It doesn't *feel* real. I've seen the numbers. But it's almost unimaginable. I'm struggling to make ends meet living alone in a studio apartment with my full time job.
I make six figures in the tech industry, and my wife makes good money.
We have no kids.
My life style is about the same as when I lived with my single mother, who worked as a secretary and got child support from my dad who was a carpenter.
The only reason I am comfortable is because my wife made us buy a house back in 2007. If I had to pay the rental prices in the area I live now, I think I would be worse off than my mother.
Something is very very wrong with the world. We went to a dinner party hosted by my wife's coworker. It took place in her sister's house. The house was 5 times the size of my house, and sat on a lake. The coworkers sister just owned it as an investment property, and let the coworker use it because she wanted someone to flush the toilets. That house sits unused, not even rented for 11 months out of the year.
The neighborhood is full of homes like that. I wonder what those people do to earn that kind of money to own those houses. In the coworkers sisters case, she's an HR director, and her husband is an investment banker.
Are those really the kinds of jobs that deserve that kind of pay? I just feel like the world is built wrong. I watch people who do jobs that matter struggle to make ends meet, and I watch people with jobs that do nothing of importance just showered with wealth.
A hard working construction laborer or a warehouse loader/unloader will be payed the bare minimum for essentially destroying their bodies by lifting heavy stuff all day while a cushy office job where half the time people aren’t even working and just gossiping will be paid exorbitantly for jobs that mostly just require them to check boxes
I remember when I was a kid, my grandfather retired and I was very confused because, okay, so he just *quit his job*? So no one is getting money anymore? How does that even work? It worked because he had this mythical thing called a pension and it just *paid him money each month for not working.* He was an auto mechanic who never even finished high school, and the house they raised their kids in is bigger than mine. Meanwhile, my retirement plan is “dying at my desk,” and hopefully I come back as a poltergeist and haunt the fuck out of that place.
I remember my mom lecturing my brother on the importance of making his $48 car payment every month.
Not so his credit score would be good. Those didn’t exist.
It’s surreal isn’t it? The total loan was only four digits. And I thought of myself as “middle class” but I was one of the poor kids in my school. I had a green lunch card so it cost me 65 cents instead of a dollar something. My Nikes were usually from the outlet store and I had a Murray bmx bike instead of a huffy. But I never heard anyone complain or worry about money in my family until the 90s.
My car loan for a used car in the ‘80s was $91 a month. I made $3.35 an hour and couldn’t afford it. I joined the army for the signing bonus to pay off the loan.
My first car loan was $130.40 for 36 months. I think I put $1000 down. This was in 1980. The next year, I went into the military and was making $250 every two weeks. That was with separate rations.
Absolutly. I was raised in the 90s by my grandparents and I would say they were considered upper middle class. When my grandpa passed a few years ago I got some of his documents including past tax fileings. He made $55K a year. What do I remember that covering when I lived with my grandparents?
Two high end cars, that they traded in every 3-5 years. A house that cost them $30K new in CA. A second home in the moutains. Flying first class when we went on vacations out of state. Nice hotels. A country club memberships. A luxury gym membership. (spa and everything) A yard keeper and a maid. The best clothes, food, and newest gadgets. And for a while I attended a paid private school before they pulled me out after they found out copral punishment was still inforced.
All that on $55K and they still had enough for gas, bills, AND a retirement plan. WTF?
It kinda depends on where you live. I sold a 3br house in St. Louis for $114k about six months ago. Bought it in 2017 with a gross household income of about $56k.
Yeah even 59 wasn’t a great price. But back then the expensive items were fancier and actually had more or more complex ingredients. Now it’s just expensive and more expensive
Check out the history of gas prices for a bit of amusement: https://www.creditdonkey.com/gas-price-history.html#:\~:text=What%20year%20did%20gas%20go,15%20years%20ago%2C%20in%202004.
IMHO, not so much for the any transfer of wealth.
Someone consumed 100 USD worth of value and produced <100 USD worth of value (inflation-adjusted, of course).
Add to this the interest rates, and you get the picture.
I remember it, but it seems like a fever dream that I just can’t believe was real. I have a master’s degree, work two jobs, and can barely make ends meet. I’m so angry that we did everything the Boomers told us to do and they just pulled up the ladder.
Check again. Obama was a boomer too. He was born in 1961. The oldest Gen Xers became eligible to run in 2000, the youngest in 2016, but they have yet to elect a President from their ranks.
Two decades of Boomer Prezzies!
We should memorialize that somehow.
Although I have to say I personally think there might be a cultural difference between early 40s Boomers and early 60s Boomers. Culture change was gradually accelerating.
Still, perhaps we might both agree that Septua- and Octogenarians ought not remain eligible for the Chief Executive role. Seems like the official “65-67 yo” threshold of ‘retirement’ ought to apply to our local Caesar.
We need sharp people running our Empire!
I grew up in the nineties. I remember what it was like when you could afford rent and all your basic needs working full time at BLOCKBUSTER. A VIDEO STORE. Think about that. It's not that they were paid more. Hell, they were paid crap. It's that their dollar went much further than it does today. Our dollars are practically worthless now, because it takes more of them to get the same resources and privileges that it did back then.
I didn't grow up in the era when a single parent could provide for a family of five on a full time minimum wage job. I didn't grow up in the era when a single parent could afford a mortgage payment either.
I grew up in the era when these rights and privileges were disappearing from the world.
We can trace most of it back to Reagan.
In the eighties there were people screaming that an actor had no business in politics or leadership. Surprise! He didn't. He singlehandedly orchestrated the capitalist hellscape we have today by creating the for profit healthcare system (technically Nixon was the asshole who came up with it, but Reagan went with it so it's really Reagan). He (Reagan) also advanced the for profit prison system and instituted and popularized the Trickle Down Economics philosophy--which has since been debunked by every smart, reasonable person that ever lived. But that doesn't matter because it took root amongst the wealthy who then gaslit the poor and the poor then gaslit their children and now everyone blames themselves for their poverty when poverty as a construct is created by the capricious cruelty of the rich, not the mistakes of the impoverished.
Interesting historical fact: we talk about Trump as a modern day Caligula and that's an apt comparison, but lest we forget, Trump is doing a lot of the same types of shit Reagan did in the eighties--and much worse.
Assuming we don't cook our planet to death or nuke ourselves to extinction, I fear what the long-term effects of Trump's actions will have on the economy over the next fifty years. Reagan did a decent amount of damage and he wasn't even in office for all that long--only two terms as president, which is only eight years. If someone can do that much damage in less than a decade... wow. Are we in for some crazy shit.
>technically Nixon was the asshole who came up with it, but Reagan went with it so it's really Reagan
Dude, these are just the "talking heads". The marionettes.
Don't blame the stick, blame the throwing hand.
Yep, 2 bd/2 bad apartment was $665 in 2009 (after the real estate meltdown). It wasn't *that* long ago.
Hell, I remember when the house I'm currently renting was $800 in rent. That was alittle over 5 years ago. Now it's almost double with no real improvements on a shitty side of town. This whole set up is unstainable
Not really, as the politicians are still bought by the richest and such a law would likely be made in such a way as to allow the richest to keep their money or at least their power, like it pretty much always is. And even if it was possible to do something like this unless capitalism is replaced the changes will be rolled back by the newest rich...
Cynicism achieves nothing. You are making excuses for why it won't work. When you have no idea what would happen. Elect democrats and you will get that wealth tax. Republicans aren't going to do it, since they are the party of the wealthy. You just have to try instead of saying "Nothing will ever work." That's why you people never achieve anything. You've already given up.
Honestly no, that won't work, nothing short of a complete overthrow will. Democrats are still capitalists, they still ultimately care more about the rich, as does everyone right leaning. The only way this ends is the destruction of the country, and looking at Project 2025, this country's fate is sealed. There's not an outcome that doesn't end with violence.
Trump doesn't win, he's already stated he won't accept the results of the election, and will attempt another coup, and this time the entire Republican party is backing him.
Trump wins and enacts his plan to become a fascist dictator, that he has quite literally laid out for us, and then peaceful protest becomes impossible. Thus making violent revolution necessary.
There is a dem in office now and as far as I’m aware all he did is LOWER the IRS tax threshold for 1099 from $20K to…. $800. Meaning only the middle and lower classes would be impacted by this. And the income is now reported starting at $800 from PayPal, eBay, Venmo etc
> Cynicism achieves nothing.
As another person said, it's not cynicism. It's just saying the obvious thing that unfortunately many do not know as most of us have been bor under constant pro-capitalism propaganda and might have never heard any actual argument about it and at most heard arguments that were against things that don't actually change the situation for the better in a permanent way, like the original comment I responded to or your own comment, where you basically just say to "choose a group of pro-capitalism politicians instead of another one", instead of giving an actual solution, like "let's get rid of pro-capitalism politicians from politics while changing the system so they don't come back"...
My first apartment after I graduated high school was $400/mo for a 2 bedroom. It was even a duplex. Now, in the next town over, we’re paying $1100/mo for a 2 bedroom. Utilities not included. Not to mention it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere
And now, you have Bachelor's, Master's, 2-3 languages and other certificates and you are unemployed. Today especially in some countries of Europe, having just a high school diploma is equal to having nothing. Everyone wants scientists but nobody can actually pay them
Kind of hard to care when you’re constantly in survival mode. Psychologically you can’t be happy if basic needs and security are not being met. I have some issues with Maslow’s hierarchy but the overall premise is completely true. That’s why I agree with you and also admit I too am one of said drones.
Older houses in my neighborhood only have a 1 car garage. Why? Because back in the day only one person needed to go to work to make a living, and that was enough to raise a family. Now? Good luck floating 2 car payments on top of your rent or mortgage as well as food, the gas you need in both vehicles to even get to work, and the car insurance to make it all legal
I actually had an early 20’s guy tell me that anything that happened before the year 2000 doesn’t really matter because he wasn’t born yet.
When someone has that kind of logic it is very, very difficult to have an intelligent conversation about anything.
I remember making $9 in 2002 and being able to afford my own apartment, car payment and living expenses without struggling. I went out all the time too and always had money to pay for my own drinks and food.
Yeah? And now what? Now fucking *what*?
This shits never gonna change. Pining for the days of yore when I could comfortably feed my family with my two hands and retire with a decent pension from a company that returned my loyalty just makes my heart hurt. Lady, I know I've been robbed. Fucking now what? It's not like we're gonna "muh freedums" and rise up or anything like that, we're all tired, fat, poor, and intellectually silo'd and divided. Most of my peers are more than happy to vote their own rights away and continue to elect the people that drive the process of strip mining the American people for every last penny of profit.
And now what? What is there to do? There's no common American good anymore, we all hate each other and can't see straight to align our common values. The cultural profitmaxxing has left what was the industrial and technical center of the world a husk filled with fucking paper pushers having meetings about future meetings they might want to meet about. As a hardhat I see it all around me. There's no pride in work anymore, because the people doing the labor are paid too little to have a soul. How can you love what you do and take pride in it if you're essentially a chattle slave? You can't. The drive to squeeze every last nickel from fucking *everything* has squeezed all the pride that used to fill "MADE IN AMERICA" with meaning right out. And so shit's sliding into the gutter. Planes are falling out of the sky. Buildings are collapsing. Just a few months ago a private hangar in the city I'm in collapsed while under construction. 3 dudes died and 5 more got seriously fucked up. it was still in the ironwork stages of the job, but I heard around the shop it had been engineered so tightly that some really bad wind brought it down. My old company was actually supposed to be getting a piece of that contract, footsteps on your grave kinda thing.
I'm sorry guys I think I just needed to vent :/
>Yeah? And now what? Now fucking *what*?
Now you start a revolution. Or turn on the Netflix, launch a videogame, drink some booze and pretend nothing happened.
You decide.
My dad supported our family of 5 on his own without a college degree up until my parents got divorced in 2012. 4 bedroom, 2500 square foot house that we owned, and he worked as a phone man (not even a lineman). My fiance and I make more combined than he was back then and can now afford….a 2 bedroom apartment for double what my parents mortgage was lmao
My coworker was telling me about his friend's dad who didn't attend school past *5th grade* and went on to open his own landscaping company that made him millions.
My grandmother grew up in the rural South. Went to school in a one room school house and had to drop out in 8th grade to work the family farm. I don’t know about my grandfather but I cannot imagine he had much education as he also came from a similar background. They met working the assembly line for one of the Big Three in Detroit. They raised two kids, had a nice house, new cars, were able to bail out my uncle from numerous poor life choices including taking over his house when he could not afford it, and retired at 65 with pensions and were able to buy a new build in Florida. They didn’t have a luxurious life but they had a stable life where hard work and loyalty provided for their needs and then some. My BIL barely made it through high school mostly because he was wild and didn’t care. He pulls well into six figures working for another one of the car manufacturers. Now those jobs are very hard to come by and do not offer what they used to.
I think a water is wet moment is that 90% of people are just trying to make ends meet. But captialism prioritizes multi million dollar bonuses for short term gains like a student allowed to type a 2 page essay in size 1400 font.
We optimized the health of our country away. No actually, we didn't.
The people who got the bonuses did. They're not motivated by evil.
But they did put hundreds of people into homelessness or financial insecurity to buy a new playstation for a 250k bonus.
Yep. I was the 5th of five, only my dad worked. for a cheque printing company.
Neither of may parents went to college. My mom didn't work.
They got a house built for us from the ground up. In a cul-de-sac, extensive wrap-around backyard.
Three stories, two garages. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms. So many rooms.
I looked up my childhood home on Zoopla the other day.
That house that we tore up and wore out the rugs on as kids is FULL of like, massive mansion furniture now.
I could never afford my childhood home now.
Literally none of my siblings and probably my own parents wouldnt be able to anymore.
My father worked in manufactured housing, earning just above federal minimum wage. My mother was a stay at home mom. We owned our house outright, no mortgage. I was the youngest of 5 at the time. We clipped coupons, shopped at discount grocery stores, and watched for sales, but we lived a normal life. We had cable TV, two vehicles, two dogs and a cat. Our two story house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a basement.
I'm 32. This was in the 90s. That's how quickly we've lost this.
I'm now working in the medical field, earning more than DOUBLE my state's minimum wage, which is itself double what federal minimum wage is. I have only one child, who I have half-and-half custody of. I live in subsidized housing.
My Dad (born in 1955) with only a high school diploma raised a family of 7 while my mom stayed at home. He worked for the Union Pacific railroad. We lived comfortably in the middle class and vacationed at least once every year. He was also mormon (LDS) so he gave ten percent of his income to the church on top of all that.
I think an under discussed part of this is that in the past, there were a much larger number of veterans who had access to government programs that made college and homeownership far more affordable for them. While the numbers in terms of price/wage may not support the original claim, you have to factor in the effect of post-war veteran benefits in providing a much broader swath of the population with access to systems that increase an individual’s ability to build wealth in a way that minimized their debt. Today, I’d wager that a much higher percent of the population takes on significant debt for homes and education.
ok, this blew my fucking mind, I'm done reading, like seriously I'm done reading this is extremely stupid. i live in NYC, Brooklyn to be specific i moved up here 5 years ago. where do i go, and who do i punch? and how many people are down to punch people with me? where are the organizations that arent all mental health excercises? where are the people who are ready to do the far-left version of January 6th? don't calm me down, don't tell me there's nothing we can do but deal with this, don't warn me about the dangers of what that kind of action will cause, just help me gain enough numbers to be scary and pretty much violent like these other ignorant cowards who did Jan 6! we can hide ourselves within ourselves, strength in numbers right? we can do better than this, and TAKE better than this right? is anyone else going mad with dystopian realizations? doesnt being chill about this and playing it cool while getting str8 up gaslit into slavery feel like the most pitiful thing a person can possibly do?
And you could work for the same multi-national company for 40 years and get treated with respect and dignity all that time, with good pay rises every year...
The only real thing about Married...with Children was Al Bundy *could* own a home, have a spouse that doesn't work, and raise two children on the salary of a shoe salesman who basically worked at a Payless (that's my headcannon where he worked).
The people who are rich are not all inherently evil. But they will do whatever they can to stay rich, putting their families before everyone else's, because that is human nature. That's why the rich can't be allowed to make the rules. Same reason we don't let families of victims decide punishments. Civilization is a very thin line.
Sure, that's true, but it was an economy built on manufacturing and labor. We have transitioned to an information economy that requires highly specialized knowledge.
It was during a time when 25% of the world goods and products were produced by the US. The decades after the war were devastating for economies in Europe and the Far East as they rebuilt. The US was there to sell them EVERYTHING, so corporations “allowing” high school graduates to thrive was a small price for global dominance.
But, as these things are accustomed to doing, corporate greed got greedier, and Europe and the Far East recovered enough to compete. If US corporations wanted to dominate as they had been, they were going to need to start tightening the belts.
So they tightened those belts around the necks of the workers. A bit of union-killing, a bit of propaganda, a bit of bald-faced lying about “keeping good jobs here” and sending “tedious unskilled labor” to NAFTA signatories, and the manufacturing base of the US is mostly gone now. But corporate profits are setting records.
So the system works as intended…
My grandfather had a grade 6 education. Retired at 60 with a full pension after raising 3 kids. Owned his own house on 5 acres, travelled well, always had a relatively new car in the driveway, and bought a (used) Airstream when he retired.
He worked 30+ years as a (unionized) corrections guard - basically what he did in WWII.
I remember as a kid, our monthly rent was $350/month for a small 4 bedroom upstairs apartment. My mom's car payment was maybe $50/month. Gas was about $1.09 a gallon, and my dad complained about it being over a dollar. I'm only in my mid 30's. That feels like a dream rather than a reality not so long ago. I couldn't afford to live on one paycheck alone, even though I make more than both my parents did back then. This is bullshit.
just graduated college, only things open in my degree require either 5-10 years of experience (my 3 years of internships apparently don’t count) or are unpaid internships. i have experience in business through the jobs i had to work all four years of college, but nothing will pay me more than $15/hr for my experience. i work in fast food and an unpaid internship and have gone into debt despite working 50hrs a week. i’m about to have to start paying my student loans back too!! what do they expect us to do?? edit: i also have been providing for myself since i was 16 and have been working full time for over half a decade, always in management. i was taught to bend over back, to work your ass off even when the pay doesn’t reflect it. i made $10.50 when i was 16 and make $15.20 now that i’m out of college. FML
People would work part time shifts as gas station clerks and make enough to afford a major metropole apartment rent, utilities and expenses
Parents with a single child in the suburbs were seen as greedy and pampering the child because surely any single wage could afford them to care for at least 2 kids, commonly 3
This was the normal that millennials still got to see as children, that Gen Xers got to experience as young adults, that baby boomers built their lives on and that millennials lost in their teens or early adulthoods, that most Gen Z'ers never got to see and that Gen Alpha can never imagine
There was nobody yelling at you to get 2 or 3 jobs and suck it up, not even amongst the staunchest conservatives. If you went back to the 80s/90s and even early 00s and told people their new normal in the US would be double jobs and co-living, where one of those paychecks is entirely eaten up by rent and you work 12h a day, they'd yell for your arrest regardless of political alignment
Eating out every night (admittedly usually to fast food places) was a staple, affording it was a foregone conclusion even for the lowest earners, buying breakfast on your way to work was the norm, lunchboxes were the exception for workers, 9 to 5 was the office job/white collar norm, you could afford all the little pleasures in life and not really go broke or risk faulting rent over it and be home in time for dinner
My parents (very much boomer generation) both worked in decent careers their whole lives. Because of that they paid off their mortgage, bought additional property and have given me financial support when I went to University and bought my house.
My fiance and I both work in decent careers full time, and whilst we aren’t “struggling” - it’s not as though we are swimming in disposable income either.
American profit-extraction capitalism finally returned home & has been eating its own children for ~35 years now. “*Bringing The War Back Home!”*
The logical end of Neoliberalism.
Thanks Reagan!
My grandfather stocked shelves in a grocery store. He raised three boys and was able to let my grandmother be a stay at home mom.
When he retired, he bought a beautiful big RV and spent all summer in Delaware fishing.
I grew up in SoCal in a 3/1/1 1,008 sf house. In 1962 my dad paid $17,500 for it. I was just on [realtor.com](http://realtor.com) and checking out my old house that they have a market value listed of $997,500. WTF?!?! Insane! Other house on the street are listed at over $1 million. My dad is probably rolling over in his grave.
You are poor, because everyone is forced to pay tomorrow's interest rates with today's money.
This has nothing to do with the frontiers or investments. (BTW, you've had the whole Soviet Block as the shining new frontier.)
Yeah but the generations who benefited from this are now doing the biddings of corporations who took this away. There is always some excuse and how they did it tough and today’s generations can’t afford living because of (insert typical boomer idea).
You can’t explain to these people are affordable housing, lower interest rates, lower cost of living, etc.
Yes.
But, it wasn't stolen by companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Exxon.
It was stolen from you by greedy rental property owners manipulating the housing market, fighting any regulations, and constantly jacking up rents to the point where you can't afford anything else other than food and shelter.
My grandparents bought 10 acres with a5 bedroom 3 1/2 bathroom in Oklahoma for 150k In 1998 we put it on the market and was offered 800k but she didn't want to lose the memories so we declined.
This was very long ago though. 60s and earlier. When it was common for women to marry and stay home. In the 70s women began in earnest to have careers o at least jobs. It was out of both a change in norms and the need for two earner household to get through inflation.
Yes. Very true. Cannot even afford the "*cheapest*" apartments in my area. They run around $900 a month. It isn't because they are "*nice*". Landlords used the pandemic to double rates.
Now, the pandemic is over. They are still blaming gov't checks, people not wanting to work, and inflation.
Has anyone thought about how this new price gouging of housing will affect elections? Districts will change colors simply due to population drift (poor people and minorities). This is no mistake. Especially with the Supreme Court going right-field on districting.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/23/g-s1-292/supreme-court-south-carolina-gerrymandering-case
https://ballotpedia.org/Timeline_of_redistricting_cases_heard_by_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
(Most that are overturned for "*lack of proof*" never even address the gerrymandering part of the suits. They send it back to a lower court undecided).
Just saying.
Back then, it was pretty common for women to be stay at home wife's. I've always wondered if it was caused by women starting to work so companies could get away with paying less or women starting to have a need to work to work to pay the bills.
A family of 5 with just a High School education? That's a bit excessive to expect to be able to support 3 children with just the minimum wage from unskilled labor.
No. It's not. That's the whole point of this post. That's how this country was until well into the 1990's. People who worked a honest full days work were treated with respect no matter what work it was, not shit on because someone thinks job A is more important than job B, no matter how tired you are when you go home.
There was a postwar period until about 1980 when this was true for some, not all. A minority actually. It was not "normal."
Please look at the numbers. Until 1979 home ownership rates were *lower* than they are now. In 1979 they reached the current rate and have remained stable (with some normal variation).
Please look at differences in employment and wages by race and gender to see who benefited.
This is not the paradise this meme imagines.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N)
Home ownership rates are only higher now because the older generations that grew up and entered the workforce back then have an insanely high home ownership rate. Millenials and Gen Z have much, *much* lower home ownership rates than Gen Y, Gen X, or Baby Boomers did at the same ages.
My brother in law was a plumber and he supported my sister, three kids, and myriad pets; and paid off a huge two story country house with acres of land around it.
Today none of her grandkids are candidates in the housing market. They live crammed into the houses my sister and mother left the family and would need to hit the lotto to imagine buying one of their own.
You realize you don’t have to own your home to support your family, right?
It says support comfortably.
It also doesn’t even say majority, just that it was true for millions of Americans.
For what? It being true of millions of Americans they could support their family?
I think you just look at history there, idk if there’s gonna be a source saying people took care of their family
I literally just told you I don’t know if I can find one.
You’re welcome to look, I don’t educate people for free though, so if you wanna send me 20$ I’ll look for you
To add to this - few people in this sub would agree to trade places with the “average” American 50+ years ago. Your quality of life would be significantly worse. Yes, patches of the grass were greener - mainly for white men - but the rest of the yard…not great.
Exactly.
I always get downvoted on this point because people are so attached to a false narrative that includes much racism and sexism. Not to mention the lifestyle realities you bring up. I would laugh to see these keyboard warriors work in factories, mines, mills, agriculture which was the reality then.
wtf, bro this is what i do anyway? keyboard warrior? sounds like you! and who are you going to war for, the status quo, you expect these people to say your right lets be grateful or what? what did you say that detached bs for? im black i want nothing to do with the 50s thats besides the point and to be honest within my own community id have a way better chance of buying a house like both sets of my grandparents did if i grew up in thier era, my grandpa was literally a mailman and bought multiple properties, hell even my Haitian immigrant dad bought a house but i never will cuz corps at the top and contrarian shills like you at the bottom next to me.
"But Paytreearchie! Whur muh low-paid office drone Freadum job?"
Not saying women's independence isn't important, but both sexes have been getting played.
They're saying that because some women chose to work back then that now all people deserve to be paid less than a living wage. It doesn't make any kind of sense, no.
It was real because there wasn't any serious competition over resources. When your society promotes the idea that citizens should be in control over whatever they can buy, they will buy things they don't need. It's not hard to understand why.
A person idealizing her childhood. Experts are actually divided on whether the middle class is better off than it used to be. This study found that the middle class is actually a little bit better off than they used to be. [Is the Middle Class Worse Off Than It Used to Be? (clevelandfed.org)](https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/2020/ec-202003-is-middle-class-worse-off)
Nothing was 'stolen from you'. The economy is incredibly complicated, and things change over time. Some things have gone up in price; other things have gone down in price.
I know plenty of welders, plumbers, technicians, and mechanics with highschool diplomas making more than enough to support a family of 5.
The jobs are there but so few of my millennial generation wants to do them. So many of my peers want the cushy flex job with air-conditioning and a nespresso machine in the break room. GTFO of your comfort zone and there are livable wages to be had.
I went and got my bachelor's and masters in the last 6 years and guess what, I just started a new job as a manufacturing technician. The money is just too good and the skills are so highly valued.
You may be getting Mike Roe vibes from this post but I assure you I am a staunch, left of center progressive. I do believe that livable wages are a basic human right and that the current minumum wage is appalling, but let's not all sit around and pretend that making a livable wage is not possible with a high-school education.
I know a welder. He works overtime every week and in a low cost of living area. He specifically chose the job because it was supposed to pay well. He barely has any savings despite living with family and 3 of the 5 people in his household working fulltime jobs.
Same here. There’s a welder I know who dreams of being able to afford a singlewide trailer and another whose work permanently destroyed his lungs and he ended up on oxygen in his twenties. Trades don’t always pay well across the board and often have extremely high rates of injury or permanent disability on the job. I’ve begun physical labor positions before where they’ve told us we WILL undoubtedly be injured or potentially disabled on the job and all they can do is reduce the severity of the injuries we will incur if we adhere to safety protocols. If trades pay well, it’s often because they pay for your body.
hey guys i just looked this guy up hes a former marine, gun worshipping, tactical gear fetishizing idiot (sorry buddy ik thats mean and presumptuous dont shoot) who goes into a space like this to insert dumb neoliberal genius quotes we've already thought and researched through. hed probably go to war for the empire again against any non-NATO country they tell him to. hed at least non run from the draft if they said his country needs him, just ask the guy. foh
It doesn't *feel* real. I've seen the numbers. But it's almost unimaginable. I'm struggling to make ends meet living alone in a studio apartment with my full time job.
Even living alone is impossible for most people my age. I don’t know anyone that could afford to live without roommates.
I live in a car!
I make six figures in the tech industry, and my wife makes good money. We have no kids. My life style is about the same as when I lived with my single mother, who worked as a secretary and got child support from my dad who was a carpenter. The only reason I am comfortable is because my wife made us buy a house back in 2007. If I had to pay the rental prices in the area I live now, I think I would be worse off than my mother. Something is very very wrong with the world. We went to a dinner party hosted by my wife's coworker. It took place in her sister's house. The house was 5 times the size of my house, and sat on a lake. The coworkers sister just owned it as an investment property, and let the coworker use it because she wanted someone to flush the toilets. That house sits unused, not even rented for 11 months out of the year. The neighborhood is full of homes like that. I wonder what those people do to earn that kind of money to own those houses. In the coworkers sisters case, she's an HR director, and her husband is an investment banker. Are those really the kinds of jobs that deserve that kind of pay? I just feel like the world is built wrong. I watch people who do jobs that matter struggle to make ends meet, and I watch people with jobs that do nothing of importance just showered with wealth.
A hard working construction laborer or a warehouse loader/unloader will be payed the bare minimum for essentially destroying their bodies by lifting heavy stuff all day while a cushy office job where half the time people aren’t even working and just gossiping will be paid exorbitantly for jobs that mostly just require them to check boxes
I remember when I was a kid, my grandfather retired and I was very confused because, okay, so he just *quit his job*? So no one is getting money anymore? How does that even work? It worked because he had this mythical thing called a pension and it just *paid him money each month for not working.* He was an auto mechanic who never even finished high school, and the house they raised their kids in is bigger than mine. Meanwhile, my retirement plan is “dying at my desk,” and hopefully I come back as a poltergeist and haunt the fuck out of that place.
I remember my mom lecturing my brother on the importance of making his $48 car payment every month. Not so his credit score would be good. Those didn’t exist.
$48?! Feels weird to see with only 2 digits
It’s surreal isn’t it? The total loan was only four digits. And I thought of myself as “middle class” but I was one of the poor kids in my school. I had a green lunch card so it cost me 65 cents instead of a dollar something. My Nikes were usually from the outlet store and I had a Murray bmx bike instead of a huffy. But I never heard anyone complain or worry about money in my family until the 90s.
My car loan for a used car in the ‘80s was $91 a month. I made $3.35 an hour and couldn’t afford it. I joined the army for the signing bonus to pay off the loan.
My first car loan was $130.40 for 36 months. I think I put $1000 down. This was in 1980. The next year, I went into the military and was making $250 every two weeks. That was with separate rations.
This had to be 40 plus years ago
It was the 80s. Taco Bell tacos were 59 cents. Gas was a dollar on a bad day. A house cost 20,000 and $15/hour was an enviable wage.
Absolutly. I was raised in the 90s by my grandparents and I would say they were considered upper middle class. When my grandpa passed a few years ago I got some of his documents including past tax fileings. He made $55K a year. What do I remember that covering when I lived with my grandparents? Two high end cars, that they traded in every 3-5 years. A house that cost them $30K new in CA. A second home in the moutains. Flying first class when we went on vacations out of state. Nice hotels. A country club memberships. A luxury gym membership. (spa and everything) A yard keeper and a maid. The best clothes, food, and newest gadgets. And for a while I attended a paid private school before they pulled me out after they found out copral punishment was still inforced. All that on $55K and they still had enough for gas, bills, AND a retirement plan. WTF?
Thanks for wrecking my brain. I totally understand that our parents/grandparents/great grandparents lived in a whole different world but just damn.
Did your grandparents buy stocks like Apple, Microsoft , Nintendo etc..?
Nope.
It kinda depends on where you live. I sold a 3br house in St. Louis for $114k about six months ago. Bought it in 2017 with a gross household income of about $56k.
What about your grandma? Did she earn money too?
I remember the original value menu 39 cent taco. It later went up to 49, and eventually the 59/79/99 menu from the 90s jingle.
Yeah even 59 wasn’t a great price. But back then the expensive items were fancier and actually had more or more complex ingredients. Now it’s just expensive and more expensive
> It was the 80s. 1984 was, in fact, 40 years ago. FML.
Big brother
Check out the history of gas prices for a bit of amusement: https://www.creditdonkey.com/gas-price-history.html#:\~:text=What%20year%20did%20gas%20go,15%20years%20ago%2C%20in%202004.
My first new car, a '93 Civic Hatchback CX, had a payment of $181.62. It was under $9K and I had put down $1000 from selling my old car.
My grandpa made 90 cents an hour in the 60s (before I was born) and he could afford to pay rent and support his family.
60 trillion dollar wealth transfer in my lifetime. Incredible. And they wonder why the economy is groaning to a fractured halt
IMHO, not so much for the any transfer of wealth. Someone consumed 100 USD worth of value and produced <100 USD worth of value (inflation-adjusted, of course). Add to this the interest rates, and you get the picture.
I remember it, but it seems like a fever dream that I just can’t believe was real. I have a master’s degree, work two jobs, and can barely make ends meet. I’m so angry that we did everything the Boomers told us to do and they just pulled up the ladder.
If either Trump or Biden is elected President, we will have a full 12 years of Boomer presidents! 2016-2028
Most of Congress are Boomers, too
Check again. Obama was a boomer too. He was born in 1961. The oldest Gen Xers became eligible to run in 2000, the youngest in 2016, but they have yet to elect a President from their ranks.
Two decades of Boomer Prezzies! We should memorialize that somehow. Although I have to say I personally think there might be a cultural difference between early 40s Boomers and early 60s Boomers. Culture change was gradually accelerating. Still, perhaps we might both agree that Septua- and Octogenarians ought not remain eligible for the Chief Executive role. Seems like the official “65-67 yo” threshold of ‘retirement’ ought to apply to our local Caesar. We need sharp people running our Empire!
Someone who is about to leave the restaurant should not be ordering for the whole table.
More bad news: Clinton and George W are also baby boomers. That's three in a row with a short break for Biden who is actually older than a boomer.
Can we discriminate based on age in the Oval Office? Note: Legally, min age does not count as age discrimination.
Actually, it's worse. Biden is silent generation. We've actively gone backwards in presidential generation.
And they even had enough money saved up to take a summer vacation. You've been screwed. But please, continue to lick corporate boots.
I grew up in the nineties. I remember what it was like when you could afford rent and all your basic needs working full time at BLOCKBUSTER. A VIDEO STORE. Think about that. It's not that they were paid more. Hell, they were paid crap. It's that their dollar went much further than it does today. Our dollars are practically worthless now, because it takes more of them to get the same resources and privileges that it did back then. I didn't grow up in the era when a single parent could provide for a family of five on a full time minimum wage job. I didn't grow up in the era when a single parent could afford a mortgage payment either. I grew up in the era when these rights and privileges were disappearing from the world. We can trace most of it back to Reagan. In the eighties there were people screaming that an actor had no business in politics or leadership. Surprise! He didn't. He singlehandedly orchestrated the capitalist hellscape we have today by creating the for profit healthcare system (technically Nixon was the asshole who came up with it, but Reagan went with it so it's really Reagan). He (Reagan) also advanced the for profit prison system and instituted and popularized the Trickle Down Economics philosophy--which has since been debunked by every smart, reasonable person that ever lived. But that doesn't matter because it took root amongst the wealthy who then gaslit the poor and the poor then gaslit their children and now everyone blames themselves for their poverty when poverty as a construct is created by the capricious cruelty of the rich, not the mistakes of the impoverished. Interesting historical fact: we talk about Trump as a modern day Caligula and that's an apt comparison, but lest we forget, Trump is doing a lot of the same types of shit Reagan did in the eighties--and much worse. Assuming we don't cook our planet to death or nuke ourselves to extinction, I fear what the long-term effects of Trump's actions will have on the economy over the next fifty years. Reagan did a decent amount of damage and he wasn't even in office for all that long--only two terms as president, which is only eight years. If someone can do that much damage in less than a decade... wow. Are we in for some crazy shit.
> We can trace most of it back to Reagan Brother, you can say that again
And again.
real af, yes, thank you.
Neoliberalism Will Eat Itself
>technically Nixon was the asshole who came up with it, but Reagan went with it so it's really Reagan Dude, these are just the "talking heads". The marionettes. Don't blame the stick, blame the throwing hand.
Clerks is now a fantasy movie.
I remember renting a house for $250/month. Granted it wasn’t a big house and I was only earning $4.65/hr but that was triple minimum wage
My first two bedroom apartment was 650 in 01. Unreal.
Yep, 2 bd/2 bad apartment was $665 in 2009 (after the real estate meltdown). It wasn't *that* long ago. Hell, I remember when the house I'm currently renting was $800 in rent. That was alittle over 5 years ago. Now it's almost double with no real improvements on a shitty side of town. This whole set up is unstainable
Average rent here is $1730 and most places paying over $20/hr won’t hire anyone without a degree Isn’t life lovely :)
wtf
My wife and I with clean driving records, and training pay more than this on our economy vehicles that are 8 years old.
Nothing a 90% income tax on $3M+ won't fix
An income tax is only for employees. I don't know anyone or any job that pays 3 million, or 1 million, with a W-2.
Quite a few actually. Usually in the form of stock compensation but that’ll still show up in a W2.
Self employed pay income tax too. The real fix is setting cgt at income tax levels and eliminating loopholes.
Not really, as the politicians are still bought by the richest and such a law would likely be made in such a way as to allow the richest to keep their money or at least their power, like it pretty much always is. And even if it was possible to do something like this unless capitalism is replaced the changes will be rolled back by the newest rich...
Cynicism achieves nothing. You are making excuses for why it won't work. When you have no idea what would happen. Elect democrats and you will get that wealth tax. Republicans aren't going to do it, since they are the party of the wealthy. You just have to try instead of saying "Nothing will ever work." That's why you people never achieve anything. You've already given up.
There's a difference between saying "That won't work because X" and "Nothing will ever work"
Honestly no, that won't work, nothing short of a complete overthrow will. Democrats are still capitalists, they still ultimately care more about the rich, as does everyone right leaning. The only way this ends is the destruction of the country, and looking at Project 2025, this country's fate is sealed. There's not an outcome that doesn't end with violence. Trump doesn't win, he's already stated he won't accept the results of the election, and will attempt another coup, and this time the entire Republican party is backing him. Trump wins and enacts his plan to become a fascist dictator, that he has quite literally laid out for us, and then peaceful protest becomes impossible. Thus making violent revolution necessary.
There is a dem in office now and as far as I’m aware all he did is LOWER the IRS tax threshold for 1099 from $20K to…. $800. Meaning only the middle and lower classes would be impacted by this. And the income is now reported starting at $800 from PayPal, eBay, Venmo etc
Neither side is *any good.* Democrats spend it all, Republicans keep it all. Either way, *we're all in deep trouble.*
> Cynicism achieves nothing. As another person said, it's not cynicism. It's just saying the obvious thing that unfortunately many do not know as most of us have been bor under constant pro-capitalism propaganda and might have never heard any actual argument about it and at most heard arguments that were against things that don't actually change the situation for the better in a permanent way, like the original comment I responded to or your own comment, where you basically just say to "choose a group of pro-capitalism politicians instead of another one", instead of giving an actual solution, like "let's get rid of pro-capitalism politicians from politics while changing the system so they don't come back"...
You think the big donors to campaigns are going to let ~~their minions~~ congress do that?
My first apartment after I graduated high school was $400/mo for a 2 bedroom. It was even a duplex. Now, in the next town over, we’re paying $1100/mo for a 2 bedroom. Utilities not included. Not to mention it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere
And now, you have Bachelor's, Master's, 2-3 languages and other certificates and you are unemployed. Today especially in some countries of Europe, having just a high school diploma is equal to having nothing. Everyone wants scientists but nobody can actually pay them
I believe it. And I look around at the drones around me and wonder what reality I'm living in where no one seems to care.
Kind of hard to care when you’re constantly in survival mode. Psychologically you can’t be happy if basic needs and security are not being met. I have some issues with Maslow’s hierarchy but the overall premise is completely true. That’s why I agree with you and also admit I too am one of said drones.
It's like the Twilight Zone. Sucks bad. Looking on Google maps for caves to low-key live in.
Some members of my family never even completed high school. They quit and were able to support themselves.
Older houses in my neighborhood only have a 1 car garage. Why? Because back in the day only one person needed to go to work to make a living, and that was enough to raise a family. Now? Good luck floating 2 car payments on top of your rent or mortgage as well as food, the gas you need in both vehicles to even get to work, and the car insurance to make it all legal
I actually had an early 20’s guy tell me that anything that happened before the year 2000 doesn’t really matter because he wasn’t born yet. When someone has that kind of logic it is very, very difficult to have an intelligent conversation about anything.
Didn’t you know he’s the main character? 🤣
History started in 1776 type energy lmao
Oh wow. He doesn't sound like the brightest crayon in the box that's for sure. 🖍️🖍️
I remember making $9 in 2002 and being able to afford my own apartment, car payment and living expenses without struggling. I went out all the time too and always had money to pay for my own drinks and food.
Yeah? And now what? Now fucking *what*? This shits never gonna change. Pining for the days of yore when I could comfortably feed my family with my two hands and retire with a decent pension from a company that returned my loyalty just makes my heart hurt. Lady, I know I've been robbed. Fucking now what? It's not like we're gonna "muh freedums" and rise up or anything like that, we're all tired, fat, poor, and intellectually silo'd and divided. Most of my peers are more than happy to vote their own rights away and continue to elect the people that drive the process of strip mining the American people for every last penny of profit. And now what? What is there to do? There's no common American good anymore, we all hate each other and can't see straight to align our common values. The cultural profitmaxxing has left what was the industrial and technical center of the world a husk filled with fucking paper pushers having meetings about future meetings they might want to meet about. As a hardhat I see it all around me. There's no pride in work anymore, because the people doing the labor are paid too little to have a soul. How can you love what you do and take pride in it if you're essentially a chattle slave? You can't. The drive to squeeze every last nickel from fucking *everything* has squeezed all the pride that used to fill "MADE IN AMERICA" with meaning right out. And so shit's sliding into the gutter. Planes are falling out of the sky. Buildings are collapsing. Just a few months ago a private hangar in the city I'm in collapsed while under construction. 3 dudes died and 5 more got seriously fucked up. it was still in the ironwork stages of the job, but I heard around the shop it had been engineered so tightly that some really bad wind brought it down. My old company was actually supposed to be getting a piece of that contract, footsteps on your grave kinda thing. I'm sorry guys I think I just needed to vent :/
Trust me, those of us who were adults when what OP describes was true DEFINITELY feel you.
>Yeah? And now what? Now fucking *what*? Now you start a revolution. Or turn on the Netflix, launch a videogame, drink some booze and pretend nothing happened. You decide.
Hell my parents didn't finish high school and supported a family of 5 across 45 years
My dad supported our family of 5 on his own without a college degree up until my parents got divorced in 2012. 4 bedroom, 2500 square foot house that we owned, and he worked as a phone man (not even a lineman). My fiance and I make more combined than he was back then and can now afford….a 2 bedroom apartment for double what my parents mortgage was lmao
My coworker was telling me about his friend's dad who didn't attend school past *5th grade* and went on to open his own landscaping company that made him millions.
My grandmother grew up in the rural South. Went to school in a one room school house and had to drop out in 8th grade to work the family farm. I don’t know about my grandfather but I cannot imagine he had much education as he also came from a similar background. They met working the assembly line for one of the Big Three in Detroit. They raised two kids, had a nice house, new cars, were able to bail out my uncle from numerous poor life choices including taking over his house when he could not afford it, and retired at 65 with pensions and were able to buy a new build in Florida. They didn’t have a luxurious life but they had a stable life where hard work and loyalty provided for their needs and then some. My BIL barely made it through high school mostly because he was wild and didn’t care. He pulls well into six figures working for another one of the car manufacturers. Now those jobs are very hard to come by and do not offer what they used to.
I think a water is wet moment is that 90% of people are just trying to make ends meet. But captialism prioritizes multi million dollar bonuses for short term gains like a student allowed to type a 2 page essay in size 1400 font. We optimized the health of our country away. No actually, we didn't. The people who got the bonuses did. They're not motivated by evil. But they did put hundreds of people into homelessness or financial insecurity to buy a new playstation for a 250k bonus.
Remember when all you needed was a college degree? Me either
Yep. I was the 5th of five, only my dad worked. for a cheque printing company. Neither of may parents went to college. My mom didn't work. They got a house built for us from the ground up. In a cul-de-sac, extensive wrap-around backyard. Three stories, two garages. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms. So many rooms. I looked up my childhood home on Zoopla the other day. That house that we tore up and wore out the rugs on as kids is FULL of like, massive mansion furniture now. I could never afford my childhood home now. Literally none of my siblings and probably my own parents wouldnt be able to anymore.
My father worked in manufactured housing, earning just above federal minimum wage. My mother was a stay at home mom. We owned our house outright, no mortgage. I was the youngest of 5 at the time. We clipped coupons, shopped at discount grocery stores, and watched for sales, but we lived a normal life. We had cable TV, two vehicles, two dogs and a cat. Our two story house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a basement. I'm 32. This was in the 90s. That's how quickly we've lost this. I'm now working in the medical field, earning more than DOUBLE my state's minimum wage, which is itself double what federal minimum wage is. I have only one child, who I have half-and-half custody of. I live in subsidized housing.
My Dad (born in 1955) with only a high school diploma raised a family of 7 while my mom stayed at home. He worked for the Union Pacific railroad. We lived comfortably in the middle class and vacationed at least once every year. He was also mormon (LDS) so he gave ten percent of his income to the church on top of all that.
I think an under discussed part of this is that in the past, there were a much larger number of veterans who had access to government programs that made college and homeownership far more affordable for them. While the numbers in terms of price/wage may not support the original claim, you have to factor in the effect of post-war veteran benefits in providing a much broader swath of the population with access to systems that increase an individual’s ability to build wealth in a way that minimized their debt. Today, I’d wager that a much higher percent of the population takes on significant debt for homes and education.
ok, this blew my fucking mind, I'm done reading, like seriously I'm done reading this is extremely stupid. i live in NYC, Brooklyn to be specific i moved up here 5 years ago. where do i go, and who do i punch? and how many people are down to punch people with me? where are the organizations that arent all mental health excercises? where are the people who are ready to do the far-left version of January 6th? don't calm me down, don't tell me there's nothing we can do but deal with this, don't warn me about the dangers of what that kind of action will cause, just help me gain enough numbers to be scary and pretty much violent like these other ignorant cowards who did Jan 6! we can hide ourselves within ourselves, strength in numbers right? we can do better than this, and TAKE better than this right? is anyone else going mad with dystopian realizations? doesnt being chill about this and playing it cool while getting str8 up gaslit into slavery feel like the most pitiful thing a person can possibly do?
>and who do i punch? Reagan
And you could work for the same multi-national company for 40 years and get treated with respect and dignity all that time, with good pay rises every year...
This needs to be universal knowledge. Generational change always comes from the bottom up. Feels like we're getting close to a tipping point.
The only real thing about Married...with Children was Al Bundy *could* own a home, have a spouse that doesn't work, and raise two children on the salary of a shoe salesman who basically worked at a Payless (that's my headcannon where he worked).
Wait, when was this true?
The people who are rich are not all inherently evil. But they will do whatever they can to stay rich, putting their families before everyone else's, because that is human nature. That's why the rich can't be allowed to make the rules. Same reason we don't let families of victims decide punishments. Civilization is a very thin line.
Sure, that's true, but it was an economy built on manufacturing and labor. We have transitioned to an information economy that requires highly specialized knowledge.
It was during a time when 25% of the world goods and products were produced by the US. The decades after the war were devastating for economies in Europe and the Far East as they rebuilt. The US was there to sell them EVERYTHING, so corporations “allowing” high school graduates to thrive was a small price for global dominance. But, as these things are accustomed to doing, corporate greed got greedier, and Europe and the Far East recovered enough to compete. If US corporations wanted to dominate as they had been, they were going to need to start tightening the belts. So they tightened those belts around the necks of the workers. A bit of union-killing, a bit of propaganda, a bit of bald-faced lying about “keeping good jobs here” and sending “tedious unskilled labor” to NAFTA signatories, and the manufacturing base of the US is mostly gone now. But corporate profits are setting records. So the system works as intended…
The biggest question is how do we get back to that and make it normal again?
My grandfather had a grade 6 education. Retired at 60 with a full pension after raising 3 kids. Owned his own house on 5 acres, travelled well, always had a relatively new car in the driveway, and bought a (used) Airstream when he retired. He worked 30+ years as a (unionized) corrections guard - basically what he did in WWII.
I remember as a kid, our monthly rent was $350/month for a small 4 bedroom upstairs apartment. My mom's car payment was maybe $50/month. Gas was about $1.09 a gallon, and my dad complained about it being over a dollar. I'm only in my mid 30's. That feels like a dream rather than a reality not so long ago. I couldn't afford to live on one paycheck alone, even though I make more than both my parents did back then. This is bullshit.
sorry to say it but that was a very exceptional mayfly in the history of the world women had been breadwinners, clothmakers etc since the stone ages
just graduated college, only things open in my degree require either 5-10 years of experience (my 3 years of internships apparently don’t count) or are unpaid internships. i have experience in business through the jobs i had to work all four years of college, but nothing will pay me more than $15/hr for my experience. i work in fast food and an unpaid internship and have gone into debt despite working 50hrs a week. i’m about to have to start paying my student loans back too!! what do they expect us to do?? edit: i also have been providing for myself since i was 16 and have been working full time for over half a decade, always in management. i was taught to bend over back, to work your ass off even when the pay doesn’t reflect it. i made $10.50 when i was 16 and make $15.20 now that i’m out of college. FML
People would work part time shifts as gas station clerks and make enough to afford a major metropole apartment rent, utilities and expenses Parents with a single child in the suburbs were seen as greedy and pampering the child because surely any single wage could afford them to care for at least 2 kids, commonly 3 This was the normal that millennials still got to see as children, that Gen Xers got to experience as young adults, that baby boomers built their lives on and that millennials lost in their teens or early adulthoods, that most Gen Z'ers never got to see and that Gen Alpha can never imagine There was nobody yelling at you to get 2 or 3 jobs and suck it up, not even amongst the staunchest conservatives. If you went back to the 80s/90s and even early 00s and told people their new normal in the US would be double jobs and co-living, where one of those paychecks is entirely eaten up by rent and you work 12h a day, they'd yell for your arrest regardless of political alignment Eating out every night (admittedly usually to fast food places) was a staple, affording it was a foregone conclusion even for the lowest earners, buying breakfast on your way to work was the norm, lunchboxes were the exception for workers, 9 to 5 was the office job/white collar norm, you could afford all the little pleasures in life and not really go broke or risk faulting rent over it and be home in time for dinner
My parents (very much boomer generation) both worked in decent careers their whole lives. Because of that they paid off their mortgage, bought additional property and have given me financial support when I went to University and bought my house. My fiance and I both work in decent careers full time, and whilst we aren’t “struggling” - it’s not as though we are swimming in disposable income either.
American profit-extraction capitalism finally returned home & has been eating its own children for ~35 years now. “*Bringing The War Back Home!”* The logical end of Neoliberalism. Thanks Reagan!
And once it became impossible every boomer in a ten mile radius called you lazy and evil every ten seconds.
Trickle down economics meant we would all have to survive on drips instead of full streams.
My grandfather stocked shelves in a grocery store. He raised three boys and was able to let my grandmother be a stay at home mom. When he retired, he bought a beautiful big RV and spent all summer in Delaware fishing.
I grew up in SoCal in a 3/1/1 1,008 sf house. In 1962 my dad paid $17,500 for it. I was just on [realtor.com](http://realtor.com) and checking out my old house that they have a market value listed of $997,500. WTF?!?! Insane! Other house on the street are listed at over $1 million. My dad is probably rolling over in his grave.
It's what happens in capitalism when no new frontiers for expansion exist. The world has shrunk since the 60's, time to expand elsewhere.
Dude, are you serious?
Sure. It could be AI, humanoid robots or the Moon and Mars. Capital works best when invested.
You are poor, because everyone is forced to pay tomorrow's interest rates with today's money. This has nothing to do with the frontiers or investments. (BTW, you've had the whole Soviet Block as the shining new frontier.)
Yeah but the generations who benefited from this are now doing the biddings of corporations who took this away. There is always some excuse and how they did it tough and today’s generations can’t afford living because of (insert typical boomer idea). You can’t explain to these people are affordable housing, lower interest rates, lower cost of living, etc.
Yes. But, it wasn't stolen by companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Exxon. It was stolen from you by greedy rental property owners manipulating the housing market, fighting any regulations, and constantly jacking up rents to the point where you can't afford anything else other than food and shelter.
My grandparents bought 10 acres with a5 bedroom 3 1/2 bathroom in Oklahoma for 150k In 1998 we put it on the market and was offered 800k but she didn't want to lose the memories so we declined.
I would get the refried beans for lunch some days. It was enough to get me home to dinner.
To be fair, this was only true from maybe the 1950s through 1980s.
This was very long ago though. 60s and earlier. When it was common for women to marry and stay home. In the 70s women began in earnest to have careers o at least jobs. It was out of both a change in norms and the need for two earner household to get through inflation.
Dude that was well into the 90's.
Yes. Very true. Cannot even afford the "*cheapest*" apartments in my area. They run around $900 a month. It isn't because they are "*nice*". Landlords used the pandemic to double rates. Now, the pandemic is over. They are still blaming gov't checks, people not wanting to work, and inflation. Has anyone thought about how this new price gouging of housing will affect elections? Districts will change colors simply due to population drift (poor people and minorities). This is no mistake. Especially with the Supreme Court going right-field on districting. https://www.npr.org/2024/05/23/g-s1-292/supreme-court-south-carolina-gerrymandering-case https://ballotpedia.org/Timeline_of_redistricting_cases_heard_by_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States (Most that are overturned for "*lack of proof*" never even address the gerrymandering part of the suits. They send it back to a lower court undecided). Just saying.
THIS.
That's okay, I don't want 5 kids.
How about some REVOLUTION, Mr./Ms. The Most Free Nation on Earth? Yes/No?
Back then, it was pretty common for women to be stay at home wife's. I've always wondered if it was caused by women starting to work so companies could get away with paying less or women starting to have a need to work to work to pay the bills.
When was this?
It didn’t disappear overnight but I would say the biggest turning point was the Great Recession of 2008.
A family of 5 with just a High School education? That's a bit excessive to expect to be able to support 3 children with just the minimum wage from unskilled labor.
No. It's not. That's the whole point of this post. That's how this country was until well into the 1990's. People who worked a honest full days work were treated with respect no matter what work it was, not shit on because someone thinks job A is more important than job B, no matter how tired you are when you go home.
There was a postwar period until about 1980 when this was true for some, not all. A minority actually. It was not "normal." Please look at the numbers. Until 1979 home ownership rates were *lower* than they are now. In 1979 they reached the current rate and have remained stable (with some normal variation). Please look at differences in employment and wages by race and gender to see who benefited. This is not the paradise this meme imagines. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N)
Home ownership rates are only higher now because the older generations that grew up and entered the workforce back then have an insanely high home ownership rate. Millenials and Gen Z have much, *much* lower home ownership rates than Gen Y, Gen X, or Baby Boomers did at the same ages.
My brother in law was a plumber and he supported my sister, three kids, and myriad pets; and paid off a huge two story country house with acres of land around it. Today none of her grandkids are candidates in the housing market. They live crammed into the houses my sister and mother left the family and would need to hit the lotto to imagine buying one of their own.
You realize you don’t have to own your home to support your family, right? It says support comfortably. It also doesn’t even say majority, just that it was true for millions of Americans.
Source?
For what? It being true of millions of Americans they could support their family? I think you just look at history there, idk if there’s gonna be a source saying people took care of their family
So no source then
I literally just told you I don’t know if I can find one. You’re welcome to look, I don’t educate people for free though, so if you wanna send me 20$ I’ll look for you
To add to this - few people in this sub would agree to trade places with the “average” American 50+ years ago. Your quality of life would be significantly worse. Yes, patches of the grass were greener - mainly for white men - but the rest of the yard…not great.
Exactly. I always get downvoted on this point because people are so attached to a false narrative that includes much racism and sexism. Not to mention the lifestyle realities you bring up. I would laugh to see these keyboard warriors work in factories, mines, mills, agriculture which was the reality then.
Bro, I've done manufacturing. It's boring as all hell, but it's not some dystopian hellscape.
wtf, bro this is what i do anyway? keyboard warrior? sounds like you! and who are you going to war for, the status quo, you expect these people to say your right lets be grateful or what? what did you say that detached bs for? im black i want nothing to do with the 50s thats besides the point and to be honest within my own community id have a way better chance of buying a house like both sets of my grandparents did if i grew up in thier era, my grandpa was literally a mailman and bought multiple properties, hell even my Haitian immigrant dad bought a house but i never will cuz corps at the top and contrarian shills like you at the bottom next to me.
"But Paytreearchie! Whur muh low-paid office drone Freadum job?" Not saying women's independence isn't important, but both sexes have been getting played.
Wait what?
They're saying that because some women chose to work back then that now all people deserve to be paid less than a living wage. It doesn't make any kind of sense, no.
Sure lol, it’s all women’s fault, not capitalism /s
It was real because there wasn't any serious competition over resources. When your society promotes the idea that citizens should be in control over whatever they can buy, they will buy things they don't need. It's not hard to understand why.
The economy quickly adjusted to dual income households. 1970s and 80s DINKs are as much to blame for price increases as any other factor.
A person idealizing her childhood. Experts are actually divided on whether the middle class is better off than it used to be. This study found that the middle class is actually a little bit better off than they used to be. [Is the Middle Class Worse Off Than It Used to Be? (clevelandfed.org)](https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/2020/ec-202003-is-middle-class-worse-off) Nothing was 'stolen from you'. The economy is incredibly complicated, and things change over time. Some things have gone up in price; other things have gone down in price.
🤣 While the experts are busy deciding whether we're better off or not it may do some good to take a look around and talk to people
What middle class it’s literally disappearing
I know plenty of welders, plumbers, technicians, and mechanics with highschool diplomas making more than enough to support a family of 5. The jobs are there but so few of my millennial generation wants to do them. So many of my peers want the cushy flex job with air-conditioning and a nespresso machine in the break room. GTFO of your comfort zone and there are livable wages to be had. I went and got my bachelor's and masters in the last 6 years and guess what, I just started a new job as a manufacturing technician. The money is just too good and the skills are so highly valued. You may be getting Mike Roe vibes from this post but I assure you I am a staunch, left of center progressive. I do believe that livable wages are a basic human right and that the current minumum wage is appalling, but let's not all sit around and pretend that making a livable wage is not possible with a high-school education.
I know a welder. He works overtime every week and in a low cost of living area. He specifically chose the job because it was supposed to pay well. He barely has any savings despite living with family and 3 of the 5 people in his household working fulltime jobs.
Same here. There’s a welder I know who dreams of being able to afford a singlewide trailer and another whose work permanently destroyed his lungs and he ended up on oxygen in his twenties. Trades don’t always pay well across the board and often have extremely high rates of injury or permanent disability on the job. I’ve begun physical labor positions before where they’ve told us we WILL undoubtedly be injured or potentially disabled on the job and all they can do is reduce the severity of the injuries we will incur if we adhere to safety protocols. If trades pay well, it’s often because they pay for your body.
That sounds like a personal finance issue not a wage issue
"staunch, left of center progressive" A liberal by any other name is just as dirty.
[удалено]
so is becoming the ceo of a tech startup genius, you should sell strawmen on etsy
I am shocked that this is getting downvoted
hey guys i just looked this guy up hes a former marine, gun worshipping, tactical gear fetishizing idiot (sorry buddy ik thats mean and presumptuous dont shoot) who goes into a space like this to insert dumb neoliberal genius quotes we've already thought and researched through. hed probably go to war for the empire again against any non-NATO country they tell him to. hed at least non run from the draft if they said his country needs him, just ask the guy. foh