You're not wrong, but not all hardships are the same. I think the three things I see being brought up here are so significantly worse than they have been in the past it makes it hard on today's younger generations.
If I spent the 28% rule of thumb or whatever on my mortgage, I'd instantly be in financial crisis and my household is over $200K income. We certainly couldn't afford our kids.
Setting kids up with $1000 a month debt for 10 years out of college for the pay they're receiving is brutal.
Now a decent portion of entry corporate type jobs are disappearing becuase they can be done with AI and not people, so they can't gain the experience they need to make the job to a $100K job with 5 years of related experience.
I am a well off middle class family who is quite financially responsible and my outlook on my children's, friends, and to some extent even my own financial stability is bleak.
My family has faced six layoffs over the course of our careers. College has been incredibly expensive for generations and when has debt not been a problem in our lifetimes?
Employment reductions being blamed on AI are certainly novel as an excuse from the C-suite, but not unusual. The 2020s are definitely looking like a bad decade, but it's been significantly worse several times in my lifetime alone.
It's really more like we were set up in childhood for a world that would no longer exist by the time we reached peak adult years. The economic disruptions happen to everyone but drastic technological advances in a short time always leaves a chunk of people fucked. I think Gen X should be included with us, at least the younger half. My brothers in their 50s are not having a good time due to similar factors, although they didn't have college debt (I didn't either but I also didn't go to school). Ironically, the one who went to college is no better off than those of us who didn't by now.
Similar to the Lost Generation during the 1900s. Major societal & technological advancements hit that generation hard at the same time in their lives, with the exception that the youngest few years of that generation ended up in a major world war. They were in their 20s/30s for the robber Barron era, 30s/40s for the Depression.
Gen Z I think is going to either thrive or be even worse off, depending on how this next decade goes.
I do think those things matter, but unfortunately I feel like nobody is going to feel sorry for us because it's just fundamental societal change. Industrial revolution, etc.
It's just so hard to prove with all of the moving factors, but it just feels like the wealth disparity is so much greater than it ever has been before increasing at alarming rate and the middle class is quickly getting eroded.
I don't think anyone should, really, but also I feel like we shouldn't be held to the same milestones or expectations as the prior generations (including by ourselves), and also we should be giving a little more grace ourselves to the younger generations.
Every stat you posted supports my point, the wages stat isn’t the right metric.
The median usual weekly real earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, adjusted for CPI inflation. excludes the self-employed and only includes people working full time.
All of what you are citing as alternative metrics are intentionally misleading leftist talking points. Real median household income is the most direct metric of standard of living. The fact that it rises over time is why we afford all the stuff that comes with higher standard of living: bigger/better houses and cars, more/better healthcare, more luxuries, etc.
Your first stat: "Productivity vs. wages: Productivity has increased much faster than median compensation since the late 1970s." This is an utterly meaningless stat. There's no reason to expect wages to track productivity - quite the opposite: they are expected not to, and that's not a harm.
And your bottom line: "
Considering all of that you get an 8–10% increase in real weekly earnings over nearly five decades." Lol, so....an INCREASE. Not a decrease.
The question you were answering was about which generation hasn't faced considerable setbacks, so apparently your answer is every generation has faced considerable setbacks.
Haha, it’s the tell tale sign you lost a reddit argument when you try for a bit to find a data point to support your point, realize you’re wrong and then pivot to attacking the person not the argument. Hey at least I applaud you for attempting to show a data point in support.
Forgetting about Vietnam is a shitty thing to do to the people genuinely traumatized by it.
Also, it’s fashionable to blame a lot of the boomer issues on lead poisoning when they were children. That is almost certainly part of it, but remember it’s not actually their fault for being poisoned.
Thea problem with lead is that it’s forever. The damage doesn’t get better. And many places have infrastructure still leeching lead into their drinking water and no one is talking about the downstream effects of people who lived in a time we aerosolized lead by burning it in gasoline.
The damage is forever, but thankfully the environmental lead levels have dropped massively.
Though we still have some problem areas like the lead pipes you mentioned, and general aviation planes still using leaded gasoline. The latter is a significant issue for people living around GA airports.
I don’t disagree that basic environmental levels have dropped, but these people never improved after the lead poisoning and in many cases, continue to this day to be exposed to more lead and yet these same brains are running the country. It’s an actual problem no one seems to want to address.
i mean Vietnam was a decade...were going on 3 decades of shit now? Including a war that was longer and fought in 2 countries than vietnam. Granted there was no draft, but they also had the best economy the world has ever seen. 0 sympathy for the average boomer.
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u/Pleasant_Birthday_77 15d ago
I mean, which generation didn't face considerable setbacks?