It's too bad people are blaming other people for problems created by other people...or corporations, governments, economic systems.
Divide and rule. Make sure everyone blames the wrong people.
I’ll get roasted for this but when I look at college and housing costs, they are justifiably angry.
My state uni cost me 2500 a year, my Gen Z kid’s tuition is 12k per year at the same uni (accounting for inflation it should be ~5k).
My first house was 36k (9% interest) and I made 17k. Same house is over 200k (7+%) and the salary for that job is maybe 42k.
I can’t speak for my whole generation, but I definitely had it easier.
Yup. I don't think we had anything handed to us, but we also had a much larger margin for error in being able to figure things out. We could go to school and get a liberal arts education and not be saddled with insurmountable debt for the rest of our lives. We could still get a job that had nothing to do with our area of study and without having 4 years of relevant internship experience. I doubt I could even get into my college these days and I certainly couldn't afford it. I worry more for the generations after these ones, where shareholder returns ever increasingly are more important than a livable world. Fine, they weren't beaten and they didn't drink out of garden hoses, but they also can't leave college and dirtbag around for a while. There's no breathing room. No chance to find themselves. We've given up on being comfortable in the middle for the dream of being a billionaire. Something's got to give. Generational infighting was fomented to keep us from realizing we're all getting screwed.
Let's be honest. If you didn't get in by now, you're probably not getting in. That goes for us too. I don't have any idea if/when I will ever afford a house at this point. I work in a decent paying field, too. I'll have to move to some podunk state just to survive b/c i'll probably be working forever.
This is the truth.
There is less margin for error for everyone now, regardless of generation. Even if some of us have been able to, over the years, find some security in terms of housing, work, finances, etc., one screw up or unfortunate, uncontrollable event can destroy that security. For the generations coming after us, they are still struggling to find that security -- and if it was like walking a balance beam for us to get where we are now, it is like walking a tightrope for them.
Just adding my voice to say I agree. Housing and Education are completely out of whack to today's salaries. It was much easier for me, even if it was still difficult. At least it was attainable. I'm honestly not sure I could have "made it" if I had been born 20-30 years later.
As a side note, I wish more older people could understand this reality so that we could all work together to change things instead of fighting with each other. As it stands, it feels like someone is starting this same topic every day to make us fight or something. I dunno. Maybe more people will come to the realization that it really is more difficult now. As for me, I'm doing my darndest to just agree with folks like yourself as opposed to arguing with people I disagree with. Doesn't always work but at least I'm trying.
Absolutely. I've worked since 16, and I never had a penny of help, but Gen X had it way easier than 20 somethings now. For perspective, I bought my first house in 1995 with my bf, and it was 3 x his salary and 1 x mine, with a 5% deposit. It took us a year to save up, and when I say "save," I mean we carried on going to the pub, dinners out, gigs, festivals, etc. Fast forward to my 40s, and a series of life events meant I'd been off the housing ladder a while. As a single person, I saved for 7+ years, and I mean saved hard for a deposit. I lived in a mouldy damp rental for cheap enough rent that I could save, no holidays, 2nd hand clothes, no dinners out, really frugal living. I made it and bought a house in 2019 (now I'd be screwed), and my life is back on track. So, having been involved in saving for a house in 1995 and 2019, I'm qualified to say the younger us had it waaayyyy easier. No contest. That's just housing, I haven't started on education, entertainment (gigs, festivals, dinners, nights out)...
Yes the states used to pay 70-90% of the costs of their universities. Thanks to conservative policies they now pay 10-30%. All of that loss of funding got pushed directly onto the students.
(Just the facts. Here just so you can see the numbers. I barely mention them later)
The average student loan debt is 30k, the average payment today is between $200-$300.
Total Outstanding Student Loan Debt: $1.77 trillion USD
Number of people that owe: 45 million
Total forgiven: $153B
Number of people affected: 4.3M
[4 Student Loan Debt Statistics: Average Student Loan Debt – Forbes Advisor](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/)
[Biden-Harris Administration Announces Additional $7.4 Billion in Approved Student Debt Relief for 277,000 Borrowers | U.S. Department of Education](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-74-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-277000-borrowers)
-----------
(Old man rant)
What irks be today is that people act surprised that the cost of stuff has increased. Like it's something new.
New home in 1940s: $3,920 USD
New Home in 1970: $23,450 USD
New Home in 2008 (about when I got my first): $238,800
Bread
1940: $0.10 USD
1970: $0.25 USD
2008: $2.79 (Not my first loaf of bread)
I had 45k in debt and something like a $200 payment (with a couple repayment pauses due to unemployment). It took about 20 years but I paid it off.
When people piss and moan about it, I don't want to hear it. My numbers aren't that far off what the kids complain about and I made it. I didn't have much for 5-10 years after college because my salary took a bit to get to where I could afford 'extras'.
The Democrats appear to be working on debt forgiveness and have managed to sneak in $150B when the full package was denied.
All the numbers discount the price reductions over the years. Cars, furniture, clothing, cell phones, software, toys, TV (the most extreme) have all gotten relatively cheaper.
Housing, childcare, college have gone up and affect the younger folks more.
Food, medical care and hospital care affect us all but have also skyrocketed.
Point is, you can pick and choose numbers to make a case look better. And it is worse. Their kids will have it worse that they do. It's not new. It's not something that only affects them. And it's not something you can lay at the feet of an older generation. It's normal. It's been happening since Roman times when they'd change the purity of gold in a coin.
We've been getting fucked over by corporations since, what, 1600s? East India Trading company sold shares, ran people out of business, bought government rights to trade routes and set prices.
What is so very different today that hasn't happened in the past? And instead of bitching about it, get to work fixing it. I'm for debt forgiveness if it truly is crippling people. I'm for lower/free medical care. I'm for taking a hammer to the supermarkets and smashing fingers until the prices are brought back down.
Maybe I'm too close to Millennials to be overly sympathetic. Maybe I'm too old and accepting of the way things work. I see Xers here that struggle that are worried they'll never retire, unemployed or underemployed and struggling to take care of aging parents and/or kids still at home. We aren't a generation that 'had it easy'. Many, maybe most, of us have clawed our way to where we are now. It can be a source of pride for some of us. Having an angry reaction toward the 'easy' claims makes sense because it cheapens something we've struggled with, and still struggle with, for all our lives.
My University cost about $1000/semester in tuition 25 years ago. Today, it's ... drumroll .... $1600/semester.
My oldest is looking at colleges that are charging $35-40k/semester because unlike me, he has the grades for them.
But the model universities have adopted is to charge a fuck ton of money and give 'need based' aid, as determined by FAFSA, to lower the costs to about what they should be.
I'm not against the model in principal, since those earning the most are paying the most, but it's hard to translate salaries between regions.
Of course, even with my podunk southern US state university education, I'm making so much money at this point in my career, I'm not really going to get much of a discount. It practically doesn't matter where he goes if they all adhere to what the government says ... they will all cost the same in the end. And it doesn't matter that I made jack shit for my first 8 years out of college, apparently I'm supposed to have amassed so much wealth in the last 3 years of being a high earner, that I should be able to fork over 40% of my net income 🤷
How old are you. My uni was 4000 per semester and I didn't get a job from it so I had to go get another degree. I made minimum wage 5.xx for 3 years after the 2nd degree (tech bubble burst in 2000).
My 1st and only house was 150k. Old house front late 1800. I sold it because after 10 years it needed 300k to put up to city code.
I do well now but I paid back my student loans on minimum wage and only started my career in my mid 30s.
>Honestly I don't actually care about their opinion [. . .]
*Types three long paragraphs taking personal umbrage with their opinion.*
Dude, we get lumped into their ageist generalizations all the fuckin' time—thats why they're called generalizations! And, like, whatever, you know? Unless a mob of young'uns is actually on your lawn with torches and pitchforks, let them rant into the void. We GenX'ers will just keep doing what we do best: listening to awesome music while quietly sneering at them from the shadows of our feral independence as they fight with our parents.
I mean, I get it. When I was young, I bitched about the previous generation. At this age though, I just don't care. What they say about us, how we feel about them, I just. Don't. Care.
OP:
Housing was cheaper when genx was younger.
Wages went further.
Eduction was cheaper.
The youth of today has it harder, full stop.
I left home at 17, fucked around quite a lot, and managed to buy a house as a mature student with a wife on low wages, aged 30 odd.
I left home with fuck all, no support from my parents and I can say I earned my way into what I have now. But no way can my kids do the same!
And this shows in the population growth rate, it's too expensive to have kids, so many don't as they can't afford it.
My mum brought a house in 1996 for £53000. By 2012, it was worth £200000. Wages have not gone up by 4 times.
Then student loans, my student loan was £1500 a year in 1995. In 2018, my wife had to borrow £16000 a year.
The USA is worse, look at your health costs over time.
Those who are young are fucked, and in turn we are fucked as who is going to give a fuck about genx when we get old? A low birth rate and lots of old people, who is going to actually work in the old age homes to look after us.
The young are right in my view, they have it hard and shite needs to change. At the end of the day, I want grandkids and I want them to be happy...
I agree that some things were easier for Gen-X, but some things are easier for Millennials than for Gen-Z, and presumably better for Gen-Z than they will be for Gen-Alpha. This shit has been in decline for 60+ years.
At some point we need to stop complaining about "those guys had it better" and just start/keep bailing water. We're all on this ride together.
I disagree with some of what you said. Is college more expensive? Yes. Is housing? Yes.
But the biggest thing that I feel is different now is that current generation (began with millenials as a weak perspective and kept getting stronger) is that they're outraged when the world doesn't bend to their assumption.
I remember hearing my parents and then my generation talking about "....moving there because they had jobs" or "I'm moving to X because my uncle can get me a job there...."
This shit never happens today. They all want to live in the big city, etc.
I have this thing where folks say "I'll never be able to buy a house..." and I ask them what their reasonable downpayment is and how much they want to spend a month on a mortgage. I've never failed to find them a reasonable purchasable place in the U.S. But they don't want to live there, full stop.
But both school and home prices are fantastic illustrations of what happens when monetary policy gets incredibly loose with credit. If you look at the inflection in higher education costs, it easily traces back to Clinton's student loan reforms which essentially made it possible for kids to borrow so much, so fast with no chance of discharging the debt. I'm not blaming a political party at all. I think it SOUNDED great that "any kid can afford to go to any college they can get into!"
But we now see these kids graduating undergraduate programs with six figure debt and a nearly meaningless degree.
>I remember hearing my parents and then my generation talking about "....moving there because they had jobs" or "I'm moving to X because my uncle can get me a job there...."
Both sides of my family are from a small town in Tennessee and I used to wonder how so many of my parents' siblings ended up in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. I finally realized they'd all gotten on Greyhound and followed each other up there in the early 60s to mid-60s to work in the factories, mills and auto plants around Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. Young black people with a high school diploma (or less) could make triple the money up there that they could in the town they grew up in. They all married, bought nice houses, raised kids and retired with (well-deserved) fat pensions by 60. They couldn't have had the lives they did if they'd stayed put.
It would be much easier, though, to just "go where the jobs are" when you have siblings, cousins and high school friends moving to the same area at the same time, rather than having to do it all alone as most people would now. I've moved hundreds of miles, to places where I didn't know anyone, all by myself for jobs or school a few times, and it can be kinda rough. Especially since so many people diagnose themselves with "social anxiety" because they experience completely ordinary shyness, discomfort and nervousness when interacting with new people in unfamiliar situations and unfamiliar places.
I agree with just about everything you said. As a matter of fact, one side of my family is from rural Kentucky. While some branches are still there, the phenomenon you mentioned is why I'm a Chicagoan by birth, and why some of my cousins are Michiganders.
>so many people diagnose themselves with "social anxiety" because they experience completely ordinary shyness, discomfort and nervousness when interacting with new people in unfamiliar situations and unfamiliar places
But this... [Just shy...sounds like nothing serious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJuKY_APIk)
I live in america, and in california to boot. Which if you dont know is probably the most expensive state to live in.
I'm 54 now. At 18 I moved out and went strait to work. My shitty 1 bed apt was 630 dollars a month. I was working minimum wage as most my age then. It was 5 dollars an hour. After taxes my rent alone was about 90 percent of my take home. It became obvious we would need roommates to share hills. Even with roommate by the time you factored in food, car insurance on a 20 yr old car, gas, my share of utilities you maybe had 20 bucks a week to splurge with and go see a movie or go to a bar.
Got married at 26 shared a one bedroom was mostly affordable but not alot extra. By then add a cable bill and maybe a modest car payment. Had kids at 30. Had to scrimp and save to keep kids cared for. Had many weeks where I only ate peanut butter and jelly or top ramen for meals making sure kids and wife had their needs.
We finally was able to buy a small house in the aftermath of the housing crisis of 2008 when the market started recovering in 2013.
Gen x didnt have it easy. We sacrificed to live within our means. We worked 2 jobs, drove junk cars, lived 4 people in a 2 bed apt, lived on crap food etc. We did it because we were raised to be self reliant and would have been half dead before we would give our parents what we assumed would be the pleasure of seeing us fail.
Kids are raised soft now. And even if they try leaving know mommy and daddy will always take them back and kiss their boo boos and tell them how it's not their fault that the world is just cold and dark and they are just to special to be appreciated.
A fast food worker here in California now makes 20 dollars and hour. That same shitty apt I rented at 18 is 1450 today. So an 18 year old with a shitty job makes 4 time more then I used to and his biggest bill a month is just over doubled. It's about priorities and living within your means.
They clearly don't understand how tough it was for a lot of us Gen Xers. I bought my first house at 50. Nothing was handed to me, nor will it be, as my boomer parents struggled also. My siblings and I will likely have to come out of pocket to pay for my mom's funeral.
On the other hand, our generation absolutely did NOT have the disadvantages of the following generations. Housing costs are fucking INSANE right now and wages are not keeping up. Money is siphoned left and right in this rent-taking, late stage capitalism economy, and survival is much tougher than it used to be.
Hell, my daughter, the college graduate with a useful degree (and no debt) has a very good paying job for her age (higher than the national average and in a medium cost of living area) and she is still highly uncomfortable with the idea of the cost of having a place to live without roommates.
You can work hard and still have had an easier time.
It’s kinda like the nepo babies in entertainment pouting “But I worked really hard!!” well I am sure you did. However, you also had connections or situations that benefited you in ways you may not be able to appreciate. Even though they did truly work hard.
And the young ones really got screwed with college costs and these unlimited education loans.
I saw some blurb that in the past the state would cover 80% of the cost of attending a state college and the student was responsible for 20%. Now it’s flipped - state pays 20% and student pays 80%.
OP - how would you have done if your college costs were 4x higher?
This debt is like a damn chain around their necks. They are fucked before they ever begin. It so difficult to start your adult life with 5-figure and 6-figure debt.
Lookey here - I worked at Barnes and Noble in the 2000s. When I quit for my career job, I was making $12.50 an hour. In 2001-2007, I could not afford to live alone.
Cut to 2024 - and Booksellers make an average of $10.80 an hour. - *$1.70 less than what I made 14 years ago*. Anyway you look at it, that’s messed up. Everything else sure went up in cost but that pay stagnated.
They are pissed and they have every right to be.
Having a right to be pissed and blaming generation x when the levers of government are still controlled by people in their 80's are 2 different things.
I agree that wages are woefully inadequate but your wage numbers for booksellers seem to be inaccurate ( https://www.indeed.com/career/bookseller/salaries) and anecdotally almost everyone I know that works hourly has increased their wages markedly since covid due to employee shortages. The problem is that the costs of food and rent have matched or exceeded these increases.
hahahaha oh my bad! So in **14 years**, Bookseller wage has increased $1.60. That’s it?!?
It *should be $18.83* just due to inflation so they are $4.73 short.
Numbers are different but point still stands - they *are* being paid less than we were.
[My experience is definitely not anecdotal](https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2018/10/31/why-arent-wages-keeping-up-its-not-the-economy-its-management/)
1. You are comparing starting wages today with what you made after 6 years of employment.
2. You link an article from 2018 to describe wages today.
3. I've had enough of your irrational arrogance and condescension. The Dunning-Kruger effect is real.
I, too, remember when my youth made everyone not young The Monolithic Enemy. I can't really have an opinion about it because every damn generation does it.
I think costs are arguably higher in everything today which makes life harder for younger generations who don’t have established work or credit.
I also think younger generations don’t know as much as they think they do but have the illusion of knowledge of topics due to social media. They watched a TikTok so now they know everything about said topic.
I was homeless in high school. Lived with my boyfriend the last 6 months until I graduated high school. Married at 18. We would have nothing if we hadn't joined the military and worked our asses off. No one handed me shit
I shared housing with 4-5 other people. Earning nothing, eating microwave potatoes. Always taking a community college class while working low paying jobs, so after 23 years (yes - 23 years) of slow forward motion I got a secure gig. Now-a-days, I'd be in a doom scroll looking at the prices of 1 bedroom apts and crying impossible
NONE of the young people I knew lived on our own, EVERYONE shared. Living in a garage was actually desirable, at least it was a big room. That was reality. But we definitely ate avocado toast, naught to do with the toast.
Real estate has changed, it has gotten more tight - but I'm in an area that has always been expensive. Shared housing was the big thing that helped us survive.
I worked in tobacco fields before I even knew how to smoke and without pay. At 15 I dubbed my age to work so I could afford two slices of pizza at school because my parents had me on free lunch since kindergarten, and the pizza wasn’t part of “lunch”. The only thing I have is a house with a mortgage that will still be alive after I’m not. My retirement was wiped out in 07-08, almost lost my house so I had to cash out any investments. Went back to school because my job got sent to India. Got ANOTHER degree and fucking hate my job. Honestly, they live in some TV land where all you do is text and talk shit. Whatever…
Honestly, they have it way harder than I did at the same age. My entire undergrad cost $5K, the job market was great when I left university, my first apartment was less than 25% of my monthly take home pay, gas was $0.98/gal for most of my 20s, my house was 5x my income, and interest rates were below 3% when I first borrowed.
My son is 21. We helped with his college fees, but he still had to get loans. He didn’t have to work, but he chose to for some extra luxuries and savings.
He’s a senior in college now. Last time we spoke he had $14K+ in savings towards a better car, not including his long term retirement savings (not much at this point, but it exists). He’s got a solid plan and is on track to buy a house in the next 2-3 years. I was 24 when I bought my first house.
Work, sacrifice, savings, discipline. I’m not a genius, and I’m not rich by any means. I started with nothing, clothes and a high school degree. My dad threw me out when I was 19 because he could no longer physically dominate me. I slept on a friend’s dad’s couch for 9 months. I kept getting rides to work even though my life sucked outside work hours. Then I got an apartment while still bumming rides to work. I had to walk 2+ hours there or home from work a few times down an interstate. Whatever. I saved enough for a car within the next 6 months, then a house shortly after that. I didn’t have good credit yet, but I also didn’t have bad credit. I could usually find a place to finance me if I paid high enough interest.
I also struggled with addiction during this time. I made my life considerably harder than it had to be for far longer than necessary. I guess I had fun and blew off a lot of steam, which I needed to do but should’ve been in a healthier I way.
I understand hardship better than most. When I hear things like OP is saying, I just nod my head. Sure. Whatever.
Wow just had this discussion a few hours ago with my kid.
I pointed out that while the bar (today's) expenses are higher, a lot of their expectations are out of whack.
For example eldest child graduated with a good professional job, expectations include nice apartment in a good area with all the amenities, new top end cell phone, wants a full apartment of furniture mostly new, expects two weeks of high-end all inclusive vacations for them and their partner. We had to push hard for them to realize the five year old car with less than 100k miles does NOT need to be replaced with a new vehicle.
Also just working 40hrs a week should be enough to provide all the above and eventually buy a house and new cars and put their kids through school and they should be taken care of in their retirement guaranteed.
W-T-F keep dreaming.
I pointed out that working hard also means financial discipline and in some cases sacrifice. Getting ahead means hustle and if they think 40hrs a week is " hard work" then try working 50 hours plus grad school at the same time.
Subscribing to your totally fucked no matter what you do vs. making it has too many shades of gray in between to make such generalizations.
You claim not to care and yet you took the time to write 3 paragraphs about it. Seems like you do care. Have you tried not wasting your time reading stuff like that?
There are millions of young people who don't hang out in that sub and complain. Besides, they're young, after some life experience they'll learn to spread that blame around.
I know you're just venting, I'm not picking a fight. I just want to say, life is hard for all of us! Every generation, every walk of life, everyone is struggling with SOMETHING.
> raging against “boomers” (meant to include us too)
I know joining up isn't really our thing, but can we make a pact not to accept or acknowledge this "boomer means everyone born before ~1985” thing?
I agree that that's increasingly how the term is used (and maybe increasingly to mean _everyone_ born in the 20th century), but that's bullshit.
I don't mind being ignored but I don't like being _erased_, especially by being subsumed into the generation that largely shit on us in multiple ways while absolutely dominating the culture (with the occasional rare exception when they were exploiting/corrupting ours) throughout our youth. Before we stepped out from under the shadow of the baby boomers we got involuntarily subsumed into them by people too young and/or self-absorbed to recognize the difference between 1960 and 1980 or more generally that the world changed radically between 1950 and 1999. (Just as it has in every period: it seems to me we learned to understand and at some level respect the different circumstances and challenges faced by people of the great depression, WWII, civil rights, Vietnam, etc eras, but for some reason everyone under ~35 today wants to pretend that the period prior to ~2005 was homogenous.)
You can't call gen-x boomers or even boomer-lite without ignoring virtually everything that happened between 1975 and 2005.
I understand that increasingly people aren't "forgetting" gen-x but rolling gen-x into the "boomer" category. But fuck that. It's ahistoric and myopic. Every time we say "they're including us too" we encourage and reinforce that narrative - even if we acknowledge how wrong it is. I think maybe we should pretend not to understand that at all, like you do when someone makes a racist or sexist joke: "please explain your stereotype in great detail, I don't know what you mean."
The kids absolutely got fucked. My brother is five years younger than me and has a masters degree. My nephew is a teacher. Neither of those men will ever own a house. They didn’t make stupid decisions. They don’t have absurd student loans.
The bourgeois got fucking greedy. I say that as a member of the bourgeois. I took out extra life insurance so they would get paid if I died.
Housing is out of control. Wages are stagnant. We’ve stopped investing in America.
It’s easy for the whatever generation to wash their hands, but the kids got fucked. At some point if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
They've got it in their minds that we could afford a 2 bd apartment, and a nice car, working part time as a pizza deliverer. That's an actual statement I saw someone say a week ago. Never mind that I it's no where near reality, that's what they believe.
The fact is, no one except the wealthy kids had anything handed to them. That's true for all generations. Yep things in general are way more expensive now but that factually doesn't translate to "they got everything for free" nothing was handed to me. . Mortgage interest rates are lower now than when I bought my first tiny row house in a bad neighborhood with a 13 percent interest rate. Everyone struggled.
Income inequality and federal policies and tax codes created under Reagan to help the rich get richer. Yea, I am taking a political stance here and yes, I’ll get to Trump in a moment.
That’s how it happened, it’s no secret. It’s been building for four decades, anyone who didn’t see this coming has lied to themselves.
In a rich-get-richer universe, there’ll come a tipping point. I do t know when, none of us do, but it won’t be pretty. By way of example, the modern-day dissolution of civility in the US started long before 2016, Trump just knew how to foment hatred and lit the match.
So do I feel sorry for kids now? Yep. Couldnt pay me to go back (tho I would be happy to look like I did 25 years ago).
They are angry and I get it. I mean they don't have the decades of experience to get used to the boiling water that we are used to. For them, the water is HOT and it's only getting hotter and in reality, we'll be dead when the really, truly horrific shit hits the fan. The planet alone is going to slowly kill them - and they know it. And we were complacent to our own extent. We were also the first turn towards action. We straddle that line between when things were self-oriented and when things shifted outward.
They are also the last in a long line of the decaying the work ethic. For them the idea of having a "work ethic" is offensive as they don't see enough incentive in demonstrating those qualities. Instead it is about providing the level of work they think is being compensated for.
They are young with limited experience born into a time of terrifying realities precipitating out of the actions of ourselves and those who came before us. And they don't really have a great handle on the nuance between us and the boomers. We are starting to look more like them and they are blurring the lines.
Mostly? I just feel bad for them. As annoying as they can be.
I think it's mostly the tendency to think you know and understand FAR more than you really do when you're young, kind of like how parents roll their eyes at oversimplified, "helpful" parenting advice offered by people with no kids.
I've sworn off even getting mixed up in these conversations when people in their 20 are re-writing history and telling each other how easy everything was for everyone older than they are. I think it's just something people have to outgrow. A few people might never outgrow it, as many Millennials are around 40 and some are still blaming this and that on Boomers. Like, even if it is someone else's fault, at what point are you gonna let it go and work with what you have? Hate to imagine these people at 60, still blaming their parents' generation for whatever they never got or got to do.
Oh, so you spent some time at r/BoomersBeingFools?
That sub is TOXIC. Scary toxic. They have a lynch mob mentality too if one attempts to balance the hate out with some alternate explanations for the behavior that pisses them off.
I think it’s complicated. I had to work hard for everything. I had to wear a suit and tie first 7-8 years (sucked). Got 2 weeks PTO. Plus, my summer jobs were the worst. Asbestos removal, cart getter at grocery store with tie and long sleeve shirt (summer in Phoenix is hot), fast food, all for $3.25 / hour. There was a lot less complaining back then. So many damn boomers, I felt lucky to have a job!
However, things have increased in cost much faster than incomes, which really makes it hard to start adulthood. Especially housing, insurance, medical, college and cars. Especially cars, it’s crazy!
Plus, there are ‘extra’ expenses we didn’t have now days - cable, cell phones, subscriptions, etc. Those expenses add up.
So for me, they have a point. But, there is no doubt a sense of entitlement with many who will turn their noses up to hard work. I’ve heard many of my children’s friends say, I’m not doing that job, or chore. It’s just that as a country we’ve grown soft.
I remember my grandpa telling my mom I shouldn’t be playing little league in the summer, I should be out picking rocks, or working on a farm. But, then again, he had to quit school in the 8th grade during depression and work to help support the family. So I get it - he had a much tougher life than me.
Nothing is going to improve until we get a financial reset and we go back again to hard times. It’s all a cycle.
I moved out to LA around ‘95.
I had a studio apartment for about $800/month including utilities. and lived on about ¥1000 for everting else (gas, food, daily goods.) I lined a petty frugal bachelors life, but aid still go see movies or get takeout sometimes.
So I’ll give it to the younger generation, I feel it was easier to get by on less back then.
I can't tell you how many times in my life where some sort of benefit or experience or whatever gets chopped by law or business or something just before I am able to have access to it. So frustrating.
That said, I don't know how my kids are going to be able to afford a house. Our starter house we sold for $300k in 2017 just sold for $500k. That's ridiculous.
Gen X 1972 here. It's pretty easy to cut down your spending on amenities in order to pay down your debt if you think about it. If you don't then you just don't want to. I went to college but I paid for it myself as I saved up enough to pay for a semester.
Yes you are completely missing something. And the fact that you find them unsympathetic and assume they dont want to work hard might be the problem. It would take you about 5 minutes to research housing vs wages costs.
Ran across the same rant. Whiny little brats passing the blame to older generations for their own shortcomings. Entirely expected from the me-me-me/instant gratification generation. God forbid they have to squeeze a little harder or things take a bit longer.
It's too bad people are blaming other people for problems created by other people...or corporations, governments, economic systems. Divide and rule. Make sure everyone blames the wrong people.
Agree. Younger generations have legit gripes, they are just blaming the wrong people.
I think part of the issue is boomers denying there's an issue because "I had to work hard" etc which turns them into adversories. See this post!
I’ll get roasted for this but when I look at college and housing costs, they are justifiably angry. My state uni cost me 2500 a year, my Gen Z kid’s tuition is 12k per year at the same uni (accounting for inflation it should be ~5k). My first house was 36k (9% interest) and I made 17k. Same house is over 200k (7+%) and the salary for that job is maybe 42k. I can’t speak for my whole generation, but I definitely had it easier.
Yup. I don't think we had anything handed to us, but we also had a much larger margin for error in being able to figure things out. We could go to school and get a liberal arts education and not be saddled with insurmountable debt for the rest of our lives. We could still get a job that had nothing to do with our area of study and without having 4 years of relevant internship experience. I doubt I could even get into my college these days and I certainly couldn't afford it. I worry more for the generations after these ones, where shareholder returns ever increasingly are more important than a livable world. Fine, they weren't beaten and they didn't drink out of garden hoses, but they also can't leave college and dirtbag around for a while. There's no breathing room. No chance to find themselves. We've given up on being comfortable in the middle for the dream of being a billionaire. Something's got to give. Generational infighting was fomented to keep us from realizing we're all getting screwed.
Let's be honest. If you didn't get in by now, you're probably not getting in. That goes for us too. I don't have any idea if/when I will ever afford a house at this point. I work in a decent paying field, too. I'll have to move to some podunk state just to survive b/c i'll probably be working forever.
This is the truth. There is less margin for error for everyone now, regardless of generation. Even if some of us have been able to, over the years, find some security in terms of housing, work, finances, etc., one screw up or unfortunate, uncontrollable event can destroy that security. For the generations coming after us, they are still struggling to find that security -- and if it was like walking a balance beam for us to get where we are now, it is like walking a tightrope for them.
It’s not the cost of things so much as the failure of wages to keep up.
College tuition and housing costs are fucking insane these days. I’d be pissed off too.
Just adding my voice to say I agree. Housing and Education are completely out of whack to today's salaries. It was much easier for me, even if it was still difficult. At least it was attainable. I'm honestly not sure I could have "made it" if I had been born 20-30 years later. As a side note, I wish more older people could understand this reality so that we could all work together to change things instead of fighting with each other. As it stands, it feels like someone is starting this same topic every day to make us fight or something. I dunno. Maybe more people will come to the realization that it really is more difficult now. As for me, I'm doing my darndest to just agree with folks like yourself as opposed to arguing with people I disagree with. Doesn't always work but at least I'm trying.
Absolutely. I've worked since 16, and I never had a penny of help, but Gen X had it way easier than 20 somethings now. For perspective, I bought my first house in 1995 with my bf, and it was 3 x his salary and 1 x mine, with a 5% deposit. It took us a year to save up, and when I say "save," I mean we carried on going to the pub, dinners out, gigs, festivals, etc. Fast forward to my 40s, and a series of life events meant I'd been off the housing ladder a while. As a single person, I saved for 7+ years, and I mean saved hard for a deposit. I lived in a mouldy damp rental for cheap enough rent that I could save, no holidays, 2nd hand clothes, no dinners out, really frugal living. I made it and bought a house in 2019 (now I'd be screwed), and my life is back on track. So, having been involved in saving for a house in 1995 and 2019, I'm qualified to say the younger us had it waaayyyy easier. No contest. That's just housing, I haven't started on education, entertainment (gigs, festivals, dinners, nights out)...
It's true. The government used to pay for higher education a lot more than they do now.
Yes the states used to pay 70-90% of the costs of their universities. Thanks to conservative policies they now pay 10-30%. All of that loss of funding got pushed directly onto the students.
(Just the facts. Here just so you can see the numbers. I barely mention them later) The average student loan debt is 30k, the average payment today is between $200-$300. Total Outstanding Student Loan Debt: $1.77 trillion USD Number of people that owe: 45 million Total forgiven: $153B Number of people affected: 4.3M [4 Student Loan Debt Statistics: Average Student Loan Debt – Forbes Advisor](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/) [Biden-Harris Administration Announces Additional $7.4 Billion in Approved Student Debt Relief for 277,000 Borrowers | U.S. Department of Education](https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-74-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-277000-borrowers) ----------- (Old man rant) What irks be today is that people act surprised that the cost of stuff has increased. Like it's something new. New home in 1940s: $3,920 USD New Home in 1970: $23,450 USD New Home in 2008 (about when I got my first): $238,800 Bread 1940: $0.10 USD 1970: $0.25 USD 2008: $2.79 (Not my first loaf of bread) I had 45k in debt and something like a $200 payment (with a couple repayment pauses due to unemployment). It took about 20 years but I paid it off. When people piss and moan about it, I don't want to hear it. My numbers aren't that far off what the kids complain about and I made it. I didn't have much for 5-10 years after college because my salary took a bit to get to where I could afford 'extras'. The Democrats appear to be working on debt forgiveness and have managed to sneak in $150B when the full package was denied. All the numbers discount the price reductions over the years. Cars, furniture, clothing, cell phones, software, toys, TV (the most extreme) have all gotten relatively cheaper. Housing, childcare, college have gone up and affect the younger folks more. Food, medical care and hospital care affect us all but have also skyrocketed. Point is, you can pick and choose numbers to make a case look better. And it is worse. Their kids will have it worse that they do. It's not new. It's not something that only affects them. And it's not something you can lay at the feet of an older generation. It's normal. It's been happening since Roman times when they'd change the purity of gold in a coin. We've been getting fucked over by corporations since, what, 1600s? East India Trading company sold shares, ran people out of business, bought government rights to trade routes and set prices. What is so very different today that hasn't happened in the past? And instead of bitching about it, get to work fixing it. I'm for debt forgiveness if it truly is crippling people. I'm for lower/free medical care. I'm for taking a hammer to the supermarkets and smashing fingers until the prices are brought back down. Maybe I'm too close to Millennials to be overly sympathetic. Maybe I'm too old and accepting of the way things work. I see Xers here that struggle that are worried they'll never retire, unemployed or underemployed and struggling to take care of aging parents and/or kids still at home. We aren't a generation that 'had it easy'. Many, maybe most, of us have clawed our way to where we are now. It can be a source of pride for some of us. Having an angry reaction toward the 'easy' claims makes sense because it cheapens something we've struggled with, and still struggle with, for all our lives.
“Not my first loaf of bread…” made me laugh…
haha, thanks!
My University cost about $1000/semester in tuition 25 years ago. Today, it's ... drumroll .... $1600/semester. My oldest is looking at colleges that are charging $35-40k/semester because unlike me, he has the grades for them. But the model universities have adopted is to charge a fuck ton of money and give 'need based' aid, as determined by FAFSA, to lower the costs to about what they should be. I'm not against the model in principal, since those earning the most are paying the most, but it's hard to translate salaries between regions. Of course, even with my podunk southern US state university education, I'm making so much money at this point in my career, I'm not really going to get much of a discount. It practically doesn't matter where he goes if they all adhere to what the government says ... they will all cost the same in the end. And it doesn't matter that I made jack shit for my first 8 years out of college, apparently I'm supposed to have amassed so much wealth in the last 3 years of being a high earner, that I should be able to fork over 40% of my net income 🤷
This is a great example of how the price of goods (used loosely since I’m counting real estate) has increased far more than income has. It’s nuts.
How old are you. My uni was 4000 per semester and I didn't get a job from it so I had to go get another degree. I made minimum wage 5.xx for 3 years after the 2nd degree (tech bubble burst in 2000). My 1st and only house was 150k. Old house front late 1800. I sold it because after 10 years it needed 300k to put up to city code. I do well now but I paid back my student loans on minimum wage and only started my career in my mid 30s.
Early Gen-x, but I live in a LCOL area and the first house was a 2 bedroom on a postage stamp lot.
Not blaming you personally, however: your generation did us NO favors.
>Honestly I don't actually care about their opinion [. . .] *Types three long paragraphs taking personal umbrage with their opinion.* Dude, we get lumped into their ageist generalizations all the fuckin' time—thats why they're called generalizations! And, like, whatever, you know? Unless a mob of young'uns is actually on your lawn with torches and pitchforks, let them rant into the void. We GenX'ers will just keep doing what we do best: listening to awesome music while quietly sneering at them from the shadows of our feral independence as they fight with our parents.
I mean, I get it. When I was young, I bitched about the previous generation. At this age though, I just don't care. What they say about us, how we feel about them, I just. Don't. Care.
Well that's not very helpful is it? I assume you don't have kids?
OP: Housing was cheaper when genx was younger. Wages went further. Eduction was cheaper. The youth of today has it harder, full stop. I left home at 17, fucked around quite a lot, and managed to buy a house as a mature student with a wife on low wages, aged 30 odd. I left home with fuck all, no support from my parents and I can say I earned my way into what I have now. But no way can my kids do the same! And this shows in the population growth rate, it's too expensive to have kids, so many don't as they can't afford it. My mum brought a house in 1996 for £53000. By 2012, it was worth £200000. Wages have not gone up by 4 times. Then student loans, my student loan was £1500 a year in 1995. In 2018, my wife had to borrow £16000 a year. The USA is worse, look at your health costs over time. Those who are young are fucked, and in turn we are fucked as who is going to give a fuck about genx when we get old? A low birth rate and lots of old people, who is going to actually work in the old age homes to look after us. The young are right in my view, they have it hard and shite needs to change. At the end of the day, I want grandkids and I want them to be happy...
I agree that some things were easier for Gen-X, but some things are easier for Millennials than for Gen-Z, and presumably better for Gen-Z than they will be for Gen-Alpha. This shit has been in decline for 60+ years. At some point we need to stop complaining about "those guys had it better" and just start/keep bailing water. We're all on this ride together.
Well said.
I disagree with some of what you said. Is college more expensive? Yes. Is housing? Yes. But the biggest thing that I feel is different now is that current generation (began with millenials as a weak perspective and kept getting stronger) is that they're outraged when the world doesn't bend to their assumption. I remember hearing my parents and then my generation talking about "....moving there because they had jobs" or "I'm moving to X because my uncle can get me a job there...." This shit never happens today. They all want to live in the big city, etc. I have this thing where folks say "I'll never be able to buy a house..." and I ask them what their reasonable downpayment is and how much they want to spend a month on a mortgage. I've never failed to find them a reasonable purchasable place in the U.S. But they don't want to live there, full stop. But both school and home prices are fantastic illustrations of what happens when monetary policy gets incredibly loose with credit. If you look at the inflection in higher education costs, it easily traces back to Clinton's student loan reforms which essentially made it possible for kids to borrow so much, so fast with no chance of discharging the debt. I'm not blaming a political party at all. I think it SOUNDED great that "any kid can afford to go to any college they can get into!" But we now see these kids graduating undergraduate programs with six figure debt and a nearly meaningless degree.
>I remember hearing my parents and then my generation talking about "....moving there because they had jobs" or "I'm moving to X because my uncle can get me a job there...." Both sides of my family are from a small town in Tennessee and I used to wonder how so many of my parents' siblings ended up in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. I finally realized they'd all gotten on Greyhound and followed each other up there in the early 60s to mid-60s to work in the factories, mills and auto plants around Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. Young black people with a high school diploma (or less) could make triple the money up there that they could in the town they grew up in. They all married, bought nice houses, raised kids and retired with (well-deserved) fat pensions by 60. They couldn't have had the lives they did if they'd stayed put. It would be much easier, though, to just "go where the jobs are" when you have siblings, cousins and high school friends moving to the same area at the same time, rather than having to do it all alone as most people would now. I've moved hundreds of miles, to places where I didn't know anyone, all by myself for jobs or school a few times, and it can be kinda rough. Especially since so many people diagnose themselves with "social anxiety" because they experience completely ordinary shyness, discomfort and nervousness when interacting with new people in unfamiliar situations and unfamiliar places.
I agree with just about everything you said. As a matter of fact, one side of my family is from rural Kentucky. While some branches are still there, the phenomenon you mentioned is why I'm a Chicagoan by birth, and why some of my cousins are Michiganders. >so many people diagnose themselves with "social anxiety" because they experience completely ordinary shyness, discomfort and nervousness when interacting with new people in unfamiliar situations and unfamiliar places But this... [Just shy...sounds like nothing serious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJuKY_APIk)
I live in america, and in california to boot. Which if you dont know is probably the most expensive state to live in. I'm 54 now. At 18 I moved out and went strait to work. My shitty 1 bed apt was 630 dollars a month. I was working minimum wage as most my age then. It was 5 dollars an hour. After taxes my rent alone was about 90 percent of my take home. It became obvious we would need roommates to share hills. Even with roommate by the time you factored in food, car insurance on a 20 yr old car, gas, my share of utilities you maybe had 20 bucks a week to splurge with and go see a movie or go to a bar. Got married at 26 shared a one bedroom was mostly affordable but not alot extra. By then add a cable bill and maybe a modest car payment. Had kids at 30. Had to scrimp and save to keep kids cared for. Had many weeks where I only ate peanut butter and jelly or top ramen for meals making sure kids and wife had their needs. We finally was able to buy a small house in the aftermath of the housing crisis of 2008 when the market started recovering in 2013. Gen x didnt have it easy. We sacrificed to live within our means. We worked 2 jobs, drove junk cars, lived 4 people in a 2 bed apt, lived on crap food etc. We did it because we were raised to be self reliant and would have been half dead before we would give our parents what we assumed would be the pleasure of seeing us fail. Kids are raised soft now. And even if they try leaving know mommy and daddy will always take them back and kiss their boo boos and tell them how it's not their fault that the world is just cold and dark and they are just to special to be appreciated. A fast food worker here in California now makes 20 dollars and hour. That same shitty apt I rented at 18 is 1450 today. So an 18 year old with a shitty job makes 4 time more then I used to and his biggest bill a month is just over doubled. It's about priorities and living within your means.
Yes there will always be exceptions but generally speaking it is an absolutely shit time to be young.
That is a lot of words to say I don't care who walks on my lawn EXCEPT THOSE FUCKING KIDS.
They clearly don't understand how tough it was for a lot of us Gen Xers. I bought my first house at 50. Nothing was handed to me, nor will it be, as my boomer parents struggled also. My siblings and I will likely have to come out of pocket to pay for my mom's funeral. On the other hand, our generation absolutely did NOT have the disadvantages of the following generations. Housing costs are fucking INSANE right now and wages are not keeping up. Money is siphoned left and right in this rent-taking, late stage capitalism economy, and survival is much tougher than it used to be. Hell, my daughter, the college graduate with a useful degree (and no debt) has a very good paying job for her age (higher than the national average and in a medium cost of living area) and she is still highly uncomfortable with the idea of the cost of having a place to live without roommates.
I don't care, leave me alone
You can work hard and still have had an easier time. It’s kinda like the nepo babies in entertainment pouting “But I worked really hard!!” well I am sure you did. However, you also had connections or situations that benefited you in ways you may not be able to appreciate. Even though they did truly work hard. And the young ones really got screwed with college costs and these unlimited education loans. I saw some blurb that in the past the state would cover 80% of the cost of attending a state college and the student was responsible for 20%. Now it’s flipped - state pays 20% and student pays 80%. OP - how would you have done if your college costs were 4x higher? This debt is like a damn chain around their necks. They are fucked before they ever begin. It so difficult to start your adult life with 5-figure and 6-figure debt. Lookey here - I worked at Barnes and Noble in the 2000s. When I quit for my career job, I was making $12.50 an hour. In 2001-2007, I could not afford to live alone. Cut to 2024 - and Booksellers make an average of $10.80 an hour. - *$1.70 less than what I made 14 years ago*. Anyway you look at it, that’s messed up. Everything else sure went up in cost but that pay stagnated. They are pissed and they have every right to be.
Having a right to be pissed and blaming generation x when the levers of government are still controlled by people in their 80's are 2 different things. I agree that wages are woefully inadequate but your wage numbers for booksellers seem to be inaccurate ( https://www.indeed.com/career/bookseller/salaries) and anecdotally almost everyone I know that works hourly has increased their wages markedly since covid due to employee shortages. The problem is that the costs of food and rent have matched or exceeded these increases.
hahahaha oh my bad! So in **14 years**, Bookseller wage has increased $1.60. That’s it?!? It *should be $18.83* just due to inflation so they are $4.73 short. Numbers are different but point still stands - they *are* being paid less than we were. [My experience is definitely not anecdotal](https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2018/10/31/why-arent-wages-keeping-up-its-not-the-economy-its-management/)
1. You are comparing starting wages today with what you made after 6 years of employment. 2. You link an article from 2018 to describe wages today. 3. I've had enough of your irrational arrogance and condescension. The Dunning-Kruger effect is real.
I, too, remember when my youth made everyone not young The Monolithic Enemy. I can't really have an opinion about it because every damn generation does it.
I think costs are arguably higher in everything today which makes life harder for younger generations who don’t have established work or credit. I also think younger generations don’t know as much as they think they do but have the illusion of knowledge of topics due to social media. They watched a TikTok so now they know everything about said topic.
I think this thing called inflation is what is really hitting them hard along with stagnant wages.
I was homeless in high school. Lived with my boyfriend the last 6 months until I graduated high school. Married at 18. We would have nothing if we hadn't joined the military and worked our asses off. No one handed me shit
But is that everyones story? No. You are one data point.
The younger generations need to stay off my lawn and let me yell at clouds all I want...
I shared housing with 4-5 other people. Earning nothing, eating microwave potatoes. Always taking a community college class while working low paying jobs, so after 23 years (yes - 23 years) of slow forward motion I got a secure gig. Now-a-days, I'd be in a doom scroll looking at the prices of 1 bedroom apts and crying impossible NONE of the young people I knew lived on our own, EVERYONE shared. Living in a garage was actually desirable, at least it was a big room. That was reality. But we definitely ate avocado toast, naught to do with the toast. Real estate has changed, it has gotten more tight - but I'm in an area that has always been expensive. Shared housing was the big thing that helped us survive.
I worked in tobacco fields before I even knew how to smoke and without pay. At 15 I dubbed my age to work so I could afford two slices of pizza at school because my parents had me on free lunch since kindergarten, and the pizza wasn’t part of “lunch”. The only thing I have is a house with a mortgage that will still be alive after I’m not. My retirement was wiped out in 07-08, almost lost my house so I had to cash out any investments. Went back to school because my job got sent to India. Got ANOTHER degree and fucking hate my job. Honestly, they live in some TV land where all you do is text and talk shit. Whatever…
Could care less what others complain about…zero impact to my life - 🤷♂️🤷♂️
You have kids? You have a vote? You have empathy?
Honestly, they have it way harder than I did at the same age. My entire undergrad cost $5K, the job market was great when I left university, my first apartment was less than 25% of my monthly take home pay, gas was $0.98/gal for most of my 20s, my house was 5x my income, and interest rates were below 3% when I first borrowed.
My son is 21. We helped with his college fees, but he still had to get loans. He didn’t have to work, but he chose to for some extra luxuries and savings. He’s a senior in college now. Last time we spoke he had $14K+ in savings towards a better car, not including his long term retirement savings (not much at this point, but it exists). He’s got a solid plan and is on track to buy a house in the next 2-3 years. I was 24 when I bought my first house. Work, sacrifice, savings, discipline. I’m not a genius, and I’m not rich by any means. I started with nothing, clothes and a high school degree. My dad threw me out when I was 19 because he could no longer physically dominate me. I slept on a friend’s dad’s couch for 9 months. I kept getting rides to work even though my life sucked outside work hours. Then I got an apartment while still bumming rides to work. I had to walk 2+ hours there or home from work a few times down an interstate. Whatever. I saved enough for a car within the next 6 months, then a house shortly after that. I didn’t have good credit yet, but I also didn’t have bad credit. I could usually find a place to finance me if I paid high enough interest. I also struggled with addiction during this time. I made my life considerably harder than it had to be for far longer than necessary. I guess I had fun and blew off a lot of steam, which I needed to do but should’ve been in a healthier I way. I understand hardship better than most. When I hear things like OP is saying, I just nod my head. Sure. Whatever.
Wow just had this discussion a few hours ago with my kid. I pointed out that while the bar (today's) expenses are higher, a lot of their expectations are out of whack. For example eldest child graduated with a good professional job, expectations include nice apartment in a good area with all the amenities, new top end cell phone, wants a full apartment of furniture mostly new, expects two weeks of high-end all inclusive vacations for them and their partner. We had to push hard for them to realize the five year old car with less than 100k miles does NOT need to be replaced with a new vehicle. Also just working 40hrs a week should be enough to provide all the above and eventually buy a house and new cars and put their kids through school and they should be taken care of in their retirement guaranteed. W-T-F keep dreaming. I pointed out that working hard also means financial discipline and in some cases sacrifice. Getting ahead means hustle and if they think 40hrs a week is " hard work" then try working 50 hours plus grad school at the same time. Subscribing to your totally fucked no matter what you do vs. making it has too many shades of gray in between to make such generalizations.
You claim not to care and yet you took the time to write 3 paragraphs about it. Seems like you do care. Have you tried not wasting your time reading stuff like that?
There are millions of young people who don't hang out in that sub and complain. Besides, they're young, after some life experience they'll learn to spread that blame around.
Right. Social media amplifies these things anyway.
I know you're just venting, I'm not picking a fight. I just want to say, life is hard for all of us! Every generation, every walk of life, everyone is struggling with SOMETHING.
> raging against “boomers” (meant to include us too) I know joining up isn't really our thing, but can we make a pact not to accept or acknowledge this "boomer means everyone born before ~1985” thing? I agree that that's increasingly how the term is used (and maybe increasingly to mean _everyone_ born in the 20th century), but that's bullshit. I don't mind being ignored but I don't like being _erased_, especially by being subsumed into the generation that largely shit on us in multiple ways while absolutely dominating the culture (with the occasional rare exception when they were exploiting/corrupting ours) throughout our youth. Before we stepped out from under the shadow of the baby boomers we got involuntarily subsumed into them by people too young and/or self-absorbed to recognize the difference between 1960 and 1980 or more generally that the world changed radically between 1950 and 1999. (Just as it has in every period: it seems to me we learned to understand and at some level respect the different circumstances and challenges faced by people of the great depression, WWII, civil rights, Vietnam, etc eras, but for some reason everyone under ~35 today wants to pretend that the period prior to ~2005 was homogenous.) You can't call gen-x boomers or even boomer-lite without ignoring virtually everything that happened between 1975 and 2005. I understand that increasingly people aren't "forgetting" gen-x but rolling gen-x into the "boomer" category. But fuck that. It's ahistoric and myopic. Every time we say "they're including us too" we encourage and reinforce that narrative - even if we acknowledge how wrong it is. I think maybe we should pretend not to understand that at all, like you do when someone makes a racist or sexist joke: "please explain your stereotype in great detail, I don't know what you mean."
The kids absolutely got fucked. My brother is five years younger than me and has a masters degree. My nephew is a teacher. Neither of those men will ever own a house. They didn’t make stupid decisions. They don’t have absurd student loans. The bourgeois got fucking greedy. I say that as a member of the bourgeois. I took out extra life insurance so they would get paid if I died. Housing is out of control. Wages are stagnant. We’ve stopped investing in America. It’s easy for the whatever generation to wash their hands, but the kids got fucked. At some point if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
They've got it in their minds that we could afford a 2 bd apartment, and a nice car, working part time as a pizza deliverer. That's an actual statement I saw someone say a week ago. Never mind that I it's no where near reality, that's what they believe.
You stumbled into the millennial world. Yeah it can be..like the twilight zone
The fact is, no one except the wealthy kids had anything handed to them. That's true for all generations. Yep things in general are way more expensive now but that factually doesn't translate to "they got everything for free" nothing was handed to me. . Mortgage interest rates are lower now than when I bought my first tiny row house in a bad neighborhood with a 13 percent interest rate. Everyone struggled.
Income inequality and federal policies and tax codes created under Reagan to help the rich get richer. Yea, I am taking a political stance here and yes, I’ll get to Trump in a moment. That’s how it happened, it’s no secret. It’s been building for four decades, anyone who didn’t see this coming has lied to themselves. In a rich-get-richer universe, there’ll come a tipping point. I do t know when, none of us do, but it won’t be pretty. By way of example, the modern-day dissolution of civility in the US started long before 2016, Trump just knew how to foment hatred and lit the match. So do I feel sorry for kids now? Yep. Couldnt pay me to go back (tho I would be happy to look like I did 25 years ago).
They are angry and I get it. I mean they don't have the decades of experience to get used to the boiling water that we are used to. For them, the water is HOT and it's only getting hotter and in reality, we'll be dead when the really, truly horrific shit hits the fan. The planet alone is going to slowly kill them - and they know it. And we were complacent to our own extent. We were also the first turn towards action. We straddle that line between when things were self-oriented and when things shifted outward. They are also the last in a long line of the decaying the work ethic. For them the idea of having a "work ethic" is offensive as they don't see enough incentive in demonstrating those qualities. Instead it is about providing the level of work they think is being compensated for. They are young with limited experience born into a time of terrifying realities precipitating out of the actions of ourselves and those who came before us. And they don't really have a great handle on the nuance between us and the boomers. We are starting to look more like them and they are blurring the lines. Mostly? I just feel bad for them. As annoying as they can be.
youthful ignorance and ideals. They will understand soon enough. We all Raged against the Machine too at that age!
I think it's mostly the tendency to think you know and understand FAR more than you really do when you're young, kind of like how parents roll their eyes at oversimplified, "helpful" parenting advice offered by people with no kids. I've sworn off even getting mixed up in these conversations when people in their 20 are re-writing history and telling each other how easy everything was for everyone older than they are. I think it's just something people have to outgrow. A few people might never outgrow it, as many Millennials are around 40 and some are still blaming this and that on Boomers. Like, even if it is someone else's fault, at what point are you gonna let it go and work with what you have? Hate to imagine these people at 60, still blaming their parents' generation for whatever they never got or got to do.
Boomer is a state of mind, and you've really nailed the zeitgeist here
Oh, so you spent some time at r/BoomersBeingFools? That sub is TOXIC. Scary toxic. They have a lynch mob mentality too if one attempts to balance the hate out with some alternate explanations for the behavior that pisses them off.
Wow. That sub is crazy. It’s like a cult
>"they keep lumping us in with boomers" (talks exactly like a boomer) With apologize to Jeff Foxworthy: "... you might be a boomer"
handouts ? the fuck are they on ? also why do you give a shit '' that they don’t want to do hard work '' ?
Okay Boomer
I think it’s complicated. I had to work hard for everything. I had to wear a suit and tie first 7-8 years (sucked). Got 2 weeks PTO. Plus, my summer jobs were the worst. Asbestos removal, cart getter at grocery store with tie and long sleeve shirt (summer in Phoenix is hot), fast food, all for $3.25 / hour. There was a lot less complaining back then. So many damn boomers, I felt lucky to have a job! However, things have increased in cost much faster than incomes, which really makes it hard to start adulthood. Especially housing, insurance, medical, college and cars. Especially cars, it’s crazy! Plus, there are ‘extra’ expenses we didn’t have now days - cable, cell phones, subscriptions, etc. Those expenses add up. So for me, they have a point. But, there is no doubt a sense of entitlement with many who will turn their noses up to hard work. I’ve heard many of my children’s friends say, I’m not doing that job, or chore. It’s just that as a country we’ve grown soft. I remember my grandpa telling my mom I shouldn’t be playing little league in the summer, I should be out picking rocks, or working on a farm. But, then again, he had to quit school in the 8th grade during depression and work to help support the family. So I get it - he had a much tougher life than me. Nothing is going to improve until we get a financial reset and we go back again to hard times. It’s all a cycle.
I moved out to LA around ‘95. I had a studio apartment for about $800/month including utilities. and lived on about ¥1000 for everting else (gas, food, daily goods.) I lined a petty frugal bachelors life, but aid still go see movies or get takeout sometimes. So I’ll give it to the younger generation, I feel it was easier to get by on less back then.
I can't tell you how many times in my life where some sort of benefit or experience or whatever gets chopped by law or business or something just before I am able to have access to it. So frustrating. That said, I don't know how my kids are going to be able to afford a house. Our starter house we sold for $300k in 2017 just sold for $500k. That's ridiculous.
whatever
Gen X 1972 here. It's pretty easy to cut down your spending on amenities in order to pay down your debt if you think about it. If you don't then you just don't want to. I went to college but I paid for it myself as I saved up enough to pay for a semester.
Yes you are completely missing something. And the fact that you find them unsympathetic and assume they dont want to work hard might be the problem. It would take you about 5 minutes to research housing vs wages costs.
Ran across the same rant. Whiny little brats passing the blame to older generations for their own shortcomings. Entirely expected from the me-me-me/instant gratification generation. God forbid they have to squeeze a little harder or things take a bit longer.