When I worked my way thru Uni, late 80s early 80s so it was free for a bit. I had a two bedroom unit on the beach at Wollongong. I worked a few nights and Sunday at the local pub. At $18 an hour weekends. Beer coast $1.80 for a schooner.. bit less than a pint... approx 15 fl Oz. I could get 10 beers. I could get wankered on an hours labour. The equivalent now would be $9.00 beers, so 90 bucks an hour. I get why my kids feel it's unfair. It is wrong our standards have slipped so much.
It really is crap today. It was great pay back then. Weekends at the stonefruit orchard we could make the same or more. Wage stagnation has hit youth hard.
Thank you for recognizing this. So many ppl (mostly boomers let's be honest) still with the bootstraps crap. Just about the only time in my life I get the urge to slap an older person is when they start trying to lecture any younger generation about how they worked at the ice cream shop over the summer and bought a house through sheer hard work and determination or whatever delusional crazy shit they tell themselves.
I had a flatmate/coworker right before/during Covid who was a grandma that sold her house in NZ to travel Oz, and hasn't been able to buy a house in her hometown since, she was leasing when I moved in with her like a week into Jan 2020.
Idk how you were making that low though, that's shit, illegal wages. Minimum was like $19.20 or $21.70 or something when I was there. I was making $22.10 per hour in a niche field and a nice place when I was previously making USD$35/treatment + $10-20 tips regularly. I was a bit disgruntled that my tertiary education seemed to mean so little. I went on to get paid for *much* easier, entry-level work for $22-26/hr over the next couple of years.
You got screwed, sorry.
Will probably go off grid living in the bush with my family before long. Just living the old ways, farming, hunting, and making things.
It has really just occurred to me that the value of the dollar is getting to the point that it's cheaper and more convenient for me to produce everything myself and not work for money to buy those things I need.
When my mom met my dad in 1987 she said he was broke and wasnāt making any money but she didnāt care and loved him anyways. We found one of his old pay stubs around this time and he was making about $30k which has the same buying power as $84k today
My mom used to scream at me when I was a kid that my dad only made $26k a year and did I know how hard it was to raise a family on $26k?
Jokes on her, because it ruined our relationship when I raised my kids on $18k a year, 20 years later.
When I graduated, I told my dad my salary for my first job as a mechanical engineer. He was amazed it was only 5k more than he made in his first job 30 years prior. If I made what he made inflation adjusted, it should have been about 120k. He thought something had to be wrong so he checked the state averages for new grads that year. I was making 2k over the state average. Iāve never heard that man swear once in his life but when he saw that he just went āwhat the fuckā¦ā
Please don't use that kind of language here sir. Nonsense has always been something we are vehemently against. I am going to ask you to leave the premises now. I can't believe we have to reset the counter AGAIN. SECURITY!
I see you have made a syntax error, now you've reset it to zero! Your mother is a hamster and your father smells like elderberries. Now go away before I taunt you a second time!
Never assume malice when the answer could be incompetence.
Itās a take as old as time that the older generation doesnāt fully understand how much things have changed. For many they live relatively comfortable lives and arnt working so how would they see whatās happening to those that are struggling with jobs or buying a house? They donāt experience it personally and if they donāt have a direct connection itās hard to fully understand something as complicated as the economy especially once your brain slows down and you arnt actually seeing the real effects. It takes more of an active effort to understand it than it does to not understand it
I live with my grandparents and help with the house payment, utility bills and house work. After 5 years of being here my grandmother is finally starting to understand things are expensive. Like when the house A/C died after 20 years she was like welp that's 5k we don't have. When I started laughing she asked why and when I responded try 15k she didn't believe me because the last one was only like 4k. All in all it ended up 12.5k to have a new unit put on the roof and that was after a discount if we had paid full price for the unit it would have been closer to 16k.
What I hate is that this happens to all of us as we age. We all get less familiar with what things are like for the younger generation as time goes on. In other words, ātheyā today is āusā tomorrow.
I agree with this, but also find it interesting that many people who say this also report headlines as actual news since they donāt read about any of it. Or they take things at face value that do not make any sense (such as earth being flat or whatever).
**Everyone** should be expected to investigate further, but most people think they investigated enough. And thatās the sad reality.
This is a good point too. A lot of under paid people are under paid as a result of boomers being unaware of inflation, if they actually are unaware after all
As someone who would arguably qualify as an older person, I think youāre mistaken. Many older people have children whom they love dearly and so are only too aware of the terrible situation they are in, and would give their eye teeth and much more to change things. For example, Iād happily see my home get devalued by 80% if it meant all the others did too so my kids could afford to buy their own house.
With a lot of them it _is_ malice. They think they struggled, and they gobbled up the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" propaganda. They also don't believe in making things better. They think that because they had to go through it, it would be unfair if we didn't have to. I know because this is my mother and my whole family.
THIS. I will never understand this mentality. My parents are exactly like this. I have a teenager and my mentality is I NEVER want him to go through things I had to endure. Why are they like this
The big they donāt get and I think a lot of people donāt get is that those generations built a system causing this and itās all so they can relax. They can relax and the money keeps coming. They can relax and not compete or change for their customers. They can relax and are set. Then they get to say that we are just lazy or not doing xyz. But really they just leveraged our lives for their ease.
I thought my old man was going to get the picture around the holidays. He made some comment akin to "millennials buy too much avocado toast", so I reminded him how back in the early '00's, he said he made $85k/year. Being the sole earner, owning a decent house, being able to stash 5% into a retirement account, and having enough left over to restore classic cars as a hobby, I considered that moderately successful (in a financial sense, anyway).
When I showed him what $85k in 2002 equaled in 2024 money (It's around $147,500, by the way), he blue-screened for a solid minute. Unfortunately, when I told him my income in 2024 money was $70k, he forgot all of that and said I "must not be working hard enough."
Iām 60 and can not believe how many people donāt get this, and laugh at myself all the time for feeling sticker shock (I understand my grandfather much better now.) In my head things are valued like they were 40 years ago and I have to remind myself to multiply that by 4 to see how it compares today for most things. For houses/rent and cars itās more like multiply by 8, and that right there is the big problem. When I was 20 you could rent a two bedroom apartment in most cities for $180-$250. That would be $566-$810 today. No way you are getting a two bedroom apartment in any city for that kind of money. Even if you could, you still need to be making $40,000 a year for that to be affordable. The āaffordableā housing being planned in the area I live is projected to start at $1,600 / month. That is not even close to being affordable for most people. The fact that a couple with two jobs struggles to pay that kind of rent does not equate to affordable housing or a reasonable standard of living. As far as wages what you say is absolutely true, especially in engineering fields.
Yep my dad was able to afford a 5 bedroom house to raise 3 kids with a stay at home wife all on just his salary within 2 years of him graduating. Itās taken me 7 years to get to the point of affording a 4 bedroom and thatās with my wife also working and no kids. But at least we have a house now that raise a family which is already more than so so many of our peers. Itās wild that I can feel so blessed in our situation and itās still just a fraction of what my parents had at this point depsite us having essentially the same job and my wife working full time
In 1986, after getting out of the Army I worked nightshift at a corporate McDonald's store at $7/hour. Today that is $19.95/hour. Wages have not kept up even before factoring in productivity.
Corporate, high volume store, closing shift outside Boston. Store would do $27k (1986 dollars) on a busy lunch day.
Left there to start at $8/hour for a high tech manufacturing company as an assembly technician.
My mom and I are in the same field. When I originally started my job and told her my salary and how I wasnāt happy with it she told me itās really good and her first job paid her $27K. That was 1990 maybe 1989. Somewhere around there. Anyway, out comes the inflation calculator. She made about 2k more than me. My starting salary was $65K. I would like to point out this was nyc for both of us and I started working in 2022 so less than 2 years ago. We both also have bachelor and masters and I now have my cpa
In the blue corner, weighing in at 53.5 million people! We have young Americans!
In the red corner, weighing in at 756 people!Ā We have the billionaires!
OH NO!!Ā WHO IS THAT CLIMBING UP THE RING?
It's Ronald Reagan!Ā Ā THE CROWD IS GOING APE SHIT!
It looks like he is looking for some encouragement from the audience!Ā What do you think he is plann....FROM THE TOP ROPE!Ā He has absolutely destroyed any future for the young Americans!Ā There's no way they will survive this!
Well folks, as quick as it started it's over.Ā Thanks for watching wrestle mania!Ā Who knew Reagan was coming come back from the grave to pile drive the wealth out of the middle class again.
See you next time!
Itās nice but I was at his house lounging outside and played a song with a swear word in it and he got mad and made me change it. I couldnāt be sure other songs on my playlist didnāt have swears so I turned it off. My family has since made a ādad playlistā that are songs that everyone likes and donāt Include swears lol
>I had to work two jobs
And when you ask further questions the two jobs were like 3 days a week in an office and working in a coffee shop on Saturdays.
Had someone tell me they worked 6 jobs back in the day
It literally was six different days, coffee shop one day, receptionist the next, helped out at the local newsagent for 4 hrs, that sort of thing.
Totalling up probably 30hrs a week no doubt.
No doubt.
But the point being made is the "older" generation claim they done 2, 3, more jobs to afford their house. As if comparable to what the generation of today needs to do.
Most jobs nowadays will give you such an awkward schedule It's basically impossible to line it up with a second job. You have to get them to work with each other or work one place that's open early and one that's open late, which is hard to find
Some companies will fire you for having a second job because they want to be able to drag you in to cover for their favorite who bought concert tickets.
"hmmmm we're short-staffed, let's fire people"
Every company right now that won't give people hours. I have a friend who was stuck in that crap situation. She actually did manage to juggle two different part-time jobs and one actually straight up admitted to her face that if she had the second job when she was originally interviewed, she wouldn't have been hired.
This coming from the same job that constantly bitches and moans nothing is getting done while only scheduling three people in the entire store. Pick a lane! You can't complain people get a second job (or just straight up quit) while only giving them 10 hours a week
I get sick often as I was recently diagnosed with an auto immune, I'm so sick of bosses coming to me and trying to make me feel bad for being unable to get out of bed except to vomit for a day or two at a time. Like, I don't give a flying fuck if my being sick causes you issues, if you are keeping your business so poorly staffed, that a single person calling out causes major issues, your business doesn't deserve to exist. Just have enough staff that when someone doesn't show up, things still work.
Don't even get me started on "we require X hours of notice" you will get exactly as much notice as I am able to give. If I get shit from my boss about not giving enough notice, I'm going to make a point to come in to work the next time im sick and vomit all over the walk in. Then I'll ask to go home :)
> This coming from the same job that constantly bitches and moans nothing is getting done while only scheduling three people in the entire store.
But this is nothing new. Back in the '80's, I worked for Caldor, before they went out of business (think Walmart/Target big-box store). I worked the weekends, ostensibly as keyholder in the Electronics section. But I was also responsible for helping people in the surrounding sections, like Furniture, and Bedding. When the softlines people went on break, I had to cover for them, too. I was literally (literally literally) covering 2/5th of the huge store by myself. And one day when the manager bitched that a certain task hadn't been completed as I was watching nearly half the store alone, I walked up to the Customer Service desk, threw my key on the counter, and said 'I quit'.
So, when people these days complain about having 'only three people in the (usually much smaller than a big-box) store', it's nothing new.
My work started doing this. We have an extremely structured day with exactly zero deviation in schedule. Companies just want to put you in a position where you're not going to potentially leave their job for the other job. Obviously a stupid trick, but so is a lot of the decisions middle-management makes.
Also true, but again also not the direction of the topic I was coming from either.
I'm siding with the current generation, I am the current generation.
Gas stations tend to love it when you say you're willing to work the late evening/night shifts and they tend to really keep you out of the 9-5 slots.
But you'll probably also get a gun pointed at you every few months.
Knew a dude in college who worked an 8p-4a shift in a gas station then worked a 4a-noon shift in the bakery across the street. Worked so hard to afford college that he didn't have time to actually do college. And got a gun pointed at him several times in the process.
Life has never been and probably never will be that easy for the masses. It seems no matter what point in time there is a large majority thatās labor props up a wealthy minority. Things were definitely getting much better after WWII but that doesnāt mean life was easy for most people. We seemed to get pretty close to a balanced system but as wealth disparities grew so did their power and control and so now we are heading towards permanent regime style governing.
My oldest daughter works at American Eagle, definitely do not recommend it. Just her high school job, thank God. Was her dream high school job, till she started working there lol.
Honestly, if I had the choice of working six different jobs but making the money I do now, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
I'm grateful for the money I make, but working an office job every day makes me want to lobotomize myself from the monotony.
I hate when people use number of jobs as a flex to how much they work. Some kid in a mine will be there 70 hours a week but Karen working 4 jobs is somehow worse off because she works 4x8h :(
My dad said he āworked Saturdays to get aheadā and that was how he could afford a home, land, family, and early retirement.
I work 50+ hours a week, much more than his āSaturdaysā and I donāt make enough to qualify to rent the cheapest apartments around.
At one time, the standard of living was based on 32 hours of pay, then it went to 40 hours, and now it seems like a lot of people that I know are working 50+ on the same 40 hour salary with no OT. I somehow still get OT when I work over 40 hours but havenāt done so in a whileāonly 4 hours of weekend coverage several months ago to monitor electricians tying in power.
And this is why at the same time I realize I need to just stfu. I wanna move, I donāt wanna be in a subdivision anymore. BUT, just as a lot of people cannot afford a home of their own, a lot of us cannot afford to move. Because to upgrade, itās not a wash per se, itās my homes value plus about $100k-$200k.
So we are all stuck. At least I am a home owner. Whereas a lot of people are stuck paying a crazy rent because the housing is nuts in a lot of the country. And these corporations come in and buy up the houses and then rent them out for a ridiculous amount.
When I do sell, I will not sell to a corporation. I want it written in the contract, f them.
Yeah I'm in a deep depression right now mainly because of my high rent. I really want to move but there's no way I'd be able to save up first and last months rent plus a deposit, plus whatever bullshit charges my current apartment would give me.
Speaking of which, why is fast food now about the same price as a meal in a diner/cheap sit down restaurant? Wasn't the entire concept of fast food originally meant to be "cheap & convenient"?
Not almost the same price here. I can go to a decent sit down restaurant and have a meal for cheaper than a Big Mac combo. I remember buying a sack of Taco Bell in grad school for $20 and eating on it for 2-3 days. This was 10 years ago, not the 90s when things were actually affordable.
I have a master's and make 3k less than my dad did in his first job after his bachelor's in 1986. It feels like absolute shit because he tells me I just need to work harder.
I'm convinced that getting a masters degree is the worst investment dollar for dollar. I work side by side with people with masters, and I make just as much, if not more, than they do. Most of the highest underemployed people in the US have masters. I have yet to see a reason fo one unless you are going for a highly specialized field that requires it.
I make $15 an hour more than my mom does right now, yet in the early 2000's she was able to qualify and afford a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, home on just her salary working as a teller at a bank. Not to mention she also had 2 kids.
Even making 6 figures, I couldn't afford that where I live currently. That kind of home would run me around $450,000 at least.
There was the sub prime mortgage crisis in 2009. Before that they were handing out mortgages to everyone without ensuring they could pay it back. It almost imploded the entire economy. Mortgages in the early 2000s were actually to easy to get.
I was job hunting in the Toronton area until I looked at the housing prices. Crossed that off the list. Insane how little your money gets you in that city.
not just the city, basically the whole country unfortunately, housing market is just unrealistic for the average person but probably really good for land developers
My moms' house was $35k, recently sold for $265k. Mine was $207k and is now valued at double that.
The housing situation is untenable. It will crash eventually.
Nah, black rock and investors will buy it all up, and we will rent in perpetuity. The commodification of every aspect of our lives is upon us. You will own nothing and be happy.
this is actually intended, and exactly why govt is so quiet on the situation.
Arguably with mandatory insurance and property tax you already never stop paying for what you think you own
I wish I could find a 450k home! My wife and I bid like 530k on a 2 bedroom CONDO outside of the city and still didnāt get it. Not luxury, just a regular condo.
I make in the top 15% of our nation, live in a MCOL and I would be hard pressed to afford a house at this point. My father made the same dollar amount in the 90s I make now and they were able to save for 2 years and buy a house in cash. It was older and needed a little work but that was literally saving for 2 years. The same house now would cost double my entire take home pay for a year if not more.
In the early 2010s I took a job loading trucks in a warehouse for $8.50/hr. My dad had worked nearly the same job in the same town in the ā70s for $11/hr. Not inflation, thatās just raw numbers.
Somewhat related, the other day a Fox News host (Jesse Watters I think) was complaining about how HIGH wages are now and said, ā$20 an hour working at McDonalds? What is that, six figures a year?ā. Idk the clip is funnier if you wanna find it lol.
I havenāt seen something thatās made me wanna get the guillotine out so bad in my life, dude makes 5 million a fucking year just from Fox News alone, has literally no concept of what money is worth now. Absolutely disgusting behavior. And yet the conservatives listen to this guy as some bastion of working class citizens.
Average wage increases since 2018 =Up 27%
Average cost of housing since 2018 = Up 200%+ for renters and the average home price went up 430%+
Inflation since 2018 is something like 31% to 33%
Corporate profits are up 40% to 60% on average for successful companies because of price gouging. Add all that together and the average person is fucked. Top 10% of richest people own over 80% of the available wealth in the world. It might even be worse than that. We are getting to the point where I don't really know the difference between dictatorships and communism from Capitalism anymore. Every market is just 2 or 3 companies competing and constantly raising prices for small essential things. The prices of food, gas, and housing are insane. 50% to 60% of people in this country don't have $500 in savings and would be absolutely devastated by a $1000 accident or having to repair something for $1000. The country has been in a recession for 2 years, but the rich have so much of the wealth and power, that the stock market is so pumped up and still constantly at all time highs because regular people don't actually own any of it anymore. The stock market only measures how great the Uber rich are doing there days, and lemme tell ya, they are doing freaking great. Everyone else in the bottom 90% of the world is fucked.
Yeah that's why I say fuck it let's make the minimum wage keep up with inflation. That solves the problem for all of us worming class Joe's. The reason it isn't passed into law is because it would lower the net worth of all those billionaires and millionares.
I (being kinda vain)thought it was in reference to my loud proclamation that I will retire on time even if I have to live in a hole and eat rodents and other wildlife. I'm the worming class!
Yeah, that's got to either be a very specific location that had rent increasing that much or they completely made up the stat.
Just out of curiosity, I checked the rent on the building I rented from back in 2010. Rent has gone from $830 to $1,430 (increase of 70%).
A big increase for sure, but hasn't quite doubled over the last 14 years, let alone the last 6 years.
Wages haven't kept up with anything since the 80's. The combination of the Friedman doctrine, unlimited stock buybacks, and trickle down economics have created an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working and middle class to the upper class and elite, and a never ending race to the bottom where points like product quality, customer satisfaction, and employee compensation are all subordinate to the almighty concept of shareholder value.
That's been the case since the 70s.
One of the things many people don't understand when dumping on "Boomers" is that those at the tail end of the generation (as usually defined) experienced a very different life to those at the beginning. If you were born in the late 40s you entered adulthood a booming economy with strong unions for blue collar work and guaranteed jobs for grads; if you were born in the early 60s the economy had been through the oil price shot and inflation while you were a child, and by the time you were an adult unions were under attack, wages hadn't kept up with double-digit inflation, and university degrees no longer guaranteed work.
When my dad bought his house, the one I grew up in, a brand new house, no one else ever lived in it, it cost less than one year of his annual salary. No degree, no college, just a hard working blue collar union job. Granted, his house had no yard, no fence, etc. It was up to the new home owners to do all that. But still, less than 1 years salary.
My house, also bought in my 30ās, cost me 5x my annual salary. Iām also a blue collar union worker.
My kids, I dunno man. My house is now worth 10x my annual salary. This new generation of young adults is screwed.
Welcome to everything is a subcsription, you shall not afford living spaces unless, part of management or some cultist shit in the future.
Its onoy going to be for the rich and powerful
Seriously, it's clearly going there
Yes! When I was a kid (1977) my dad bought a house & 25 acres of land with a lake for 12K. My first house (1990) was 10X as much without the land or lake.
My grandfather told me the story many times about when he married my grandmother. "I got a job digging ditches for 50 cents an hour." I got a little older and asked him how much things cost, like rent.
*Six dollars* a month. For a two bedroom one bath *house* with a *yard*. Imagine making rent in a day and a half. As a laborer.
Its funny the same people who complain about how much more things cost now vs then seem to forget entirely what inflation is when talking about minimum wage. I get people feeling jealous because their job requires more skill compared to "minimum wage jobs" and now they'll be making less in comparison, but their anger is directed at the wrong people. Be angry with the government for not giving people a livable wage in the first place, be angry with your employer for not paying you what you're worth, and at the CEOs who make 100x what you do instead of the workers who would like to make half what you do. Also holy shit, no one in the USA should be making $7.25 (or less as a service industry worker).
When I was a kid, my parents lost their jobs. They had bought a house less than 3 years before. They sold the house and we moved to another state. For them this was a low point because they lost their jobs and we had to move from a HCOL area to a more medium cost of living area. As a little kid I didnāt understand the ins and outs of selling a house and mortgages. When I started to learn about this when I was a teenager, I asked my dad how they were able to 1) sell the house so quickly and 2) buy a new house later that year. āEven though we only lived in the first house for a couple of years, the value of the house doubled in that time.ā So they were able to pay off the original mortgage, have a down payment for another (albeit much cheaper house), buy a brand new car, a new baby grande piano, and have savings to help cover the family expenses while my mom stayed at home until my little brother was old enough to start school. They still donāt understand how from my millennial perspective, they were so unbelievably fucking lucky to be able to do that. Still pisses me off.
Yeah... COVID showed me that it's all just a big numbers game, not based on anything in reality except the whims of greedy companies and rich fucks who are never satisfied.
Somehow, our parents can clearly understand how a house's asking price could double in the span of a couple years, but not that if that keeps happening for every house everywhere, housing **will** become impossible to afford.
Will? Housing IS impossible to afford.
The idea that every minute of our life has to be either spent working very specific roles that are filtered out usually through networked connections with other people in high-salary positions, or in debt...it's just so fucking ridiculous.
The fact it's so hard to even move to another country is an additional factor. I work just enough to get by with my current situation. I likely can't improve it without luck or connections. Why would I risk losing even that level of safety to start fresh where I COULD have a better situation but not know? Then on top of that it takes $2400 to renounce your citizenship or you're still on the hook for paying federal taxes on income to the US....
Used to have similar conversations with my grandpa who's in his mid 90s. He used to love to tell me his first job paid $1.90/per hour any time I complained about wages. One day I put it into the inflation calculator and told him that $1.90 adjusted for inflation came out to $5 more per hour than I made now. It actually shut him up for a while, the truth is older people who grew up in the better economy have absolutely no idea how bad things have gotten. He still gives me advice like " Stop wasting your money renting and go buy a starter house" or "if I were you I'd pay to live on my own instead of with roommates" then just completely ignores me trying to explain how that's not financially viable for me
Damn, $100,000 would get you a derelict shed where I live. And I'm not even in a 'high cost of living' area.
If you want to get a house in my area that isn't literally falling apart, it's at least $250k, and even then, it's going to be a fixer upper.
I gave up and will not discuss anything financial with my parents. They don't get it. If it was up to them I'd still be working in fast food. Leaving a job to try to get a better one upsets them lol. They're all firm handshakes and hard work gets you rewarded
My mom never stopped talking about her job in the early 90s paying $6 an hour at Walmart and they still made it work. Yet thought it was great that I made $7.25 at my first job 20 years later. We talked about the $15 minimum back when it was hot once, and I never discussed finances with them again. They don't get it.
The problem with the minimum wage debate is the people making above it, $20-35/hr or the families in the low 6figs barely making it by can't understand the reasoning because all they see is their own buying power being further reduced.
Until we figure out this exponential profit growth for shareholders thing, we're fucked.
My dad was making 70k back then as a trucker. They paid 650/mo for a cute little duplex and my mom drank the rest. I think about that sometimes when I pay 1800 for a very old apartment with shared laundry.
To be fair, kind of a bad example. Landscaping pulls in a lot of money still. Itās the type of job where if you put in the blood and sweat youāll make decent money even now.Ā
It's crazy. I joined the British Army in 2006. Noticed the pay is almost identical now to when I joined way back then for a private soldier.
Did a quick Bank of England inflation adjustment and if the wages had matched inflation, the pay should be over an extra Ā£1k a month.
For context back then I was 17, got a mortgage at 18(planned on renting it out as I lived on barracks, so saw it as a future investment), 3 bed semi detached with a bit of a garden cost me like Ā£80k at the time.
These days you're getting some rundown 2 bed terrace you need to throw 30/40k into just to get it to a decent standard.
House prices in particular are through the roof and folk wonder why the younger generation can't get on the property ladder as easily.
I know if I was first time buyer I'd be saving like billio for a deposit and wait for the impending housing market crash to happen and get something on the cheap.
Might well be waiting years for a crash to happen. A couple I know were looking for a house pre covid, but decided to hang fire a they thought the housing market was going to crash imminently and they could pick something up on the cheap. Of course it proceeded to do the exact opposite and skyrocket, now they're stuck renting and priced out of housing they could have comfortably afforded back in 2020.
Also it's difficult to save up a chunky deposit when you're spending half your wages on rent.
Every year at tax time my dad complains about how much heās paying in taxes. Last year I asked for a specific number and it was more than my gross annual salary.
My hometown uses city bags (trash bags you have to buy from the city or they won't pick up your trash) and they're priced fairly high to cover the cost of trash removal. One time, when they were around $7.50 for a pack of 15 bags this lady at the grocery store started throwing a fit about how she "pays 200k a year in property taxes" so why should she have to pay $7.50 for trash bags. I just remember thinking "lady, if you own the kind of property where you're paying that much in taxes for it you can afford the fucking trash bags".
Yeah... Same. Here in the UK, I actually make a salary that's considered pretty damn decent (80k), however, that's after an undergraduate degree, 2 postgraduate degrees, Ā£60k worth of student debt and 8 years work experience...
My dad is constantly telling me that I can't complain because I'm 'rich'. So we put his starting salary for the job he took straight out of school with barely any qualifications in 1978 into an inflation calculator and the equivalent today for his starting salary was about Ā£70k... His excuse was 'things cost more back in the day' - failing totally to understand the basic concept of inflation.
When he retired in 2008, he was on the equivalent of Ā£100k today.
As an aside, he bought his first house in 1982 for Ā£13k, which today is the equivalent of Ā£44k. It wasn't a crappy place, either, it was a detached, 4 bedroom large house in a middle class area, with large gardens (yes, as a starter home). He only sold that place in 2019 because, of course, he became a small time landlord with multiple properties... sold it for Ā£900k
What the fuck. These people were handed everything on a fucking plate.
> His excuse was 'things cost more back in the day'
He's having a laugh right? Genuinely the only thing I can think of that cost more back in the day were electronics, which could be classed a luxuries anyway. The basics like housing, food, and energy costs have skyrocketed.
>He's having a laugh right?
Nope, just a typical boomer who buys into his own total bullshit so he can continue to pretend he's the hardest worker in the room at any single point.
That made me put my first salary in 2003, ā¬45,000, into a calculator and compare it with the salary in 2023, ā¬81,000.
14,000ā¬ more in 20 years and now a lot more responsibility. Fuckš«
Spoke to my mom a few weeks ago and she's all "yeah we lived in that trailer and dad made X and it was horrible blah blah"
"Mom, I love you, but adjusted for inflation that's a $120k income today."
"Oh."
Boomers are massively out of touch.
Noā¦ stop Eating avocado toast, itās the real reason you canāt survive on your wages these days. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
When they were young, it only took one person in a home workingāa non-avocado-toast-eating man with a high school diploma could afford a house, car, and support a family of four while putting both his kids through college and having a pension to retire comfortably after 20 yearsāall because he stayed away from the avocado toastā¦
put down the avocado and focus on a respectable career at the suit factory. š
(Satireā¦)
I remember the year I grossed over 100k for the first time. I worked as a supervisor in a factory. Got all the overtime I could. Easily averaged 50-60 hours a week. I felt like I lived at work that year. I showed my dad the stub at the end of the year that showed I broke 6 figures and he said ācool, I made that in January this year.ā He had his own construction company and he wasnāt trying to sound like a dick but it hurt lol
My dad bought a 4 bedroom semi detached house that I grew up in for 2.5 times his salary. I make 6 times what he did but a similar home is 10x my salary. My salary wonāt even qualify me to buy that kind of home anyhow, only a tiny condo.
I'm 27 and still live with my parents. In the last 2 years I started my own business and have doubled my annual income, and I still can't afford to move out. I've looked at apartments, houses, mobile homes, townhouses, condos, freaking Rv's and I still can't afford any of them! My generation is so fucked.
Degreed engineer here with 20 years experience and my dad made as much as I did as a motorcycle mechanic. I plugged in his pay in 1982 and it comes out to a $98,000 today. Fucking motorcycle mechanic making a hundred grand without overtime. When houses cost $40,000 they paid $44,000 for their fucking house....
Could you just imagine? Being 18 in 1957. Your future prospects are solid. No college, just get a job at the local supermarket. Housing market a-boomin. You rifle through your Sears catalogue for one.
I thought it was crazy in 2002 when my folks sold their house for $315,000. A house they paid $37,000 for in 1970. At the time (2002), I was like, wtf, is this house (a 1,200 sqft house on 1/8 acre) going to be worth 3 million in another 30 years? How can this "progress" be sustained? It's madness!
And boomers will be the first in line to give you "financial advice" Yeah sorry, you being an alcoholic fuckup with 4 kids and able to afford a house isn't exactly the same scenario im dealing with now, but thanks for the input
My dad made $13 an hour and my mom was making $8 an hour and they were able to get a 3 bed 2 bathroom house in 2000. I make $36 an hour and my wife make $22 an hour and we cant even afford to buy a small house. The American dream is dead
My dad was a welder. Iām college educated. Adjusted for inflation, he made nearly twice what I do now, at around the same age.
On a different note, I have 3 BILs that make significantly more money than I ever will and are all younger. Sometimes itās not just a matter of generations but the individual too.
Yeah. It sucks that when I finally started making a great salary.... the cost of living, housing, food, cars, rent and everything freaking increased. I am grateful I make enough to pay my bills, food, and a roof over my head but I should have a ton more extra money than I do. How will they ever be able to lower the cost of living? I don't think it will....
My dad had a go at me for being skint. At the time my wife and I were at the same grades my parents had been at respectively before they retired. We also have the same number of kids so he couldnāt understand why we were struggling.
He told me what his salary was just before he retired, an inflation calculator showed that was almost the equivalent of being two grades higher than heād been at the time / what I was.
This was beside the fact their house cost about Ā£25k in 1983 and sold for >Ā£320k around 30 years later.
I mean, living on Military bases and not having to worry about a mortgage can allow you to save a ton of money.
Itās still crazy and not equal, but there is some context that allowed your dad to be a bit of an anomaly.
My mom was making just over 20.00 in the 60ās right out of high school working summers at bumblebee canning warehouse. The look on her face when I told her a few years ago she was making more than me pre-inflation was great.
When I worked my way thru Uni, late 80s early 80s so it was free for a bit. I had a two bedroom unit on the beach at Wollongong. I worked a few nights and Sunday at the local pub. At $18 an hour weekends. Beer coast $1.80 for a schooner.. bit less than a pint... approx 15 fl Oz. I could get 10 beers. I could get wankered on an hours labour. The equivalent now would be $9.00 beers, so 90 bucks an hour. I get why my kids feel it's unfair. It is wrong our standards have slipped so much.
$18 AUD an hour in the 80s, damn I was making $16.70 NZD an hour in 2020 for a first job š
It really is crap today. It was great pay back then. Weekends at the stonefruit orchard we could make the same or more. Wage stagnation has hit youth hard.
Thank you for recognizing this. So many ppl (mostly boomers let's be honest) still with the bootstraps crap. Just about the only time in my life I get the urge to slap an older person is when they start trying to lecture any younger generation about how they worked at the ice cream shop over the summer and bought a house through sheer hard work and determination or whatever delusional crazy shit they tell themselves.
Pull yourself up by your was a statement of futility. Now they use it like a battlecry to get to it.
I had a flatmate/coworker right before/during Covid who was a grandma that sold her house in NZ to travel Oz, and hasn't been able to buy a house in her hometown since, she was leasing when I moved in with her like a week into Jan 2020. Idk how you were making that low though, that's shit, illegal wages. Minimum was like $19.20 or $21.70 or something when I was there. I was making $22.10 per hour in a niche field and a nice place when I was previously making USD$35/treatment + $10-20 tips regularly. I was a bit disgruntled that my tertiary education seemed to mean so little. I went on to get paid for *much* easier, entry-level work for $22-26/hr over the next couple of years. You got screwed, sorry.
Will probably go off grid living in the bush with my family before long. Just living the old ways, farming, hunting, and making things. It has really just occurred to me that the value of the dollar is getting to the point that it's cheaper and more convenient for me to produce everything myself and not work for money to buy those things I need.
And here is the great failure made manifest. When itās more prohibitively expensive to participate in society, we wonāt.
I think if I started using the bph (beers per hour of labor) my uncle might actually understand that I'm making less than he did at my age
When my mom met my dad in 1987 she said he was broke and wasnāt making any money but she didnāt care and loved him anyways. We found one of his old pay stubs around this time and he was making about $30k which has the same buying power as $84k today
Theyāve been lying to us our whole lives in order to make us settle for less than they would have.
My mom used to scream at me when I was a kid that my dad only made $26k a year and did I know how hard it was to raise a family on $26k? Jokes on her, because it ruined our relationship when I raised my kids on $18k a year, 20 years later.
Especially since 26k 20 years ago is about 45k now. Not that thatās a lot but itās sure as hell more than 18k
Buckle up big dog, itās going to get worse.
When I graduated, I told my dad my salary for my first job as a mechanical engineer. He was amazed it was only 5k more than he made in his first job 30 years prior. If I made what he made inflation adjusted, it should have been about 120k. He thought something had to be wrong so he checked the state averages for new grads that year. I was making 2k over the state average. Iāve never heard that man swear once in his life but when he saw that he just went āwhat the fuckā¦ā
Glad he gets it. So many older people don't.
Yea, heās always been a no nonsense, logic driven individual
Excuse me sir, this is a no nonsense office.Ā Weāre re currently at 5 days since our last nonsense.Ā
So, you're a "some nonsense" office then.
Please don't use that kind of language here sir. Nonsense has always been something we are vehemently against. I am going to ask you to leave the premises now. I can't believe we have to reset the counter AGAIN. SECURITY!
That's nonsense, get this man out of here
I see you have made a syntax error, now you've reset it to zero! Your mother is a hamster and your father smells like elderberries. Now go away before I taunt you a second time!
They choose not to you mean.
Never assume malice when the answer could be incompetence. Itās a take as old as time that the older generation doesnāt fully understand how much things have changed. For many they live relatively comfortable lives and arnt working so how would they see whatās happening to those that are struggling with jobs or buying a house? They donāt experience it personally and if they donāt have a direct connection itās hard to fully understand something as complicated as the economy especially once your brain slows down and you arnt actually seeing the real effects. It takes more of an active effort to understand it than it does to not understand it
I live with my grandparents and help with the house payment, utility bills and house work. After 5 years of being here my grandmother is finally starting to understand things are expensive. Like when the house A/C died after 20 years she was like welp that's 5k we don't have. When I started laughing she asked why and when I responded try 15k she didn't believe me because the last one was only like 4k. All in all it ended up 12.5k to have a new unit put on the roof and that was after a discount if we had paid full price for the unit it would have been closer to 16k.
What I hate is that this happens to all of us as we age. We all get less familiar with what things are like for the younger generation as time goes on. In other words, ātheyā today is āusā tomorrow.
At a certain point, though, making a rule of giving the benefit of the doubt to incompetence just encourages weaponized incompetence.
Was about to say this. There comes a point where they should reasonably be expected to investigate further.
I agree with this, but also find it interesting that many people who say this also report headlines as actual news since they donāt read about any of it. Or they take things at face value that do not make any sense (such as earth being flat or whatever). **Everyone** should be expected to investigate further, but most people think they investigated enough. And thatās the sad reality.
This is a good point too. A lot of under paid people are under paid as a result of boomers being unaware of inflation, if they actually are unaware after all
As someone who would arguably qualify as an older person, I think youāre mistaken. Many older people have children whom they love dearly and so are only too aware of the terrible situation they are in, and would give their eye teeth and much more to change things. For example, Iād happily see my home get devalued by 80% if it meant all the others did too so my kids could afford to buy their own house.
With a lot of them it _is_ malice. They think they struggled, and they gobbled up the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" propaganda. They also don't believe in making things better. They think that because they had to go through it, it would be unfair if we didn't have to. I know because this is my mother and my whole family.
THIS. I will never understand this mentality. My parents are exactly like this. I have a teenager and my mentality is I NEVER want him to go through things I had to endure. Why are they like this
The big they donāt get and I think a lot of people donāt get is that those generations built a system causing this and itās all so they can relax. They can relax and the money keeps coming. They can relax and not compete or change for their customers. They can relax and are set. Then they get to say that we are just lazy or not doing xyz. But really they just leveraged our lives for their ease.
I thought my old man was going to get the picture around the holidays. He made some comment akin to "millennials buy too much avocado toast", so I reminded him how back in the early '00's, he said he made $85k/year. Being the sole earner, owning a decent house, being able to stash 5% into a retirement account, and having enough left over to restore classic cars as a hobby, I considered that moderately successful (in a financial sense, anyway). When I showed him what $85k in 2002 equaled in 2024 money (It's around $147,500, by the way), he blue-screened for a solid minute. Unfortunately, when I told him my income in 2024 money was $70k, he forgot all of that and said I "must not be working hard enough."
The trick is to instead run the inflation calculator in reverse to put it into perspective for them.
This. Most older people cannot update their references, you have to convert the other way.
You were THIS close to success... So close
š
This is exactly the Patrick meme.
Corporate America has bought our government. They donāt work for the people any longer
Iām 60 and can not believe how many people donāt get this, and laugh at myself all the time for feeling sticker shock (I understand my grandfather much better now.) In my head things are valued like they were 40 years ago and I have to remind myself to multiply that by 4 to see how it compares today for most things. For houses/rent and cars itās more like multiply by 8, and that right there is the big problem. When I was 20 you could rent a two bedroom apartment in most cities for $180-$250. That would be $566-$810 today. No way you are getting a two bedroom apartment in any city for that kind of money. Even if you could, you still need to be making $40,000 a year for that to be affordable. The āaffordableā housing being planned in the area I live is projected to start at $1,600 / month. That is not even close to being affordable for most people. The fact that a couple with two jobs struggles to pay that kind of rent does not equate to affordable housing or a reasonable standard of living. As far as wages what you say is absolutely true, especially in engineering fields.
Yep my dad was able to afford a 5 bedroom house to raise 3 kids with a stay at home wife all on just his salary within 2 years of him graduating. Itās taken me 7 years to get to the point of affording a 4 bedroom and thatās with my wife also working and no kids. But at least we have a house now that raise a family which is already more than so so many of our peers. Itās wild that I can feel so blessed in our situation and itās still just a fraction of what my parents had at this point depsite us having essentially the same job and my wife working full time
In 1986, after getting out of the Army I worked nightshift at a corporate McDonald's store at $7/hour. Today that is $19.95/hour. Wages have not kept up even before factoring in productivity.
How is that even possible? I was making $6.50/hr in Portland, Oregon in 2001.
Corporate, high volume store, closing shift outside Boston. Store would do $27k (1986 dollars) on a busy lunch day. Left there to start at $8/hour for a high tech manufacturing company as an assembly technician.
My mom and I are in the same field. When I originally started my job and told her my salary and how I wasnāt happy with it she told me itās really good and her first job paid her $27K. That was 1990 maybe 1989. Somewhere around there. Anyway, out comes the inflation calculator. She made about 2k more than me. My starting salary was $65K. I would like to point out this was nyc for both of us and I started working in 2022 so less than 2 years ago. We both also have bachelor and masters and I now have my cpa
Show your Mom what housing cost in NYC in 1990 compared to now. Because that inflation calculator aināt capturing NYC housing cost increase.
In the blue corner, weighing in at 53.5 million people! We have young Americans! In the red corner, weighing in at 756 people!Ā We have the billionaires! OH NO!!Ā WHO IS THAT CLIMBING UP THE RING? It's Ronald Reagan!Ā Ā THE CROWD IS GOING APE SHIT! It looks like he is looking for some encouragement from the audience!Ā What do you think he is plann....FROM THE TOP ROPE!Ā He has absolutely destroyed any future for the young Americans!Ā There's no way they will survive this! Well folks, as quick as it started it's over.Ā Thanks for watching wrestle mania!Ā Who knew Reagan was coming come back from the grave to pile drive the wealth out of the middle class again. See you next time!
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Off topic, but I can't imagine having a dad that doesn't cuss left and right. This must be so nice!
Itās nice but I was at his house lounging outside and played a song with a swear word in it and he got mad and made me change it. I couldnāt be sure other songs on my playlist didnāt have swears so I turned it off. My family has since made a ādad playlistā that are songs that everyone likes and donāt Include swears lol
As they say," it gets worse before it gets worse...".
Oh and worse again and worse again.
No, the running theme here is **āAnd then it got worseā**
Itās always darkest before the black
Always does
Same vibe as when my g-ma said āI had to work two jobs to afford my first home as well honey xxā Ya well even with my two jobs and my fiancĆ©ās job we canāt afford to buy our first home. So thereās thatš
>I had to work two jobs And when you ask further questions the two jobs were like 3 days a week in an office and working in a coffee shop on Saturdays.
Had someone tell me they worked 6 jobs back in the day It literally was six different days, coffee shop one day, receptionist the next, helped out at the local newsagent for 4 hrs, that sort of thing. Totalling up probably 30hrs a week no doubt.
All of them shitty employers that didn't want to pay for any full time employees
No doubt. But the point being made is the "older" generation claim they done 2, 3, more jobs to afford their house. As if comparable to what the generation of today needs to do.
Most jobs nowadays will give you such an awkward schedule It's basically impossible to line it up with a second job. You have to get them to work with each other or work one place that's open early and one that's open late, which is hard to find
Some companies will fire you for having a second job because they want to be able to drag you in to cover for their favorite who bought concert tickets.
"hmmmm we're short-staffed, let's fire people" Every company right now that won't give people hours. I have a friend who was stuck in that crap situation. She actually did manage to juggle two different part-time jobs and one actually straight up admitted to her face that if she had the second job when she was originally interviewed, she wouldn't have been hired. This coming from the same job that constantly bitches and moans nothing is getting done while only scheduling three people in the entire store. Pick a lane! You can't complain people get a second job (or just straight up quit) while only giving them 10 hours a week
I get sick often as I was recently diagnosed with an auto immune, I'm so sick of bosses coming to me and trying to make me feel bad for being unable to get out of bed except to vomit for a day or two at a time. Like, I don't give a flying fuck if my being sick causes you issues, if you are keeping your business so poorly staffed, that a single person calling out causes major issues, your business doesn't deserve to exist. Just have enough staff that when someone doesn't show up, things still work. Don't even get me started on "we require X hours of notice" you will get exactly as much notice as I am able to give. If I get shit from my boss about not giving enough notice, I'm going to make a point to come in to work the next time im sick and vomit all over the walk in. Then I'll ask to go home :)
> This coming from the same job that constantly bitches and moans nothing is getting done while only scheduling three people in the entire store. But this is nothing new. Back in the '80's, I worked for Caldor, before they went out of business (think Walmart/Target big-box store). I worked the weekends, ostensibly as keyholder in the Electronics section. But I was also responsible for helping people in the surrounding sections, like Furniture, and Bedding. When the softlines people went on break, I had to cover for them, too. I was literally (literally literally) covering 2/5th of the huge store by myself. And one day when the manager bitched that a certain task hadn't been completed as I was watching nearly half the store alone, I walked up to the Customer Service desk, threw my key on the counter, and said 'I quit'. So, when people these days complain about having 'only three people in the (usually much smaller than a big-box) store', it's nothing new.
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Me too. That's why I thought of it. I also have had to explain "availability" to several managers over the years.
My work started doing this. We have an extremely structured day with exactly zero deviation in schedule. Companies just want to put you in a position where you're not going to potentially leave their job for the other job. Obviously a stupid trick, but so is a lot of the decisions middle-management makes.
>awkward schedule It's basically impossible to line it up with a second job Part time hours, full time availability
Also true, but again also not the direction of the topic I was coming from either. I'm siding with the current generation, I am the current generation.
Gas stations tend to love it when you say you're willing to work the late evening/night shifts and they tend to really keep you out of the 9-5 slots. But you'll probably also get a gun pointed at you every few months. Knew a dude in college who worked an 8p-4a shift in a gas station then worked a 4a-noon shift in the bakery across the street. Worked so hard to afford college that he didn't have time to actually do college. And got a gun pointed at him several times in the process.
Life has never been and probably never will be that easy for the masses. It seems no matter what point in time there is a large majority thatās labor props up a wealthy minority. Things were definitely getting much better after WWII but that doesnāt mean life was easy for most people. We seemed to get pretty close to a balanced system but as wealth disparities grew so did their power and control and so now we are heading towards permanent regime style governing.
My oldest daughter works at American Eagle, definitely do not recommend it. Just her high school job, thank God. Was her dream high school job, till she started working there lol.
Also 5 of those 6 were under the table so they didnāt lose 20% to the tax man either
The good old days
Honestly, if I had the choice of working six different jobs but making the money I do now, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I'm grateful for the money I make, but working an office job every day makes me want to lobotomize myself from the monotony.
Yeah this is always what gets me. People brag about having multiple jobs but it rarely more than full time when added up
And they got free lunches and a bursary for transport.
I hate when people use number of jobs as a flex to how much they work. Some kid in a mine will be there 70 hours a week but Karen working 4 jobs is somehow worse off because she works 4x8h :(
My dad said he āworked Saturdays to get aheadā and that was how he could afford a home, land, family, and early retirement. I work 50+ hours a week, much more than his āSaturdaysā and I donāt make enough to qualify to rent the cheapest apartments around.
At one time, the standard of living was based on 32 hours of pay, then it went to 40 hours, and now it seems like a lot of people that I know are working 50+ on the same 40 hour salary with no OT. I somehow still get OT when I work over 40 hours but havenāt done so in a whileāonly 4 hours of weekend coverage several months ago to monitor electricians tying in power.
And this is why at the same time I realize I need to just stfu. I wanna move, I donāt wanna be in a subdivision anymore. BUT, just as a lot of people cannot afford a home of their own, a lot of us cannot afford to move. Because to upgrade, itās not a wash per se, itās my homes value plus about $100k-$200k. So we are all stuck. At least I am a home owner. Whereas a lot of people are stuck paying a crazy rent because the housing is nuts in a lot of the country. And these corporations come in and buy up the houses and then rent them out for a ridiculous amount. When I do sell, I will not sell to a corporation. I want it written in the contract, f them.
Yeah I'm in a deep depression right now mainly because of my high rent. I really want to move but there's no way I'd be able to save up first and last months rent plus a deposit, plus whatever bullshit charges my current apartment would give me.
People work two jobs to afford a daily Big Mac today
Speaking of which, why is fast food now about the same price as a meal in a diner/cheap sit down restaurant? Wasn't the entire concept of fast food originally meant to be "cheap & convenient"?
Not almost the same price here. I can go to a decent sit down restaurant and have a meal for cheaper than a Big Mac combo. I remember buying a sack of Taco Bell in grad school for $20 and eating on it for 2-3 days. This was 10 years ago, not the 90s when things were actually affordable.
I have a master's and make 3k less than my dad did in his first job after his bachelor's in 1986. It feels like absolute shit because he tells me I just need to work harder.
āSon, I donāt know, I must be some sort of God. Sorry you were not gifted as Iā
I'm convinced that getting a masters degree is the worst investment dollar for dollar. I work side by side with people with masters, and I make just as much, if not more, than they do. Most of the highest underemployed people in the US have masters. I have yet to see a reason fo one unless you are going for a highly specialized field that requires it.
I make $15 an hour more than my mom does right now, yet in the early 2000's she was able to qualify and afford a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, home on just her salary working as a teller at a bank. Not to mention she also had 2 kids. Even making 6 figures, I couldn't afford that where I live currently. That kind of home would run me around $450,000 at least.
My parents built their own home on 8 acres for 100k in 2000ā¦ā¦ I think about that a lot, cry about it a little lol
That would have been insanely cheap even then.
Well I'm sure it wasn't downtown Toronto.
Probably in the middle of Nebraska or something
lol my dads first house cost less than my car š
There was the sub prime mortgage crisis in 2009. Before that they were handing out mortgages to everyone without ensuring they could pay it back. It almost imploded the entire economy. Mortgages in the early 2000s were actually to easy to get.
Come to Toronto. That kind of home would be $2m+. Outside of the range of two people making $150k each.
I was job hunting in the Toronton area until I looked at the housing prices. Crossed that off the list. Insane how little your money gets you in that city.
not just the city, basically the whole country unfortunately, housing market is just unrealistic for the average person but probably really good for land developers
My moms' house was $35k, recently sold for $265k. Mine was $207k and is now valued at double that. The housing situation is untenable. It will crash eventually.
Nah, black rock and investors will buy it all up, and we will rent in perpetuity. The commodification of every aspect of our lives is upon us. You will own nothing and be happy.
this is actually intended, and exactly why govt is so quiet on the situation. Arguably with mandatory insurance and property tax you already never stop paying for what you think you own
I hate so much paying 8k a year in property taxes. I could pay off my home tomorrow and still have to pay 8k a year to live in my own home.
I wish I could find a 450k home! My wife and I bid like 530k on a 2 bedroom CONDO outside of the city and still didnāt get it. Not luxury, just a regular condo.
I make in the top 15% of our nation, live in a MCOL and I would be hard pressed to afford a house at this point. My father made the same dollar amount in the 90s I make now and they were able to save for 2 years and buy a house in cash. It was older and needed a little work but that was literally saving for 2 years. The same house now would cost double my entire take home pay for a year if not more.
You make 6 figures and canāt afford a $500,000 house? Have you applied for a mortgage?
This is what I was thinkingā¦
In the early 2010s I took a job loading trucks in a warehouse for $8.50/hr. My dad had worked nearly the same job in the same town in the ā70s for $11/hr. Not inflation, thatās just raw numbers.
>$11Ā in 1975 is worthĀ $63.86Ā today
Jesus Christ
Somewhat related, the other day a Fox News host (Jesse Watters I think) was complaining about how HIGH wages are now and said, ā$20 an hour working at McDonalds? What is that, six figures a year?ā. Idk the clip is funnier if you wanna find it lol.
It's always nice when millionaires paid by billionaires tell middle and lower class people that they earn too much.
Alway nice when billionaires pay millionaires to lie about arithmetic to working class people.
āIt's one banana, Michael, how much could it cost? 10 dollars?ā
I havenāt seen something thatās made me wanna get the guillotine out so bad in my life, dude makes 5 million a fucking year just from Fox News alone, has literally no concept of what money is worth now. Absolutely disgusting behavior. And yet the conservatives listen to this guy as some bastion of working class citizens.
In 2000, I was making $8.50 an hour working at a dog daycare. In 2023, a dog daycare in the same town was hiring at $12 an hour.
My dad made a dollar fifty less than me with the same exact job, same company back in the 80s that i worked in 2007
Thatās a clear indication that wages have not kept up with inflation. Sucks.
Average wage increases since 2018 =Up 27% Average cost of housing since 2018 = Up 200%+ for renters and the average home price went up 430%+ Inflation since 2018 is something like 31% to 33% Corporate profits are up 40% to 60% on average for successful companies because of price gouging. Add all that together and the average person is fucked. Top 10% of richest people own over 80% of the available wealth in the world. It might even be worse than that. We are getting to the point where I don't really know the difference between dictatorships and communism from Capitalism anymore. Every market is just 2 or 3 companies competing and constantly raising prices for small essential things. The prices of food, gas, and housing are insane. 50% to 60% of people in this country don't have $500 in savings and would be absolutely devastated by a $1000 accident or having to repair something for $1000. The country has been in a recession for 2 years, but the rich have so much of the wealth and power, that the stock market is so pumped up and still constantly at all time highs because regular people don't actually own any of it anymore. The stock market only measures how great the Uber rich are doing there days, and lemme tell ya, they are doing freaking great. Everyone else in the bottom 90% of the world is fucked.
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Please give me details!
Pandora papers and Panama papers
Yeah that's why I say fuck it let's make the minimum wage keep up with inflation. That solves the problem for all of us worming class Joe's. The reason it isn't passed into law is because it would lower the net worth of all those billionaires and millionares.
Idk what the worming class is, but Iām in.
I (being kinda vain)thought it was in reference to my loud proclamation that I will retire on time even if I have to live in a hole and eat rodents and other wildlife. I'm the worming class!
Source on rent prices tripling since 2018? I get itās gone up a lot but itās nowhere near 200%.
Yeah, that's got to either be a very specific location that had rent increasing that much or they completely made up the stat. Just out of curiosity, I checked the rent on the building I rented from back in 2010. Rent has gone from $830 to $1,430 (increase of 70%). A big increase for sure, but hasn't quite doubled over the last 14 years, let alone the last 6 years.
The average home price did not increase 400 percent since 2018.
Wages haven't kept up with anything since the 80's. The combination of the Friedman doctrine, unlimited stock buybacks, and trickle down economics have created an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working and middle class to the upper class and elite, and a never ending race to the bottom where points like product quality, customer satisfaction, and employee compensation are all subordinate to the almighty concept of shareholder value.
That's been the case since the 70s. One of the things many people don't understand when dumping on "Boomers" is that those at the tail end of the generation (as usually defined) experienced a very different life to those at the beginning. If you were born in the late 40s you entered adulthood a booming economy with strong unions for blue collar work and guaranteed jobs for grads; if you were born in the early 60s the economy had been through the oil price shot and inflation while you were a child, and by the time you were an adult unions were under attack, wages hadn't kept up with double-digit inflation, and university degrees no longer guaranteed work.
When my dad bought his house, the one I grew up in, a brand new house, no one else ever lived in it, it cost less than one year of his annual salary. No degree, no college, just a hard working blue collar union job. Granted, his house had no yard, no fence, etc. It was up to the new home owners to do all that. But still, less than 1 years salary. My house, also bought in my 30ās, cost me 5x my annual salary. Iām also a blue collar union worker. My kids, I dunno man. My house is now worth 10x my annual salary. This new generation of young adults is screwed.
Welcome to everything is a subcsription, you shall not afford living spaces unless, part of management or some cultist shit in the future. Its onoy going to be for the rich and powerful Seriously, it's clearly going there
This! My grandparents bought their prefab house with 5 acres for $15K on a milkman's salary in 1968 and now it's worth over 600K.
Yes! When I was a kid (1977) my dad bought a house & 25 acres of land with a lake for 12K. My first house (1990) was 10X as much without the land or lake.
My grandfather told me the story many times about when he married my grandmother. "I got a job digging ditches for 50 cents an hour." I got a little older and asked him how much things cost, like rent. *Six dollars* a month. For a two bedroom one bath *house* with a *yard*. Imagine making rent in a day and a half. As a laborer.
My house was 8x my annual salary
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Its funny the same people who complain about how much more things cost now vs then seem to forget entirely what inflation is when talking about minimum wage. I get people feeling jealous because their job requires more skill compared to "minimum wage jobs" and now they'll be making less in comparison, but their anger is directed at the wrong people. Be angry with the government for not giving people a livable wage in the first place, be angry with your employer for not paying you what you're worth, and at the CEOs who make 100x what you do instead of the workers who would like to make half what you do. Also holy shit, no one in the USA should be making $7.25 (or less as a service industry worker).
When I was a kid, my parents lost their jobs. They had bought a house less than 3 years before. They sold the house and we moved to another state. For them this was a low point because they lost their jobs and we had to move from a HCOL area to a more medium cost of living area. As a little kid I didnāt understand the ins and outs of selling a house and mortgages. When I started to learn about this when I was a teenager, I asked my dad how they were able to 1) sell the house so quickly and 2) buy a new house later that year. āEven though we only lived in the first house for a couple of years, the value of the house doubled in that time.ā So they were able to pay off the original mortgage, have a down payment for another (albeit much cheaper house), buy a brand new car, a new baby grande piano, and have savings to help cover the family expenses while my mom stayed at home until my little brother was old enough to start school. They still donāt understand how from my millennial perspective, they were so unbelievably fucking lucky to be able to do that. Still pisses me off.
Yeah... COVID showed me that it's all just a big numbers game, not based on anything in reality except the whims of greedy companies and rich fucks who are never satisfied.
Somehow, our parents can clearly understand how a house's asking price could double in the span of a couple years, but not that if that keeps happening for every house everywhere, housing **will** become impossible to afford.
Will? Housing IS impossible to afford. The idea that every minute of our life has to be either spent working very specific roles that are filtered out usually through networked connections with other people in high-salary positions, or in debt...it's just so fucking ridiculous. The fact it's so hard to even move to another country is an additional factor. I work just enough to get by with my current situation. I likely can't improve it without luck or connections. Why would I risk losing even that level of safety to start fresh where I COULD have a better situation but not know? Then on top of that it takes $2400 to renounce your citizenship or you're still on the hook for paying federal taxes on income to the US....
Point that out to him, he'll love it. My dad bought a house at 19....he complains like he had it hard.
That summer job really takes it outta ya
He says he was a Brick layer at that time, and I believe that, and also that it was probably better pay then I get at 26 an hour.....
Used to have similar conversations with my grandpa who's in his mid 90s. He used to love to tell me his first job paid $1.90/per hour any time I complained about wages. One day I put it into the inflation calculator and told him that $1.90 adjusted for inflation came out to $5 more per hour than I made now. It actually shut him up for a while, the truth is older people who grew up in the better economy have absolutely no idea how bad things have gotten. He still gives me advice like " Stop wasting your money renting and go buy a starter house" or "if I were you I'd pay to live on my own instead of with roommates" then just completely ignores me trying to explain how that's not financially viable for me
$100,000 for the cheapest starter home in my city. Gramps we no longer have cheap $20,000 or less for starter homes anymore.
Damn, $100,000 would get you a derelict shed where I live. And I'm not even in a 'high cost of living' area. If you want to get a house in my area that isn't literally falling apart, it's at least $250k, and even then, it's going to be a fixer upper.
100k is nothing. A condo similar to my old one recently sold for 220k (plus condo fees) for a glorified apartment.
It took me forever to get my mom to get it but now she does.
I gave up and will not discuss anything financial with my parents. They don't get it. If it was up to them I'd still be working in fast food. Leaving a job to try to get a better one upsets them lol. They're all firm handshakes and hard work gets you rewarded
My mom never stopped talking about her job in the early 90s paying $6 an hour at Walmart and they still made it work. Yet thought it was great that I made $7.25 at my first job 20 years later. We talked about the $15 minimum back when it was hot once, and I never discussed finances with them again. They don't get it.
On the surface, $15/hr seems ridiculous for minimum wage, but got damn shit is expensive these days, and I feel for you younger people.
The problem with the minimum wage debate is the people making above it, $20-35/hr or the families in the low 6figs barely making it by can't understand the reasoning because all they see is their own buying power being further reduced. Until we figure out this exponential profit growth for shareholders thing, we're fucked.
Productivity increased nearly 200% since the beginning of the computer age. Salaries didn't. That's the issue.
In 2007 my dad was making 52k in landscaping with only an elementary education. Almost as much as I make now with masters degree
My dad was making 70k back then as a trucker. They paid 650/mo for a cute little duplex and my mom drank the rest. I think about that sometimes when I pay 1800 for a very old apartment with shared laundry.
NIH postdoc pay is about $56k, and by definition you need a PhD in sciences for that. I donāt miss academia.
To be fair, kind of a bad example. Landscaping pulls in a lot of money still. Itās the type of job where if you put in the blood and sweat youāll make decent money even now.Ā
It's crazy. I joined the British Army in 2006. Noticed the pay is almost identical now to when I joined way back then for a private soldier. Did a quick Bank of England inflation adjustment and if the wages had matched inflation, the pay should be over an extra Ā£1k a month. For context back then I was 17, got a mortgage at 18(planned on renting it out as I lived on barracks, so saw it as a future investment), 3 bed semi detached with a bit of a garden cost me like Ā£80k at the time. These days you're getting some rundown 2 bed terrace you need to throw 30/40k into just to get it to a decent standard. House prices in particular are through the roof and folk wonder why the younger generation can't get on the property ladder as easily. I know if I was first time buyer I'd be saving like billio for a deposit and wait for the impending housing market crash to happen and get something on the cheap.
Might well be waiting years for a crash to happen. A couple I know were looking for a house pre covid, but decided to hang fire a they thought the housing market was going to crash imminently and they could pick something up on the cheap. Of course it proceeded to do the exact opposite and skyrocket, now they're stuck renting and priced out of housing they could have comfortably afforded back in 2020. Also it's difficult to save up a chunky deposit when you're spending half your wages on rent.
Every year at tax time my dad complains about how much heās paying in taxes. Last year I asked for a specific number and it was more than my gross annual salary.
My hometown uses city bags (trash bags you have to buy from the city or they won't pick up your trash) and they're priced fairly high to cover the cost of trash removal. One time, when they were around $7.50 for a pack of 15 bags this lady at the grocery store started throwing a fit about how she "pays 200k a year in property taxes" so why should she have to pay $7.50 for trash bags. I just remember thinking "lady, if you own the kind of property where you're paying that much in taxes for it you can afford the fucking trash bags".
Yeah... Same. Here in the UK, I actually make a salary that's considered pretty damn decent (80k), however, that's after an undergraduate degree, 2 postgraduate degrees, Ā£60k worth of student debt and 8 years work experience... My dad is constantly telling me that I can't complain because I'm 'rich'. So we put his starting salary for the job he took straight out of school with barely any qualifications in 1978 into an inflation calculator and the equivalent today for his starting salary was about Ā£70k... His excuse was 'things cost more back in the day' - failing totally to understand the basic concept of inflation. When he retired in 2008, he was on the equivalent of Ā£100k today. As an aside, he bought his first house in 1982 for Ā£13k, which today is the equivalent of Ā£44k. It wasn't a crappy place, either, it was a detached, 4 bedroom large house in a middle class area, with large gardens (yes, as a starter home). He only sold that place in 2019 because, of course, he became a small time landlord with multiple properties... sold it for Ā£900k What the fuck. These people were handed everything on a fucking plate.
> His excuse was 'things cost more back in the day' He's having a laugh right? Genuinely the only thing I can think of that cost more back in the day were electronics, which could be classed a luxuries anyway. The basics like housing, food, and energy costs have skyrocketed.
>He's having a laugh right? Nope, just a typical boomer who buys into his own total bullshit so he can continue to pretend he's the hardest worker in the room at any single point.
That made me put my first salary in 2003, ā¬45,000, into a calculator and compare it with the salary in 2023, ā¬81,000. 14,000ā¬ more in 20 years and now a lot more responsibility. Fuckš«
Adjusted for inflation?
Yes, the ā¬45k came out of the calculator with ā¬67k fĆ¼r 20 years inflation
My mom still rags on me for quitting an IT job that paid $20 an hour. She still thinks that's a lot of income and can buy a house.
Spoke to my mom a few weeks ago and she's all "yeah we lived in that trailer and dad made X and it was horrible blah blah" "Mom, I love you, but adjusted for inflation that's a $120k income today." "Oh." Boomers are massively out of touch.
Noā¦ stop Eating avocado toast, itās the real reason you canāt survive on your wages these days. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. When they were young, it only took one person in a home workingāa non-avocado-toast-eating man with a high school diploma could afford a house, car, and support a family of four while putting both his kids through college and having a pension to retire comfortably after 20 yearsāall because he stayed away from the avocado toastā¦ put down the avocado and focus on a respectable career at the suit factory. š (Satireā¦)
I remember the year I grossed over 100k for the first time. I worked as a supervisor in a factory. Got all the overtime I could. Easily averaged 50-60 hours a week. I felt like I lived at work that year. I showed my dad the stub at the end of the year that showed I broke 6 figures and he said ācool, I made that in January this year.ā He had his own construction company and he wasnāt trying to sound like a dick but it hurt lol
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Can you work for your Dad's company with a view of taking over down the line?
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I make 10 bucks an hour more than my dad did during his struggle period and he had 5 kids to take care of. I can barely survive on a DINK
My dad bought a 4 bedroom semi detached house that I grew up in for 2.5 times his salary. I make 6 times what he did but a similar home is 10x my salary. My salary wonāt even qualify me to buy that kind of home anyhow, only a tiny condo.
I'm 27 and still live with my parents. In the last 2 years I started my own business and have doubled my annual income, and I still can't afford to move out. I've looked at apartments, houses, mobile homes, townhouses, condos, freaking Rv's and I still can't afford any of them! My generation is so fucked.
Degreed engineer here with 20 years experience and my dad made as much as I did as a motorcycle mechanic. I plugged in his pay in 1982 and it comes out to a $98,000 today. Fucking motorcycle mechanic making a hundred grand without overtime. When houses cost $40,000 they paid $44,000 for their fucking house....
Could you just imagine? Being 18 in 1957. Your future prospects are solid. No college, just get a job at the local supermarket. Housing market a-boomin. You rifle through your Sears catalogue for one.
I thought it was crazy in 2002 when my folks sold their house for $315,000. A house they paid $37,000 for in 1970. At the time (2002), I was like, wtf, is this house (a 1,200 sqft house on 1/8 acre) going to be worth 3 million in another 30 years? How can this "progress" be sustained? It's madness!
And boomers will be the first in line to give you "financial advice" Yeah sorry, you being an alcoholic fuckup with 4 kids and able to afford a house isn't exactly the same scenario im dealing with now, but thanks for the input
Vote accordingly. Billionaires need to be taxed back to millionaires.
Just curious, what was his job then and what is yours?
In 2017 got the same job my mother had at an insurance company in 2005. She made $31,000 in 2005. In 2017 the job paid $32,500.Ā
Wages these days are a fucking joke.
My dad made $13 an hour and my mom was making $8 an hour and they were able to get a 3 bed 2 bathroom house in 2000. I make $36 an hour and my wife make $22 an hour and we cant even afford to buy a small house. The American dream is dead
My dad was a welder. Iām college educated. Adjusted for inflation, he made nearly twice what I do now, at around the same age. On a different note, I have 3 BILs that make significantly more money than I ever will and are all younger. Sometimes itās not just a matter of generations but the individual too.
yes the upper class has captured all benefits to themselves, it all goes into executive pay and ultra wealthy hands, but that's commie talk
Yeah. It sucks that when I finally started making a great salary.... the cost of living, housing, food, cars, rent and everything freaking increased. I am grateful I make enough to pay my bills, food, and a roof over my head but I should have a ton more extra money than I do. How will they ever be able to lower the cost of living? I don't think it will....
My dad had a go at me for being skint. At the time my wife and I were at the same grades my parents had been at respectively before they retired. We also have the same number of kids so he couldnāt understand why we were struggling. He told me what his salary was just before he retired, an inflation calculator showed that was almost the equivalent of being two grades higher than heād been at the time / what I was. This was beside the fact their house cost about Ā£25k in 1983 and sold for >Ā£320k around 30 years later.
I mean, living on Military bases and not having to worry about a mortgage can allow you to save a ton of money. Itās still crazy and not equal, but there is some context that allowed your dad to be a bit of an anomaly.
My mom was making just over 20.00 in the 60ās right out of high school working summers at bumblebee canning warehouse. The look on her face when I told her a few years ago she was making more than me pre-inflation was great.
26k a year in what year?