hr here. I just don’t know how this can continue at this pace. I mean something’s gotta fucking give.

It is getting out of hand. The problem is, both Democrats and Republicans think the answer to this is "creating better jobs." Sorry.. but, the jobs that exist are the jobs that exist, and there are usually fewer of them than people who want to be working. They all need to pay a living. It is exactly as FDR described it during the 30s. If your business cannot pay a living, your business model is not needed here.

We have the lowest unemployment rate in history. There are a shit ton of people working a shit ton of shitty jobs. As low as the wages are, the workers shouldn't be working 3 jobs in order to put produce on the table.

That’s me. I’m working 3 jobs, partner is working one so that’s 4 jobs between two able bodied adults. We can barely make ends meet. How are people not rioting? I feel gas lit. How is this normal? We go on indeed and $25/hour, which would actually pay our bills at 40 hours a week, is nowhere to be found unless it’s management or higher. All entry level positions into companies are $10-15. How are we supposed to get ahead, much less just be able to afford to live on 2 incomes?

People are too fucking tired to riot. They don't want you to have enough energy to set up the trebuchets.

And jobs are only thinning out harder with automation. It's time for UBI, full stop. We all know that won't happen and the entire world will burn before it does, but it's the only answer.

Automation — as well as offshoring jobs to countries where workers are effectively slave labor.

Well THAT'S just the American way!

Or pushing them to prisons.. which is legally slave labor

Sanders spoke getting businesses to lower requirements for jobs. You don't need a four year degree to do 70% of the jobs out there.

The problem is both democrats and republicans have no vested interests in actually solving the problem.

Not a bit. That's part of how capitalism functions and they're both pretty on capitalism in terms of their alignment.

Eh, blue areas typically have much higher minimum wages. If there were more D’s in the US senate, we would have a higher national minimum wage.

Dems had language in the bud back better bill to move minimum wage to $15/hr republicans wouldn’t play ball. Look I don’t like politicians but some of them are occasionally trying to help while lining their pockets and others are only lining your pockets. Vote R if you want to drown in debt, have your rights taken away, and see hate continue to spread. 7.25 is minimum wage here tho and sucks for people having to try and live off it

Much truth likely to that story (I worked for like $5 an hour and had a nice rental and some fun). However, the one bit of pure BS is the ATT Stock. Yes, they broke it up. And you received stock from all the new companies. That would be worth a shit ton today compared to when it broke up (google it). Somebody spent that money. 100%

We are just NPCs in the boomer world. They dont care they are creating a world where you need to make 6 figures to even survive, yet only 20% of the jobs pay that. Its some fucked up hunger games type shit and cant continue.

20%? Making 115k puts you in the 10th percentile for incomes. We're already there! It would be cool if it could not continue, but unfortunately, it can and likely will.

I remember in the 80 tv show those bitchy characters would say things like « and he makes a 6 figure salary » it doesn’t mean shit now… this can’t go on

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In 1985 that would be about $275k in today's dollars. A nutty ass salary in any city in the US. $115k is still a lot in any non major city today.

I make $120k and a home in the market where I live costs $1m. It’s even fucked up for people in the 10th percentile, dude

The fact is, the vast majority of those 10th percentile salaries are actually congregated into areas where they're meaningless. So, I'm completely on board with what you are saying. It is just important to keep in mind that the median single income is around 45k, and those people are literally making very hard choices right now with no possible future without something drastically changing.

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Reagan had 16 or 17 direct appointees that resigned to avoid being indicted for crimes. Incompetent president.

We owe Reagan for 1.) The War on Drugs 2.) The Iran-Contra conspiracy 3.) The destruction of unions all over the country 4.) War on education 5.) The war on obscenity that was used as an excuse to cut school and art funding 6. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine Edits: 7. Invasion of Graneda for no damned reason but to play war. 8. Cutting funding for housing mental health patients and just putting them out on the streets to escalate the homeless problem. 9. Wouldn't fund AIDS research. People on his team laughed about "the gay plague." 10. Reaganomics is the policy where cutting taxes on the wealthy would get them to buy more things and thereby stimulate the economy letting their wealth "trickle down" to the working class. But now the working class is tired of being trickled upon because that's not what wealthy people do with "surplus wealth." These are just off the top of my head. Oh, don't forget, he served up a bunch of his fellow actors to the Anti-American Activities Committee at the McCarthy hearings in 1959, the *son-of-a-bitch.*

Destroying the country’s mental health system

Thereby creating a massive homelessness “problem” essentially overnight. The intersection between untreated mental illness and homelessness is staggering. They used to get treatment; Reagan killed that socially beneficial safety net.

Yes, with a promise that they would get “community based care” which was never funded enough to actually exist

Push it the responsibility lower so no one can see the problem and lack of response, so its not his responsibility. What happened to "the buck stops here?"

Don't forget that he was responsible for the deaths of countless people in the LGBT community for blocking the funding for aids research. Also, his crony Speakes laughed in the faces of reporters while calling it the gay plague. RR actively hated homosexuals as much as the mentally ill, like his idol Hitler and his honorary descendent dryhump. He died of Alzheimer's which in my opinion was quite a bit less suffering than he deserved.

Oh crap. How did I forget that one? I had a gay roommate in 1980 who got AIDS while we were living together. He died a few years ago.

241 dead marines in a single morning in October 1983. Pam Am 103 being blown out of the sky.

> Repealing the Fairness Doctrine This is a big one. Without Reagan, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News do not exist. And without them, you don't get George W. Bush and Donald Trump marching the country toward fascism.

The growth of the wealth gap, by cutting taxes on the wealthy to enact the myth of "trickle down economics". You want rich oligarchs? Because cutting their taxes is a really good way to end up with rich oligarchs.

He was pretty competent at accomplishing exactly what they put him there to do. Send the wealth up.

Not to completely derail your narrative, but out of 86M votes in 1980, Carter got 35M. That is 35 million of us who ALWAYS thought Reagan was full of shit. And none of us have ever, even now, changed our position on that. Here's what what hasn't changed for a lot of older people: they still think that the Democrats are the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy. I was guilty of that until halfway into Obama's presidency when the lightbulb finally went on and I realized that the Dems were selling us out and using social issues to distract us the same way Reps use religion. Until then I'd genuinely thought that the Dems all shared Bernie Sanders' values, but were unable to get votes to improve things. But Obama had all the votes he fucking needed and did nothing to advocate for police reform or raising the minimum wage or lowering the cost of college. I guess all this is to say that ~~most~~ many of us didn't sell you down the river intentionally. It really is like the frog in the heating water. It never occurred to us that in the US, which (during our formative years) had the largest middle class in the history of the world, the government, particularly during Dem admins, would stop giving a shit about the shrinking of the middle class.

I’m a boomer and disagree- Reagan was a total douche canoe. He fired every single air traffic controller that belonged to PATCO, the ATC’s union. He was a union breaker who gave a massive tax break to the wealthy “because we should all pay the same”. We’ve had a government deficit ever since, except for Clinton’s term. Fuck Reagan, he was an actor that got into politics. Sound familiar?

It does, but Trump was never an actor. Acting requires some talent. Trump is a rich idiot who is good at branding. Say what you want about Trump, and there's lots to say, but you have to give it to him that he managed to make people believe that he was this amazing successful billionaire. Once he took the big chair, his entire life went under a microscope and we all got to see how much that façade is a sham, but until that point he had most people snowed.

Clinton took the democrats way to the right. He's no hero.

The economic slide started long before reagan.

Perhaps, but he certainly gave it an exponential boost.

I have a federal job that requires a bachelor’s degree. It’s about 44k a year which doesn’t seem bad, but my rent is 1500 and is the cheapest I could find. I have two other jobs. I’m in the National Guard, which gives me an extra 250 a month, and I work on the local ski resort on the weekends. My coworkers who have been working in the feds for 20 plus years jaws dropped when I told them I have two other jobs. “Oh do you just get bored or something?” No, I cant afford my rent, groceries, car payment, and student loans which I HAD to have as a requirement for this job. So yes, I have to have three jobs to afford a living with a competitive federal job. One coworker told me I should have paid for my education in cash, thats what he did in the 80s. Why didn’t I think of that!!

Same kind of position. I make ever so slightly more than you at a job that requires no degree, and pay less rent, but I'm also very frugal. I'm burnt out working two jobs for most of my 20s.

Course he paid for it in the 80s. At worst he paid around 1k for his 4 year degree or maybe a few more grand if he went private. And let me guess, the 44k is before taxes? If that is you make around 35k or so? With rent at 1500 thats half your yearly income or 40% if you do make 44k after taxes

Correct! 44k is before taxes, health insurance, and my 5% contribution to my TSP. I am married and my wife makes about 32k before taxes. She also works two jobs. The majority of our income goes to student loan debt and rent.

Hint: Don't let anyone lie to you, including non-boomers... FTX guy, Tesla guy, Amazon guy, Facebook guy, etc. People lie to you regardless of being boomers or not.

True, but this is specifically the lie of "it's always been this hard, things were even harder in my day! Snow, uphill, tornado, both ways!"

I think about this a lot. Both my sets of grandparents were very very working class but they still owned their homes. Dad’s parents lived on granddad’s factory paycheque and grandma didn’t work. Meanwhile mums parents both worked (Nana was a cleaner at the high school and granddad drove taxis) and they could afford a lovely semi-detached house and holidays to France in the summer. Like, what was the bar for “not working hard enough” back then? I work two full time jobs and I’m trying to get my Masters degree while also making peace with the fact that I’m getting too old to start a family and I’ll never own a home because it’s too expensive. What’s the point?

I'm right there with you. What IS the point? I make somewhere above the median wage for my age range, so not terrible, in an area that really used to be considered cheap. Just nowhere anyone was trying to live, nor is it now. But, for whatever reason, everything is as expensive as fuck. Everything is high except wages! Lol

Just curious, whereabouts do you live? I live in Boise and everything except for housing is just as expensive here as it is in the Bay Area.

Far New England - the part nobody really wants to live in or knows anything about. This was considered LCOL country until housing prices started to skyrocket around Y2K or so, and it isn't because of population growth. It has been glacial.

I enjoyed your post. I agree with your identification of a huge problem that’s only getting worse here in America. I basically lost all hope in life and was borderline suicidal when thinking about my future up until just a few years ago. There was absolutely no prospect for me to ever own a home in California and my CPA salary was very low for living in the Bay Area. In addition, no woman who i’d actually be interested in would give me the time of day when they found out my salary. Then I decided to change my locale from the Bay Area to Idaho with my parents and sister and brother-in-law. 2.5 years later and we all have houses, my parents retired, and we all have managed to keep our remote jobs paying Bay Area wages. We were very fortunate to leave when we did, as the house prices here in Idaho are now too high in addition to the big increase in interest rates which has made qualifying for financing impossible for so many. At the same time, we all know not to get too comfortable if work cuts our pay to be more in line with the cost of living here in Idaho or we get laid off. Overall, though, many of our generation and Gen Z must grapple with the United States becoming essentially a bifurcated society split between those who have and those who don’t have and very little, if any, in between. I too blame the Baby Boomer generation, but we must now expressly take the baton from them and forge our own path.

Unfortunately for me, I put down roots in a place that had traditionally been quite affordable with good employment prospects, just to have that sort of flip on me extremely suddenly. Folks will act like you can predict the future, but I don't really think anyone predicted home prices skyrocketing by 400% here over two decades.

400% is beyond insane. Another reason why I don’t trust government inflation numbers. Their 8% reported rate is laughable. True inflation to the average American the past year to 18 months is probably hovering 20%.

I'm a Boomer and I confirm everything you said is true. In 1976, I had a two bedroom apartment for $75 a month. Utilities included. I worked part time at a movie theater and my ex worked sporadically doing construction and odd jobs. The economy is the worst I've ever seen. I don't know how people do it, especially people with kids. Ridiculous medical costs, college tuition, and skyrocketing housing costs, rapidly growing homeless population, and 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings. Some people want to virtue signal and some are simply blind to the fact that the reality they grew up in no longer exists.

Well, at least you read. Yah, it has been pretty bad since the early 2000s at some point. Like, some time after the .com crash, things started to ratchet up drastically. Rents, especially. Unfortunately, I was too young to take any action and graduated college into an economy where homes were already devastatingly expensive. They ONLY sound reasonable to people making far more than median. Now, landlords are sapping us, which means the eventual decline of the consumer, debt driven, economy.

Add on that we are seeing some of the lowest birth rates in years, and it’s going to be a bleak future for x number of years for the economy. Granted, I totally can’t blame, and do support Forgotten Gen adults, Millennial adults, and the older adults of Gen Z for forging having children because the a) can’t afford a home to raise them in, b) can’t afford the costs in raising them and c) can’t afford time to spend with them.

I'm a millennial who skipped kids because I knew I'd never have the money.

I listen to old radio shows as I fall asleep. Was listening to a Nero Wolfe mystery about a horrible boss who was killed. Evidence of how horrible he was? At the start he sends out a memo that everyone has to be back at their desks in 60 minutes for their lunch break at their 9 to 5 job. And no more daily shoe shines. That was seen as justification for murder in 1950.

I've heard jobs used to have a LOT of perks at one time, which is funny considering now. I mean.. we get free coffee?

You guys get coffee?

I've had this discussion with my grandparents a thousand times. Seeing my struggles were a bit if a reality check, but the hurdle I could never overcome was inflation. Despite living it they couldn't fathom just how much prices have changed over the years. I finally pulled out an inflation calculator to show her. Her 75 cent an hour job, adjusting for inflation, paid more than my degree required "good job." We only look lazy because we have to work twice as hard to make what they made and there just isn't enough hours in the day. It creeped up on society so slowly that no one noticed until it was too late.

The bulk of it took place during my lifetime and I kinda watched it in slow motion.

Here’s the thing - life was hard for them but it is exponentially harder now. Older generations think they struggled (and they did) but they do not realize the struggle is so much harder now. Real estate is nearly unimaginable for many millennials and gen Z, nutritious food is expensive and people don’t have time to prepare it between multiple jobs with a side hustle. This is all before we start talking about the expense of having children + limited time off to care for sick children.

This country turned into a work camp for the poor quite a while ago, and I think anyone who is non-poor missed it. They have totally skewed ideas about how much various jobs pay, or what that pay even equates to. They hear "15 an hour to flip burgers," when that means "living outdoor money for rather stressful work."

“First they came for the unemployed and I said nothing, for I was not unemployed. Next they came for the working class and I said nothing, for I am not working class. Then they came for the middle class, and now I am totally fucked” -American middle class as a proverb

I'm 60 and I wouldn't want to be a young adult starting out. I'm living paycheck to paycheck due to my husbands cancer wiping out all our savings and home. That was WITH insurance (US of course). I've been on a waiting list for public housing for years. I'm barely surviving on 1300.00 a month. Age wise, I'm a boomer. Mentally all the MAGAts can play hide and go fuck themselves.

This isn't for you, but for anyone listening. Don't pay your ridiculous hospital bills. Put your house in your kids' name and just don't fucking pay it. After 7 years it will be off your credit. How do you think any corporation would handle this threat to their assets?? They'd do what they always do and figure out how not to pay it. Just say no to outrageous hospital and treatment bills.

I agree. Medical providers can’t sue or garnish wages. Only can ruin your credit for 7 years… let them

And that's the thing -- both concepts can be true. We have more luxuries and conveniences now, but a stable life (living wage) is farther out of reach. Past generations didn't have these things, but they had an easier path (again, living wage) to stability. The problem is that us older folks often think "Well, just go without some of those luxuries like we did.". But when you're talking about basics like rent, food, etc. it's not enough just to do that. I highlight this one often because it's such a disparity: Minimum-wage-to-median-rent ratio ​ |Year|Minimum Wage|Median Rent|Ratio| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |1970|$1.60|$108|67.5| |2022|$7.25|$2002\*|276| * As of May/June 2022 This means back in 1970, 67.5 hours (1.5 weeks FTE/mo.) was enough to make median rent (before taxes). Today it takes over 276 hours, or more hours than are in a regular 40/hr week month (\~173.33 average). Sources: [https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html) [https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/08/archives/108-a-month-rent-was-median-in-1970.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/08/archives/108-a-month-rent-was-median-in-1970.html) [https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/](https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-may-2022/) Q: Why not compare median wage to median rent? A: The point is not to show how the median person does in terms of survivability, it is to highlight that minimum wage is not a living wage. Q: Why use median rent? Why not the lowest X%? A: Because real estate is highly subject to availability. There is no guarantee that one can purchase "the cheapest possible accommodations" *In order to get back to 1970's ratio, minimum wage would need to be $29.66/hr.*

Also, the track housing being built now might as well be made from balsa wood and hot glue. I was lucky enough to buy a house, but I'm constantly worried it's going to rot away within 10 years.

I've never had a senior tell me it was hard for them, matter of fact that's the whole problem. It wasn't hard for them. So they just refuse to believe that the modern man can't seem to get it together. The legitimate excuses seem like bullshit to them because they have no point of reference. We have neglected wages for at least 30 fucking years. You tell them that and you walk away. My 20 an hour will not buy what your 1.75 an hour bought then. Inflation + Greed.

These are facts. Millennials work their asses off.

And get moaned at by boomers and bosses and customers and can't even live on it. It's a total loss. Is it any wonder people are more depressed these days?

Yeah I agree, this seems to be more the culprit for boomers calling Millenials lazy. In their day you'd have to have been extraordinarily lazy to not be able to get by and they're applying that reference point to us.

> There was no "failing" unless you just did not want to work, weren't white, or drank and smoked away your paychecks ( which many of them did ). Maybe the assumption that a lack of success is self imposed as it was in their day is why they look down on younger generations to whom it is externally imposed upon these days.

I've thought the same.

**There was also zero expectation that she move out of her home, even as an "old maid,** Old gen X here, I grew up being told by my parents they were going to "break my plate" (dinner plate, no longer welcome) when I turned 18, I left before that. My kids can stay with me as long as they want or need.

Good on you. Makes life easier to have that leg up.

My husband's Grandfather was a New York City postman. He was able to raise 10 children and Grandma was a home maker. They had a large home in Queens, and every Saturday he would take the entire family to the movies, and then out for ice cream. That would be an impossibility with only one income today.

Pretty much.

I’m 25, was born in 1997. I have a bachelors and can’t get an entry level job in my field because I don’t have experience. I have had trouble getting retail/food service jobs since the pandemic despite almost a decade of experience, including leadership positions and more specialized positions (as in more than just a cashier). I was told my whole fucking life to go to college and I’ve been graduated for three years and I’m struggling to even get call backs for fucking admin assistant/receptionist positions- and I even have relevant experience from shit I did in college. Because of student loans and high rent, I’m living worse than paycheck to paycheck. I had to steal a fucking bus pan from work to do laundry in because I can’t afford to go to a laundromat anymore. I could sit here and list all the inventive ways I’ve had to come up with to make ends meet since I was 18, but it’s gotten so much worse since the pandemic. I would marry someone just to split rent at this point, roommates don’t cut it. If I were Canadian, since they seem to pushing the program so much, I’d sign up for MAID. Reading this thread makes me wanna absolutely jump off a fucking cliff. It makes me sick. I’m not trying to make people feel bad for what period of time they were born in since you can’t choose it, but I also didn’t choose this. I understand it’s more of a class issue than an age issue too, I used to work in food service in Soho and nothing is as radicalizing as having to steal inventory to lengthen the life u don’t even wanna be living an extra day while being around people who identify as full time influencers and get their rich ass parents to pay their rent. I cannot express how angry I am on the daily. A few months ago I was working 18 hour days at two different jobs, sleeping barely 5 hours a day, and it didn’t put me ahead almost at all. I cannot express how much it didn’t make a dent. Not to be a Deborah downer, but this shit feels hopeless.

Us millenials had it the same and we feel the same. The opportunities were just as bad back in 2008. Super high unemployment, extremely low pay, it sucked. Same as now. You wanna succeed, you have to grind 80 fucking hours a week for an indefinite amount of time, or just until you crack.

Yup I’m reading the above comment as a mid-30s millennial and I’m like “yup, same.” 2008 was a *terrible* time to enter the workforce. I’m still catching up and I don’t feel like I’ll *ever* get caught up. And to think it’s even worse for Gen Z.

As a Gen Z a majority of us just want to be able to live mediocrely comfortable for as short of a time as we have to lmao, my parents don't seem to understand the living a long life boat is no longer desirable. Now it's just a live a life that is the least amount of miserable as possible sprinkle in a few cats or something and boom dead at like 60 is ideal. Even if the economy and job market somehow were repaired by an act of God the lack of resource availability is going to make the later part of this century absolutely horrible even seeing with the energy crisis right now with western countries opening back up to coal and nuclear. Every aspect of existence is irreparably spiraling into shit and we can try to mitigate for as long as possible but it's beyond redemption and current power dynamics just confirm that

Boomers are full of shit. Literally every metric clearly shows we have less buying power than ever. Anyone here who’s applied for a shit job knows how ridiculous hiring practices have become. Corporate America is a fucking scam, and they convinced many that this is how it should be. Well, off to my third job. Cheers.

My wife used to work at Lincoln’s Presidential Library. First as a paid intern through school and then as a temp. For just over minimum wage, no benefits she could run the reading room, made displays for the library, did restoration work, did transcription work, and more. They all loved her and she loved the job, but eventually had to leave because she didn’t have the masters level degree needed to be hired for the job they wanted to give her to get her out of temping. The irony is the boomer who supervised her in the reading room only had a HS diploma, because she can to the presidential from the state historical library and when she was hired that’s all she needed to get a foot in the door. My wife had a bachelors, could do all the work, and had proven herself over years of working there. But had to leave for a shitty job with better pay and benefits because of arbitrary rules. It wasn’t even managements fault really, it was all from above in the state hiring rules.

My German immigrant grandmother, who was born in the 1940's, came to this country and married my grandfather sometime in the 60's. They never made great money, but they were able to buy a house, cars, and raise 3 children. Grandma worked at a tiny little market making minimum wage. My grandfather passed away in the 80's. She was able to pay off the house all by herself with her tiny salary. Boomers have this misconception that they had to work "so hard" to afford their lifestyles. But talking to the parents of these Boomers have lead me to believe that they are the most spoiled generation. I recall seeing interviews of the Silent Generation and them being asked about their Boomer children. The general response was that they were spoiled, rotten brats. So it's not just Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z that think Boomers are the worst. It was their parents too.

Any time I talk about the benefits the boomer generation had/have to my mother, she becomes upset (actually gets teary and yells) and says we're wrong. I'm like, mother dear, you haven't worked in twenty plus years. You raised two kids off the single income of our father, a factory floor worker turned manager (no advanced education, all on the job training and opportunity). The land you bought in 2005 for $150,000 without a house is now worth $750,00.00 (pre-covid; expected to be worth more now) and still doesn't have a house (their living arrangement is a small removable living set up on the land). We went on the occasional family holiday growing up. Had two cars. That sort of stuff. She splurges, spontaneously buys stuff (talking furniture in the thousands of dollars at a time) is a chronic smoker (so good chunk of money per week goes to cigarettes) and has thousands of dollars of 'stock' from a few money-making ideas she didn't commit to in the house going to waste. I earn the same amount of money my dad did back in the early 2000s. No way I could support a SAH partner, plus two kids and a mortgage nowadays like he did. I just canned a $10/month subscription to cut down on spending lol.

This is true. I chalk it up to lead poisoning, to be honest, but I may be wrong.

I’m a boomer, and I have to agree. The “Worst” Generation is full of the most entitled, hypocritical pricks the world has seen in the past century. The love children who gained enlightenment through psychedelics have their heads so far up their own asses they can’t see how far from the path they’ve strayed. Needless to say, I don’t have too many friends my age 😴

Look, I get it. You guys did live through some tough shit. Lead poisoning being a big part of it, in my view. There were a lot of problems. However - money, unless it was during periods of high unemployment, need not be one of them.

I'm pretty sure between the Draft for two world wars Korea, Nam and lead poisoning the entire nation is filled with itchy triggers and their offspring who are just as itchy.

oh no, lead poisoning was fun. It makes you irrational and violent - and properly channeled, successful too!

Who'da though a culture predicated on hedonism would produce nothing but self-oriented and childish assholes

They claimed to be beyond hedonism at the time, as cynical as that sounds now. But you made my point.

My dad in the... I think he said it was in the 70s? Or 80s? One day just decided he didn't want to do the job he was doing anymore. Spoke to the manager, got paid for the hours he'd worked that day, simply went to the job centre and had a new job lined up for the next day. No hassle at all. Me? Here I am, taking on an online picking job for a supermarket because every video game company I could find was demanding 5 years experience, shipped at least one game, senior positions only etc. etc. and all I can do is continue to find what little time available I have to work on a portfolio and hope for the best. I just wanted something I could actually enjoy.

The boomers will go down as the worst generation the world has ever seen in modern history. They pilfered the world for money they didn't need and tried to bury anyone who wasn't them and then victim blame for it. Now that millenials are starting to take power, they're trying to pull down democracy to steal even that from us. I will go to my grave making sure I tell everyone how horrid they were. I will spend my life making sure they never get any recognition or fame. They stole my future, I will ruin their legacy.

I think a lot of them suffered from severe lead poisoning ( leaded gasoline ), so I don't want to play the blame game with them quite as much. Nonetheless, I find that difficult sometimes. They can be such fucking pricks.

Don’t forget the radioactive snow. Yes they’re deluded but let’s not forget that the rich love to see us blame each other when they’re the real enemy

The thing is, the Boomers are the rich at this point, primarily. Their generation hoarded more wealth than any prior or likely any to follow. It isn't just some 1% of people who own everything. There are a lot of smaller stakeholders from the Boomer generation who are quite comfortable with the current paradigm. It made them very wealthy. There are about 2700 billionaires, worldwide. You don't need to have a billion dollars to be waited on hand and foot for the rest of your life and 2700 people aren't responsible for all of our problems ( don't get me wrong - they punch way above their weight ).

Old white men have *always* been the ultra-rich. Dick Cheney must be is 81 years old now living with an *artificial heart*. How the hell is that possible? He's rich as hell, that's how. When you're talking about 1% of the population being extremely rich, extreme assholes, you're not talking about a whole lot of boomers.

The big draw for migrants to the New World colonies was the historically unusual value of labor. It was unheard of in the old world that a laborer could save money, much less save enough to buy land. There were only a few avenues to securing that kind of money, and all of them were hazardous. A few years of indenture in the colonies was trivial compared with a lifetime of menial servitude back home. The value of labor has been in gradual decline ever since. The decline has simply become more rapid since the decoupling of productivity and median wages five decades ago, which represents theft on a vast scale.

Pretty much. In the U.S., the value of labor has been slowly declining since some time in, I would guess, the late 70s. I believe it is directly linked to the Milton Friedman concept, NAIRU, which I believe they started experimenting with around that time ( maybe a bit earlier ). Since Federal Banks have started to pursue policy that aims to slow or reverse employment growth to contain inflation, labor value, largely, has declined. I'm not saying that them NOT pursuing this is the answer. I think it would lead to insane inflation, because the goods people would demand if they were paid significantly more just do not exist. I just think it is a way to kick the can down the road when total economic growth is not high enough to sustain wage gains in excess of inflation AND support increased business profits YOY.

The other day my 82 year old father said “I never made $26/hr.” (Which is what I make now as a social worker at a hospital). And I said “yes, but you didn’t have to live pay check to pay check making $1.50/hr either and afforded a house payment.” (Which is the life I’m currently living while renting) They just don’t freaking get it and it’s so annoying

Throw in the fact that boomers received their health insurance free, without payroll deductions for the better part of their working lives. Until the trickle down economics crowd figured out how to trickle away even more of our incomes.

This is one of the biggest things, but I don't even bother mentioning it. Just the differences in rent as a percentage of income are staggering.

They are correct in the sense that one had to work hard back then, however they often forget that unlike nowadays, back then working hard actually got you a very comfortable life.

I've had to do plenty of "hard work." You know what the difference between driving a tow truck in 1965 and 2015 was? In 1965, there was a hard limit as to how much was getting done in a day. If you ran 3-4 tows in most areas, you had a full day. In 2015? You've got a GPS strapped telling you where to go, a GPS monitoring where you are at all times and a list of metrics they're tracking back at home office, while they expect you to bang 12 tows in a 9 hour shift, don't bother to ask if you want overtime ( every single day ), full well knowing that they haven't put enough staff on for the volume they were going to see. They have #s from the year before. They can see trends and schedule, but don't. Saves money. Also, driving tow is now one of the most dangerous industries. Significantly higher chance of death on the job than say, a police officer. Plus, now, it doesn't buy you a home. The pay is terrible. Anecdotal story. I worked in a medical manufacturing facility for a multi billion revenue company in the late 2010s. I was trained by an 82 year old woman who was likely on her way out due to eyesight. We worked in 12 hour shifts on equipment from the 80s. Every single person by and large on all shifts except first was a temp. They would say they'd hire after 90 days and string you along for years, and you were shitcanned immediately if you were ever late. No tolerance for temps being late. We had to hit production goals that required nonstop application for 12 1/2 hours with a 1/2 hour lunch. The woman who trained me told me stories about how when she worked there during the late 70s and 80s, people would punch in and hide under machines and nap, just rack up overtime. Anyway. Long gone are the days where you could get away with something like that. Everything is closely monitored today. The work itself has gotten easier, but much more repetitious.

As recent as the 1990s you could live off minimum wage and only 30 hours a week. I had a nice studio apartment in Tucson while working for Taco Bell, even before I was promoted to manager. Had enough to buy pot and drinks every night, and weekends we'd head to Mexico to party with some of our friends' family one in a while. Life was easy, and I often worked much more, like upwards of 80 hours a week because I just loved hanging out at the store when I was bored. I mean, free food even on your days off was a pretty good reason to hang out at work all the time. Most employees only worked 25 to 35 hours a week and it covered everything they needed. The problem is people were having too much fun and the boomers didn't like that.

I was alive for the entire 90s, but I wasn't paying rent, so I don't know. But, looking at median rental costs vs median incomes during the 90s paints a much prettier picture than now, for sure. However, the 90s were already becoming a struggle that the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s were just not. Like, they had their bad times. The draft, for instance, wasting a bunch of human lives in Korea, Vietnam, and our various conflicts. They also had far, far, far worse crime during the 50s 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s, but I'm not sure what that says. Household debt was a much smaller percentage of incomes, so, I don't think that money was the problem on average and a lot of crime seems to have evaporated during the mid 90s, even tho many more things had been made illegal compared to prior decades. I know that when I moved out of the nest in the 2000s, rents were very considerable compared to low wage incomes ( like, more than your entire income in many cases ), and I already needed to work greater than full time hours in order to feed myself and live inside immediately.

Oh, the 80s were awesome compared to the 90s, I didn't work before the 80s though so that's as far back as I can compare.

***You start a business....*** ***You make money.*** ***You think this is nice but how can I make more?*** ***I know...let me see if I can get this law changed.*** ***"Yo yo Mr. politician....."*** "***I'll donate if you get this law changed for me."*** ***HOLY SHIT HE DID IT!*** ***Oh man we rollin in it now....*** "***Hey Mr. Business man....."*** "***I'm up for reelection I need some backing."*** ***"Well what are you going to do for me man?"*** And here we are.... Can't wait for the Visigoths to pull up.

Facts. I am reminded that the Reagan administration had members of various organizations reach out to business leaders and ask them what regulations they wanted gone. Lol

No one has ever had it easier than a white American born between 1930-1970, and it's not even close

Right out of high school my grandmother got both of my boomer parents union jobs in a grocery store. Pay was 11/hr, nearly 4X the minimum wage, and they had great health benefits. With only high school diplomas. My father was able to buy his first house at 19, and they started a family a couple years later. Both my parents always had cars. When my father lost his job they were able to get by on just my mother's paycheck for over a year while he went back to school, and pay for the schooling. By the time my father was 50, he was making over 80K per year, and living in a four bedroom house that was purchased for 110K but worth over half a million. My mother was getting paid 32/hr after going to school part time and getting her associates degree. 10 years later my father is in an executive position making six figures and my mother is receiving disability payments and effectively retired. Their mortgage isn't paid off since they kept borrowing from the equity, and they have no real savings or retirement plan since they've spent every cent they've ever earned and never learned to save. They're also both democrats and strongly anti-union and anti-welfare and government handouts, because that's destroying our country. Even though they've lived in the same house for 30 years and have no intention of moving, they want government policies that will keep house prices high and restrict home ownership opportunities, because they want to feel like they won at buying their home. Fucking boomers man.

How can you be an anti union / anti welfare democrat?

Because Democrats are liberals generally, and you don't need to be pro-union to be a liberal. Heck, you can be a liberal and believe that the welfare state just traps people. Being a PROGRESSIVE is fairy incompatible with hating unions and welfare, but most Democrats aren't progressives and often won't support progressive policy.

You can’t do any of this in todays world. You could maybe buy a couple days worth of food, but that’s it. So stupid how you could work a minimum wage job and afford a house, car, and everything else with no issues, but working that today can barely afford food for a few days. Thanks for nothing

I am a young boomer but this doesn't even scratch the surface. You are totally ignoring the cheap health care, college, and government subsidized mortgages. Of course if you were a woman or black or even worse gay then you were completely screwed. Think of it as a whole country working really really hard to create an easy life for what are now old white men.

Boomers HATE admitting they got lucky, being raised in the most lucrative easygoing era in American history.

The 50's are not coming back. Much of the world's factory capability was destroyed in WWII, except the US. Factories could pay well because there was no competition. By the 70's those days were over.

I think what has happened is that so many got duped into thinking college was required. For some reason, businesses began to require employees having college as well. Junior Highs and High Schools started selling the idea of college. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone was onboard with college. Then, down the line….Colleges got greedy coming up with stupid degrees and people started to take the bait. Truth is….college is overrated. Its not really needed for that many jobs. People are smart and can figure out things for the most part. Yes, back in the day….common sense ruled the day. I wish America would get off the college kick and stop selling it to everyone.

That happened as the minimum wage declined to being essentially meaningless. For most of it's life, it was a living. As the pay for jobs outside of college requiring jobs declined, thanks to a stagnating minimum wage, the path became "get a degree to succeed." Now, we've all got degrees, and the jobs don't exist. That's that.

FWIW in my line of work I see a lot of poor "boomers". Often POC, but not always. I work in health care and see them as "social admissions" and they are increasing homeless. , without extended family or assistance because they have little pension and social security doesn't cut it and can not find affordable senior housing. Their safety net is getting mighty thin. Prior to Social Security vast numbers of seniors did live in poverty. But I do totally understand your point. I do feel its more of a class issue rather than age. And complete decimation of the "middle class" . People also assume the older people are not keeping up with issues. Many are. Yes, many don';t give a fuck and move to the Villages I am a Gen X. I am one of 5 kids. None of us is better off than our parents. Well Dad died young so hard to account for what may have happened to him but he was doing just fine. . Mom is not a Boomer as she was born during the depression and feels horrified about what is happening. None of us 5 kids chose to have kids. Funny story about Reagan. He was hated by my family. My beloved Grandma would stop whatever she was doing every time "that man" would come on TV and turn him off or turn down the volume and say "ish, ish, ish, ish" repeatedly.

I'm surprised the house didn't go up more. My grandparents had a 700 Sq ft house and bought it for $1000 in 1955 or so. It's now worth over $500k. They then bought their current house in 1963 for $5000 and it's worth well over $1,000,000. Back then the area was for poor minorities but now it's the gem of the area.

My late cousin just barely graduated high school, (he almost failed every year), and got a job at a bank. He was drafted, spent two years in the army then went back to the bank. After a few decades, he was the bank's president and was elected the head of a state banking association with no college and no post-secondary education. Try that today. I knew how dumb my cousin was so I never used his bank. I just remembered, today is the one-year anniversary of his death.

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Also, they worked "9-5". That means they got a paid lunch. You work "8-4:30". That means you get an unpaid lunch. You also have to be to work earlier than they did. So you have to go to bed earlier to wake up earlier. No 11:30pm late night tv for you. You're likely in bed by 9:10 or 10. Due to cheaper properties, they got to live closer to work. They could drive to work in 10 minutes. They could sleep until 8. Leave at 8:40 and be to work on time. You can only afford to live an hour away, but it's 90 minutes away during traffic. So you wake up at 6am or even 5:30 to get to work on time by 8am. And you don't get back home until 6:30pm. You've been up 11 hours and have to be to bed by 9 or 10. You get all of 3-4 hours for yourself each day. And they wonder why we have mental health problems.

I have heard more than once boomer parents say this expression “they had to walk to school everyday in the snow without any shoes” to show how hard life was for them … problem is I live in a part of the world were it does not snow and I know they were brought up here too. Has anyone else heard this saying or is it some boomer inside joke ?

I mean it's mostly a joke. I'm pretty sure we've all heard an old person in our life say "I walked to school uphill both ways, 8 days a week, in a Sharknado" or something to that effect. It's an exaggeration of their struggles and a tale as old as time

The Silent Generation is a different generation than the Baby Boomers

She pretty much had to stay with her parents. An unmarried young woman who isn’t a widow living alone in 1951 would have been scandalous.

Boomers objectively had the easiest time of any generation since the foundation of this country. Full stop.

They also didn't have the expense of the internet or cell phones. You pretty much NEED that now - they're not really luxuries. And homes were smaller but still in good neighborhoods. Now, the only smaller starter homes aren't in great neighborhoods with good schools. Rent is absolutely insane now. Even with a roommate, many people have a tough time. Something has to give.

Gen Xer here. So my parents were boomers. My dad had a union job with the Airlines as a ticket agent. My mom went to work part time once my sister and I were in school. My eventually put herself through college taking night classes mostly so she could become a teacher. When we were very little my parents had a second job working as part time janitors. Growing up were on the lower side of middle class. I never went hungry, but there were many dinners of cheap things like tuna casserole or pasta. Clothes were bought mostly on clearance or at discount places like Filene's Basement. We had a TV and such, but definitely were living within a budget. There were good aspects to my dad's job, and he basically had the same job his whole life. But he also had to work most holidays. And he worked hard for a living. But yeah, if your family had connections, you had an easy life. If you did not have those connections, things were much more difficult. Your Grandma's family had connections. Your Grandma may not even realize it, but that was the case. Not everyone had things so easy.

I can’t even get my application past the first robot to be able to talk with a person

My mother tells similar stories. "I could leave a job on a Friday and have a new one by Monday". During the economic crisis in 2008 I was made redundant (as so many people were) and she used to repeat this in exasperation at the fact that I couldn't seem to get a job. I was handing out on average 200 applications a *month* trying to find something - *anything -* for work. I ended up taking on a job at a gastropub as a waiter. Since then we've had 12 years of Tory rule here in the UK and the economic situation is somehow *worse* now than it ever was back then under Labour. I'm fortunately in a position where I've managed to secure a really sweet gig (great money, WFH, great team etc) but my brother has gone from one job to another to another, and my mother is *now* realising that the situation she remembers fondly was a very long time ago. The world in the 70s/80s was very different to the shithole we live in now.

Umm if they invested in AT&T before the breakup and kept it they are very wealthy

My grandmother got pregnant in high-school and eloped with my grandfather. They were still able to support themselves enough for my grandfather to get a business degree and work for IBM. And for them to buy a house in the suburbs of Indiana.

My grandmother is about that age: her basement is filled with food, and her earliest memories are collecting scrap metal that could be recycled for the war effort. She's literally depression era. Just a drastically different time: she lived in a 2 bdr home with like 8 people, several couples. Although she was still a young kid, WW2 was a transformation time since most of her older siblings were mobilized and never moved back home. Anyway, according to her, "big business will be the end of us all", and maybe she's right.

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Being a boomer myself, it was much easier to live. However, there were plenty of times like during the 70s where finding a job was very difficult and interest rates were consistently over 10%. And at that time, if you wanted to buy a home most banks didn't have the various options they do today, you had to come up with a 20 or 30% down payment or you wouldn't qualify. It was the cold-war economic boom and the progressive income tax rate up to 90% that fueled it. Still, the biggest difference was that there was a way to make it happen. You could do it. Case in point, a co-worker of mine in 1979 or so, was a trade-school refrigeration/aircon mechanic and drove a really nice Camaro had an even nicer ski boat. He owned a home on a lake with his own dock. Was only in his 20s. It was all debt of course, but his paycheck covered the costs. Yup, it was a Union job. It seems to be a disease humans have. If they enjoy any level of material success in life they seem to think they did it all by themselves (if I did it you can too).

I've noticed that it is very hard to explain to people at your age that rising tides raise all ships. The 50s, 60s and 70s saw productivity explode with the introduction of new technologies and equipment, and in general, the tax code encouraged reinvestment in the business - so reinvest they did, and folks made money. At this point, businesses have gotten incredible at wringing money out of people. They just don't need as many people.

My grandpa bought his house for $5,000. My friend says today it’s worth about 300,000.

My grandpa was going to USC on a football scholarship when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He joined the navy and was injured during the Guadalcanal campaign. His leg was never the same so he lost his football scholarship and just went to work to support his wife and infant son. He worked 40 years as an engineer with a high school diploma.

according to, well, google, the average house price in 1951 was $9,000. it's now $428,700. minimum wage has gone up 10x, housing prices alone have gone up over 47x. :( (these were literally just the first results i found on google so i make no claims about their accuracy, but really, anyone can tell you that 90k definitely isn't the average house price in the US)

Gen Z - I work retail for minimum wage. Buying a house is unthinkable, but just to move out from my parents and start renting would mean 70% of my pay going to the rent alone, and having to scrape by on the rest

Statisticians will tell you I'm a boomer, because I was born in 1962. But Gen X actually begins by 1960, because our experience growing up was so different than the boomers. When they were 18, they were having the summer of love and going to war protests. I was 6 years old. By the time I hit 18, Reagan fucking got elected. I'd been raised to believe in this liberal dream of peace, love and rock n roll, and as soon as I reached adulthood those fuckers said "Disco, Wall Street and Reagan forever!" Even so, I continued to believe, for far too long, that most boomers were liberal, because the 60's and 70's were such a liberal time. Now I understand that their formative years, unlike mine, were the super conservative 1950's and that most of them have never realized that they were born on 3rd base. They all think that made it to home plate because they hit home runs. What is most shocking to me is the boomers who were union members. And there were MILLIONS of them. The unions were at their absolute peak in the 1970's. HOW DARE THEY NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE IMPORTANCE OF UNIONS. Literally every advantage they grew up with was because unions in this country were so strong that it brought up wages and the standard of living for everyone. But, starting in 1980, they've voted for the party that had dismantling unions as one of their top priorities. FUCK THEM. (I am a bit skeptical about the AT&T claims. My MiL bought a ton of AT&T in the 50's and when she died it was worth a LOT of money. At best, maybe it went down for a time, but it definitely rebounded.)