Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I recognize that the job market is difficult because of all the crazy political policies now in place that crush the free enterprise system, however you can still make it. Suck it up, get in the game, hustle, and focus on people skills not texting. Those 4 simple rules can produced a plethora of opportunities that supposedly do not exist.
And yes, of course I walked to school 10 miles everyday, uphill both ways.
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.
Your reply here is so genuine and heartfelt....
Keep in mind so so many others are going thru this now as well.....
It is frightening, whether you are single or with wife/kids......Have pride in yourself. You are developing a essentially spiritual attitude per appreciation. That prob makes more sense than anything. Life itself is a precious gift we daily wake up to. Hey, we are here. We've lived. We have more great times as well.
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.
My concern is the fact that the young adult/childraising ages are by far the main spenders in our economy.
Now that the US economy relies on 70% spending for growth, not sure where that will come from if our young people working for Target, and begging for the new weekly schedule to have more than 24 hours, can't even support renting for themselves, let alone raise families..
I see many young adults with SNAP cards now, working retail myself overnights for extra money. White adults. It goes across the entire spectrum now.
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 worked hard and deserve every bit of it...
All things being equal, hard work and drive will always be of great help, even in this crazy outsourced US economy......
The oldest Gen X-ers were born in 1965 and just started turning 50 years old as of 1/1/2015.
In your posts you are starting to sound like a modern day Confucius, but you don't even know what generation you are in.
That has changed....
Indeed, traditionally boomers were considered to top-off at 1964 births, but somehow that has been changed, and, in common parlance, gen x extends to my year of birth in many accounts.......I would say that is the case, as the boom was busted already when I went to school.....the schools had trailers for extra classrooms in the parking lots for the older kids, but were taken down a few years before we got to that point....High School classes were far larger, about 1.5X larger, from two years ahead of my class and older......not only that, but my age group was the first to grow up with home video games, portable ones like Mattel's little football thing, and complex(for the day) Texas Instrument calculators...and had access to the first line of programmable computers in High School.....all those, at least culturally, align us 1962'ers far more with the Millennials than the older boomers, most of who were far older than myself growing up anyway.....
I have not read all the responses, but I did read the OP. I am an actual Gen-Xer, having come of age in the late '80s. When I look around at my peers, we all seem to be doing pretty well. Some obviously have it easier than others, of course, but our suburban, family-oriented lifestyles are comfortable. With children attending middle school all the way up through college, we are active spenders -- such is the requirement of family life -- but we are also good savers. Raised under the dual specters of a potentially bankrupt Social Security program and vanishing defined benefits, we were religious about putting money aside for future needs, including college expenses for our children. Our fellow Xers who seem to struggle the most are those dealing with the expensive consequences of divorce. Alimony and child support are killers. However, those who married well and stayed married seem to be doing just fine, even with the ups-and-downs of the economy over the last decade.
You bring up a great point..
All things considered, intact 2-parent families are far better off, and single divorced parents far worse(one end paying alimony, the other hoping to receive the same, and make do with the rest)....
You can safely say any wealthy area anywhere in suburban areas in the USA is composed almost primarily of two-parent intact families, and empty nest prior two-family parents.....on the other hand, almost all poor areas consist largely of single parents(mostly mothers), and single people that cannot afford to raise families...
Intact families = wealth..not to say intact familes ALWAYS do..hardly..just that you only see 2-parent intact families when you see wealth, for all intents...only exception creative class adults on the coasts(and not even all of THEM)
I drive around doing delivery work and have also driven around doing home visits in health care over the years. This is in rural and suburban Ohio.
Everywhere I go all the newer houses are HUGE freakin' mansions. Lanscaped to the hilt, pristine sterile streets, like something out of The Stepford Wives.
I want to know WHO is able to afford these places and WHY is no affordable housing being built anywhere?
If it's not these mansions its ''sardine can condos'' crammed into a few acres with sky high price tags.
Somebody is ''doing well'' in America, just not sure who and how.
I'm 44 - gen x sort of caught between the old and young. The unfortunate reality is that automation and outsourcing has, and will continue to, eliminate many better paying skilled jobs. Here's the reality of the job market according to the beaurue of labor statistics 2012-2022:
- The better paying jobs are in health care (esp nursing) and science technical fields. Most of these jobs require fairly significant education, usually a bachelors degree, though some only require an associates degree. While growth for these jobs is expected to be decent, they still represent only about 40% of the overall job openings.
- The majority of openings will be in low-wage service jobs, about 60% of all openings. There's simply no way around this; that's where most of the jobs are.
Unfortunately, it's difficult for me to afford the education required for upward mobility. Here's the job situation for younger persons (20s): Unless you get a highly practical education, there just aren't many opportunities for decent paying jobs the way they were in the past. If you do go to college, it's important to get a practical degree: nursing, engineering, computer science, chemistry, etc. Borrowing thousands for an impractical BA might be a big financial mistake. I have a psychology BA, and if I had it to do over again I would've gotten a more practical degree.
So is their hope for those 18-34? Unfortunately, probably not much. Technological advancements will continue, this more skilled jobs will be eliminated, resulting in yet more low-wage service jobs. While no one can predict far down the line, the immediate future looks bleak.
It began a trend of union-busting, prohibiting unionizing (Wal Mart, Whole Foods), and weakening the labor market. The huge influx of illegal aliens is part of the strategy; workers willing to work for below minimum wage and no benefits. Outsourcing is in the same vein. Corporations don't want to pay benefits to workers anymore, so they're finding labor outside the native-born US pool.
Bang on, Ruth!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
