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How utterly ridiculous. Harvard tuition in 1970 was $2,600 per year. It was a big deal back then when they raised tuition a whopping $200 per year. Google it.
The minimum wage in 1970 was $1.45 per hour. (And let's face it, a kid going to Harvard was probably making more than $1.45 for his or her part-time semester job or summer job.) But even if the plucky self-reliant Harvard student made the bare minimum, it took an average of 35 hours of minimum-wage work per week to pay for Harvard tuition. And that's flippin' Harvard. Most schools (even the Ivy League) were significantly less expensive than Harvard at the time. It was hard work paying for school and graduating debt free. I did it too. But it was doable back then.
We attended school around the same time and we paid for school exactly the same way. I worked 80-hour weeks during the summer and worked part time weekends and some days during the semesters. College costs have risen so much faster than wages that in order to do what we did we would either have to settle for much less expensive schools, or we would have to go into debt.
And if you look at the cost of most college room and board plans in 2015, it is significantly less expensive than a student could do in an el-cheapo apartment and eating ramen noodles every day. The educational landscape you and I experienced is gone -- probably for good. Telling students to pull themselves up by their bootstraps isn't intellectually honest when you yourself could not take the same path you took 40 years ago.
States have been drastically cutting aid for higher education in the past couple of decades leading to ever rising college costs. The idea of working one's way through school is not possible for most current students. In my state a student is looking at tuition of 35-40K even if they are able to live at home, and do the first 2 years at a community college. I remember seeing a chart of college costs, from the 80's to the 2000s, the cost of attendance had TRIPLED. From the 90s to 2007 the cost doubled, and it keeps going up while household income has largely remained stagnant.
We are saving tax money, but putting the costs on students causing most w/o family support to need loans. All these students with loans will bite us in the rear as it hurts the economy to have money going toward loan payments that could be spent on houses, cars, and buying other goods that keeps our economy humming along.
In the 1980's it was romanticized that there was more net worth for the younger generation in particular 1984 and on. Reagan campaigned on it for his re-election bid. The ad "Prouder, Stronger, Better" (or as many of us would know it as, "It's Morning Again in America") captures that with people buying houses, more people working, young people marrying, etc. Now I know, a lot of people say that isn't true it was tougher for me, unemployment wasn't low under Reagan until 1987/88 and other things BUT generally the Reagan era was looked at as a great time for America.
Campaign slogans did not reflect reality. The whole decade of the 1980s involved recovering from Reagan's recession from 1980-1982. The recovery stalled in 1986, and in 1987 the stock market lost 22% of its value in a single day. By 1988 the USA was back into a recession that lasted until 1992. Reagan's campaign slogans were nothing but whistling in a graveyard. It was a hard time for a lot of people.
Still not getting it. You are taking your personal philosophy and projecting it onto your 75 million peers.
If fiscal responsibility was so important to Boomers (and Gen X and Millennials, who appear to be following their parents right off the fiscal cliff), our government would reflect that.
Our state legislatures would reflect that. Our US representatives would reflect that. And our Senators would reflect that. In fact they DID reflect that when the G.I. Generation and the Silent Generation ran the show. What's different between then and now? The G.I. Generation is all but deceased and the Silent Generation is fading fast.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not falling for any of this "Greatest Generation" crapola, either. As a group they were horribly racist. But they kept their fiscal house in order.
Your wall of text, "beat 'em to a pulp with graphs and charts" prove my point that America became increasingly unhinged as the Boomers took over the reins of government. Sure, they might have voted for representatives picked from the Silent Generation and even the G.I. Generation, but they voted for those with a message of "borrow and spend."
Financially, the Boomers inherited a financially-sound nation and will leave a train wreck behind. They controlled the lion's share of the electorate from 1984 to 2004. What are they going to do? Do you think Boomers as a generation can point to what happened to this country during that 20-year span and say, "Oh yeah! We nailed it!"
The Boomer's grip on the electorate has started to ease with the 2012 cycle. And we'll see what GenX and the Millennials do as they become the majority stockholders in this country. I don't have high hopes for them, either. They seem to be just as eager to keep borrowing and spending. If they weren't, political primaries would produce more fiscally-responsible candidates.
At the end of each election cycle, we get the government that we deserve. Not what we deserve as individuals, of course. But what we deserve as a nation.
But the point of this thread is to compare the financial outlooks for the three major generations in this country right now. Boomers had it easy. They only had one big recession in the mid 1970s. The rest were minor compared to 2008. And that in turn was minor compared to the 1930s. They also had higher comparative wages (the best time to be a wage earner in America was 1968). They had better purchasing power. We hadn't offshored our major industry. A kid could graduate high school, get a job at the local plant, work 20 years and receive a living wage and benefits and retire with a pension. That landscape no longer exists and I doubt it will ever return.
Now I know you can't possibly be as old as you claim. Yes, there was a moderate recession in 1973, but the recession of 1980-82 was arguably as bad as the one in 2008, and the recovery was slower because of high interest rates. The kid who got a job at the local plant in 1968 found the plant closing in 1980 and his pension funds siphoned off in an attempt to keep the company afloat. It was quite common for pensions to be 100% vested in the company, and management spent the money as they wished. Meanwhile, Joe Schmoe found himself 30 years old, unemployed, with no skills anybody wanted. It was back to school and living on beans for another 2-4 years before he could hopefully get his life back on track by age 35. You apparently never heard of the Rust Belt, which is what happened to US industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
Wages were not keeping up with inflation because there were so many displaced workers desperate to find any job. Unions lost members as people found that management wouldn't hire them if they so much as mentioned unions. My state alone lost 25,000 family wage timber jobs during the Reagan overcut, when he tried to jump start the housing industry be giving away free federal timber. It drove lumber prices so low that mills had to automate and the only ones that could afford to do that were the largest. We lost hundreds of lumber mills, and there are only a few dozen left. There was a ship building industry in the USA when I graduated from high school. A decade later there was none. We once had a merchant marine, but by 1980 we didn't, except for a few tugboats and oil tankers.
You seem to be parroting stories you heard from your father or grandfather. He may have sailed through an Ivy League education and got jobs through the good old boy network, but he was the exception. For the average worker, life was always more difficult than you portray. If you want a relevant graph, look at the one that shows 2/3 of boomers arriving at retirement age with less than one year's income in savings. Is it your contention that they were all lazy and profligate?
College on a budget can still be a reality but whether a job will be at the end is another story. Our daughter graduated from HS in 2010. She started taking community college classes at night in 2008. She lived at home during undergrad because the dorm was $11k per year. Her tuition at the university was covered mostly by a state scholarship and we covered about $3000/year of the leftover tuition, books, fees. She graduated in 2013 with a biology degree. Then she applied for grad school and accepted an offer at a program (far from home) that covers most of her tuition and provides a stipend (in return for teaching or lab work) that covers her shared apartment, food, utilities, etc. So she will graduate in May with no debt and money in savings, though small.
However, since ur population is so grossly underemployed most of the STEM fields require unpaid internships as the right of passage to get a job. Most STEM jobs are being filled with green cards because they will work for less. So after graduation she will move her stuff back home and travel to her unpaid internships, paying for her living expenses out of her remaining savings and work she can get between internships. Hopefully by the time she is 26 or so she will be able to find full itme employment in her field.
This means we are still covering her on our medical insurance, car insurance, and filling in the gaps for medical co-pays and anything that doesn't fit into her meager budget. In the manwhile we are trying to pay off the mortgage (3 more years if all goes well), pad our 401k's, hold on desperately to our own jobs that have stagnant wages with no security as the cost of our benefits rise and perks are all gone now, hoping that we can retire when we are 68-70 to enjoy a few good years together. We are never home, always working, and exhausted when we are home since our workloads are astronomical at work, doing more with fewer employees.
I'm not seeing things getting any better for us or her in the near future.
Now I know you can't possibly be as old as you claim. Yes, there was a moderate recession in 1973, but the recession of 1980-82 was arguably as bad as the one in 2008, and the recovery was slower because of high interest rates. The kid who got a job at the local plant in 1968 found the plant closing in 1980 and his pension funds siphoned off in an attempt to keep the company afloat. It was quite common for pensions to be 100% vested in the company, and management spent the money as they wished. Meanwhile, Joe Schmoe found himself 30 years old, unemployed, with no skills anybody wanted. It was back to school and living on beans for another 2-4 years before he could hopefully get his life back on track by age 35. You apparently never heard of the Rust Belt, which is what happened to US industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
Wages were not keeping up with inflation because there were so many displaced workers desperate to find any job. Unions lost members as people found that management wouldn't hire them if they so much as mentioned unions. My state alone lost 25,000 family wage timber jobs during the Reagan overcut, when he tried to jump start the housing industry be giving away free federal timber. It drove lumber prices so low that mills had to automate and the only ones that could afford to do that were the largest. We lost hundreds of lumber mills, and there are only a few dozen left. There was a ship building industry in the USA when I graduated from high school. A decade later there was none. We once had a merchant marine, but by 1980 we didn't, except for a few tugboats and oil tankers.
You seem to be parroting stories you heard from your father or grandfather. He may have sailed through an Ivy League education and got jobs through the good old boy network, but he was the exception. For the average worker, life was always more difficult than you portray. If you want a relevant graph, look at the one that shows 2/3 of boomers arriving at retirement age with less than one year's income in savings. Is it your contention that they were all lazy and profligate?
You know, I missed the part in what you quoted about "get a job in a factory and retire after 20 years with a pension".
Where in the ****ity **** are people getting this idea that people were retiring in their late 30s/early 40s up until recently?
Last edited by North Beach Person; 01-16-2015 at 07:55 PM..
You know, I missed the part in what you quoted about "get a job in a factory and retire after 20 years with a pension".
Where in the ****ity **** are people getting this idea that people were retiring in their late 30s/early 40s up until recently?
Actually, this describes a LOT of people who are slightly older than I am -- 20 years in the military with pension, 20 years at the plant/factory/whatever with pension. Retire at 58 with two pensions and whatever SS kicks in. Half the people I knew advised me to take this route. This was an available option that is also largely gone.
Now I know you can't possibly be as old as you claim. Yes, there was a moderate recession in 1973, but the recession of 1980-82 was arguably as bad as the one in 2008, and the recovery was slower because of high interest rates.
Poppycock. 1980 wasn't even close to 2008. You do not get to invoke the "I walked uphill in snow both ways" over a less than three percent decline in GDP that lasted a single year. That recession was over three minutes after the Ayatollah released the hostages. Interest rates were high -- absolutely. But prices were still relatively low and purchasing power was better than it is now. I would rather make minimum wage in 1980 than make minimum wage in 2015. That's for sure. Compare that to the 2008 recession that free-falled for a straight year and then limped along for another two. Compare the bankruptcy statistics during those two recessions and tell me with a straight face that 1980 holds a candle to 2008.
This is when I was attending school. And things weren't all that bad. I never had problems obtaining employment. And I also never had problems juggling school and employment. Work was available for a college student who was willing to work. It may not have been a great job. But it paid the tuition. This is a period which I consider "good times." I would much rather relive this era (except for the cars -- they were awful) than time travel to 2015 as a new high school graduate.
Yes, interest rates of the 1980s were crap. But people could refinance. We've taken refinancing away from students -- who are basically the only group besides tax cheats who get absolutely no debt relief. And look at the prices: Tuition was in the $1,500 per year range; A new house cost $70K, and the average income was $20K. Those are easy figures to make life work. I was making less than half the average income as a student and life was financially easy. (I had to work like hell to pay for school and simultaneously get decent grades. But it could be done.)
Incidentally, my constant references to the first OPEC recession in the mid-1970s is rebuttal to all the "born in 1964" boomers who point to it as the Boomer's great depression. The even/odd gasoline days sucked. But again, purchasing power was so better than it is today.
Actually, this describes a LOT of people who are slightly older than I am -- 20 years in the military with pension, 20 years at the plant/factory/whatever with pension. Retire at 58 with two pensions and whatever SS kicks in. Half the people I knew advised me to take this route. This was an available option that is also largely gone.
Nice moving of the goal posts. You never once, not once, said anything about retiring from the military and then retiring from industry. You have babbled about "getting out of high school, working 20 years at the factory and retiring with a pension". I paraphrased.
Social Security doesn't "kick in" at 58, by the way. Unless one goes the SSDI route, which is a different program, the earliest age is 62.
Either you're obtuse or are being fed stories (as well as getting bad advice). You've already shown you have a grasp on history.
I will say that I found it fascinating that the tuition at Harvard was less than it was at the PA state college I attended in 1973.
Colleges and corporations took advantage of the situation and left us high and dry
I'm a 26 year old millenial who is successful on the surface. Job that pays over 50k a year in the South, health insurance, live on my own. The problem is the freaking debt. I graduated from a 5 year 145 degree program in a STEM field. I had nearly 40k in debt when I graduated. By pushing myself to barebones I paid off all my usurious private loans but still have nearly 30k in federal debt. Compounding interest is a *****.
I don't think millenials are lazy. I didnt have any computer at college until junior year with a flip cell phone. This seemed to be normal. My last year I did an unpaid internship and had to have a car. I used to park over a mile from the train station and literally run through the snow some days both ways to get to my unpaid internship as parking close was too expensive. I work night shift at my job to be able to even afford my loans and a second job to be able to afford to pay back more than the minimum on my loans which if I did would leave me in debt for over a decade. My father's elite private school cost the inflation adjusted equivalent of 9k a year for tuition room and board. Now it costs 50k a year for tuition alone. I also pay almost $200 a month for employer "subsidized" health insurance with huge deductibles. My parents and grandparents had no deductible health insurance and low copays. And housing prices are insane. Most of my friends live with their parents. Those who dont have the option like me live with strangers from craigslist. If I want to make signicantly more money I'll have to go back to school. And take out more loans. It sucks.
I don't know if we have it easier than seniors. I do know outsourcing, and government fueled bubbles in healthcare, education, and housing have made life a lot less affordable than it was when the boomers and early generation Y grew up. I didnt even vote for Obama in 2012. But it doesn't really matter as both parties are corrupt to the bone. We need to end the student loan education subsidies that are allowing walls of worthless administrators to waste our tuition dollars. And end fannie mae and fed subsidies to banks to let the free market let the cost of housing collapse properly with wages. A proper regulated european style hybrid healthcare system would help too, rather than the giant government subsidy to health insurance companies we have now.
Last edited by njbiodude; 01-17-2015 at 08:14 AM..
Poppycock. 1980 wasn't even close to 2008. You do not get to invoke the "I walked uphill in snow both ways" over a less than three percent decline in GDP that lasted a single year. That recession was over three minutes after the Ayatollah released the hostages. Interest rates were high -- absolutely. But prices were still relatively low and purchasing power was better than it is now. I would rather make minimum wage in 1980 than make minimum wage in 2015. That's for sure. Compare that to the 2008 recession that free-falled for a straight year and then limped along for another two. Compare the bankruptcy statistics during those two recessions and tell me with a straight face that 1980 holds a candle to 2008.
I agree that the 2008 recession was worse than the one in the 1980's but not by much. It was not over three minutes after the Ayatollah released the hostages. And you have to ask why there were more bankruptcies in 2008. In 1980, you had to put 20% down on a house and you better have good credit. They did not loan money to people willy-nilly like they do now. It was big deal, prior to the 80's, to have a credit card; especially a major credit card. People didn't have consumer debt like they do now. People saved more. If the personal finance attitudes were the same in 1980 as they were in 2008, that recession would been far worse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoopLV
Yes, interest rates of the 1980s were crap. But people could refinance. We've taken refinancing away from students -- who are basically the only group besides tax cheats who get absolutely no debt relief. And look at the prices: Tuition was in the $1,500 per year range; A new house cost $70K, and the average income was $20K. Those are easy figures to make life work. I was making less than half the average income as a student and life was financially easy. (I had to work like hell to pay for school and simultaneously get decent grades. But it could be done.)
The average home price in 1980 was $80,000 by the end of the year. That includes new and used homes.
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Colleges and corporations took advantage of the situation and left us high and dry
