I'm a younger Millennial myself, so I and my cut of that generation and Gen Z are fucked when it comes to ever owning our own homes or even saving up to retire.
I know, and it breaks my heart. My brother and I are Oregon Trail mini-gen, and I was lucky enough to buy a house, but it’s in bad need of repairs because of finances and my being disabled and unable to work. My brother will only be able to own a home because my parents will leave it to him. Assuming it doesn’t get taken by the government to pay for Medicaid if mom goes into a nursing home.
My parents paid $20,000 for the house I grew up in. My dad was a school teacher and mom was disabled. We never had money but we had enough, although that was largely because they had a lot of credit card debt.
It’s just not possible to do that anymore. It hasn’t been for years. The average income for a teacher with five years of experience in my area is not much higher than it was when my dad retired - in 1997. Maybe by a few thousand. Yet, you can’t find a house here, in a town with a median income of $40,000, for less than $100,000. If you do find a house that cheap, it’s in terrible condition in the rough part of town.
My friend had to get a masters degree to get her license, she has paid more than the minimum on those loans since 2008 and still owes more than she borrowed. Even with eighteen or so years of experience with a masters degree, she earns less than $60,000.
It’s all kinds of fucked up. The saddest part is that I don’t know if it can be fixed at this point. If you raise salaries to a level where people can live, the businesses that hire these people also have to raise prices to pay the salaries… yet the last time the minimum wage was raised was when I was in college 28 years ago when $7.25 wasn’t enough but it still went a lot further.
Birth rates are falling because children are expensive, partly because of modern safety standards. Those standards are fantastic at keeping children alive, but terrible on young families who are struggling. And by the time they might be old enough to afford kids, they’re in menopause. I know you can never afford kids, but sometimes you really truly cannot.
I truly feel sorry for Gen Alpha and Beta. Not only is gen alpha supposedly the first generation to be less intelligent at this age than the one before them, but if you and I and every other adult younger than we are are struggling this badly, well shit son. I have never been happier to have chosen all those years ago not to have children.
Man, now I’m depressed. I see you, and I’m sorry. If I could help, I would.
