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I think we are all suffering and struggling in this economy as it is today, whether young or older, American or other.
Within 5 miles of where I live there are 2 multi-story office complexes used by an Indian company. I just noticed this within the last few months.
We are now working ''for them'' instead of the other way around. And on our turf. Not saying it's good or bad, just probably the wave of the future. I'm sure many of you know more about this than I.
In a global economy maybe things will improve for us all in the future.
Here's hoping.
I am 32. I am working harder than ever, and still can't pay my bills. I'm not out doing drugs. I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, or gamble. I'm not going out to eat. I buy generic food from the grocery store. I wait for sales. I lost my phone plan. I lost my credit card. I am losing my truck as soon as they come get it. I had to sell all of my valuables. I am down to basic bills. Rent, food, utilities. I am not in a mansion or anything. I am in a lower end house, at the edge of town, in a less desirable area. Any and every setback just wipes me out.
I have a blue collar union job. It's not enough. Everything is too expensive. I am an apprentice now, but even when I hit journeyman pay, it's not a lot of money. I make more per hour now than my dad did when he retired from GM, yet he managed to buy a house on 7 acres, cars, a backhoe, put up a garage, and put money into savings.
The entire system we have in this country is in need of a radical change.
I am retired now at age 68 but I had the same issues as you in my 50's. I had lost my job of many years due to a layoff and had to seek out a new one. I found one after several years of going from part time work to part time work. A college degree and a years of varied office experience wasn't much help. During that time I lived off my savings going back to school to make myself more marketable and got a second degree in paralegal studies. Even with that degree it took me a long time to regain employment because my generation doesn't get hired as quickly as the younger generations.
My new job didn't pay any where near my old one but at my age I had to take what I could get. The last four years I worked at my company I got no raises while the COL continued to soar. I quit only because of a disability.
My point is, these circumstances are a condition of the times and not confined to only to one generation. We are all in the same boat hanging by the same threads when it comes to the roll of the dice in the workplace. Each generation has its own unique problems of the day. We don't all have it one way or another.
Minervah-
My situation is similar to yours and I am about to turn 60. A healthcare profession for 25 years, multiple lay-offs since 2009. No full-time job since. A market saturated with younger, cheaper applicants than myself and very few openings. Now more budget cuts due to changes in healthcare. I am doing contract delivery work, applying for part-time retail, and selling stuff on Ebay to get by. I just got on Medicaid today under the ACA and now I have some healthcare access if I need it. I am already thinking I may have to take early SS retirement @ 62 in order to survive.
Student loans will eat up 15 percent of that and hopefully I can keep working part-time to make up the rest.
It's tough times and more coming as far as I can see short of PCH or the lottery, which I can't afford to pay. lol
It is what it is and I am grateful for what I have in this very different world from what I grew up in.
I know there are people living in big fine houses, buying new cars, and traveling on vacation. I know that I will never be one of them and I don't know how they do it.
My key to happiness is accepting what I have today and being ok with it.
If young people can no longer afford to raise families, and will grow old childless, what does it imply for the future? Freeways without traffic jams? Not enough people to fill all the job vacancies? Being able to go to a popular restaurant and get a table immediately? It sounds like an alarming and lonely future.
Oh poor me, is being cried by so many young people today. They are repeating what I heard back in the 1954 when I got out of the navy with a wife, 2 small children and no money. I worked 12 hour days to keep a roof over their heads, and food in their stomachs. I looked around to see what I could do to make money. I decided commission sales was the best prospect. By 1958 I was earning over $125,000 in today's dollars selling furniture, and I never looked back. I went into the corporate world 5 years later, and worked up in a couple of years to division sales manager for half the country. In 1972, I went into the real estate business, as a commercial/investment real estate broker, so I could make real money, and stayed there till I retired. Today we are in very good shape, owning a large 3700 sq. ft. custom home, on 5 acres across the county road from the best part of the city where we live. We don't owe one penny, have 3 nice cars, and could write a check for $250,000 if we wanted to. We have had to open accounts at a second bank, as it is not good to keep over $250,000 in any bank due to deposit insurance. At the present time, we are cash heavy waiting for the right opportunity to come along. For 40 years, I have bought real estate parcels that I can sell at a profit.
Example: When in the business a Realtor brought a farm to my attention. It was 40 acres near a fast growing city. There were a narrow 10 acre strip down to a square 30 acre parcel for a total of 40 acres. I looked at, and drove down to the back 30 acres. It was solid against another subdivision, with all streets and utilities right to this property. Bought it with a $1,000 personal note. The front 30 acres to be released at closing, and a mortgage with first payment in a year on the other 30. Right to cut off 5 acres at a time paying a fixed amount of money. I then exchanged a home just a few blocks away as the down payment on the 10 acres and the home owner got a loan for the balance. Sold the home to an investor. Used the money from the sale and the mortgage to pay off the 10 acres with an older farm house and barn. Now had 1 year to come up with the first payment on the 30 acres. Sold the 30 acres for $100,000 profit. The developer paid me the $100,000 cash and took over the loan. A developer that wanted to develop it, and with the 5 acre breakouts, could easily handle it.
Young people were crying how hard it was to get started in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond just like they are today. Young people have to scramble to really get a start, and that has always been true. Some will succeed like I did, when I looked around and figured how to beat the average. Others will be crying about never having an opportunity when they are my age. No one is going to hand you your future, you have to get out there and take charge of it.
That's pretty much the story of anyone who did well in our generation. Even 25 years ago I certainly never anticipated being this well off in retirement. Certainly the future seems insurmountable to many young people, because they lack perspective. They have another 40 years to get it together. Your land deal worked out because you saw a possibility and were lucky. If there had been a real estate downturn, you would have lost your shorts, but you would have found something else to work on.
I have certainly been broke. In 1973 I spent 5 hours on an operating table and 10 days being fed through my veins without medical insurance, was unable to work for another 2 months, then had no job to go back to thanks to the 1973 recession. The 1980-1982 recession wiped me out. I was unemployed, lost my home, and once again was thousands of dollars in debt. On both occasions, I developed a personal recovery program and dug in. I had 30 years to recover, and ended up in a comfortable retirement. Between 1982 and 1986 I lived in one room, drove a $600 beater nowhere but to work and back, worked two jobs and limited my entertainment budget to $20/month. At the end of that period I had enough saved to leverage my way back into the middle class. Now I'm one of those old folks living somewhere a 30 year old couldn't afford. Well, when I was 30 years old I couldn't afford it either.
My advice to millennials is to pick a direction. You have the next 40 years to get there, so get started.
You made the equivalent of $125,000 selling furniture? Today, that job pays minimum wage or close to it. Don't you see? THAT'S why we're complaining. That's the problem. Jobs pay a fraction of what they used to (when adjusted for inflation).
The point is not to do something that worked well 40 years ago. Back then, $125k was an unheard of income, and I'll guarantee he didn't make it peddling Barcaloungers. Scut work has never paid a living wage. Whatever you do, you always have two jobs: 1) the job you have, and 2) looking for a better job.
You grew up getting trophies just for showing up. Nobody wanted you to feel bad about yourself, so you never learned to realistically assess your performance. It's time to learn that now, because you are failing at life. Whatever you are doing, it's wrong. If you aspire to something beyond living paycheck to paycheck, you need to figure out what it will take to get there and not let anything get in your way.
It's pretty disheartening knowing that so many of you do not understand AT ALL the Economic repurcussions of what is going on right now.
I think its extremely ignorant and selfish not to educate yourself on the future of our Economy.
If your still using phrases like "Just work harder..." or "People have too much anyways" than your missing the discussion completely and probably pretty clueless about the issue.
You have no perspective. Your attitudes were shaped by a severe recession, and I suspect your track record as a fortune teller will be pretty dismal. The economy is growing nicely and unemployment is down, but if you expect that to lead to instant gratification you will be sadly disappointed.
The point was, though, that the Boomers as kids were primed by TV to expect a lot. The examples presented on TV were middle- or upper-middle class: Ozzie and Harriet, Beaver, Donna Reed, etc. They were primed to expect that women would be SAHM's, until that changed. But the images they were fed in childhood were of relative affluence.
Meanwhile, in working class families, both mom and dad held jobs. My mother worked from the time her youngest started school in the late '50s until she retired. Working women were everywhere, in canneries, restaurants, department stores, schools, and back offices. A boomer growing up with a SAHM was in the minority.
You have no perspective. Your attitudes were shaped by a severe recession, and I suspect your track record as a fortune teller will be pretty dismal. The economy is growing nicely and unemployment is down, but if you expect that to lead to instant gratification you will be sadly disappointed.
My track record about predicting things is actually pretty good. And my professors were predicting the crash of '08 a few years before it actually occurred.
I've stated before I'm not talking about my personal situation. I'm an entrepreneur.
I think your perspective is WAY off if you believe things are similar today, to when you were a kid.
I understand Economics. I run a few businesses. Anyone with a working knowledge of our Economy can predict that things could drag along or stay the same if enough isn't done to fix the trends.
I'm trying to figure out what my millennial kids (31, 29, 24 and 18) have gone wrong. None are living in the basement (we don't have one in any case) and only one, the 18 year old is still at home. He turned 18 the end of November and started as an Electrician's Apprentice the next week.
The oldest two own their own houses while the third is now looking. None of those three are in high paying fields (a County employee, a maintenance manager for a marina and a teacher), all have student loan debt, none got any sort of scholarship.
They live in a high COL area.
Yet they all are successful, are working, have cars, don't really want for anything.
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