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Open your eyes. There is no middle class left. With the great offshoring that began in the 90s, the entry level jobs into good corporations ("management trainee" in a salaried job) disappeared.
Not all of us have the access to Ivy League schools on merit scholarships. There are a multitude of youngsters who are merely "OK".
Thirty years ago, the "OK" youngsters would have gotten salaried junior management trainee jobs anywhere. Those jobs no longer exist.
Today, they are baristas. Or 7-11 clerks. Or both.
It's doubly intimidating to them because our generation - their parents - seemed to start out several rungs ahead. Hence, by comparison, they hold themselves to a standard in which they are deemed worthless. By the likes of you.
By comparison, we DID start out several rungs ahead. I don't know of ANY peers of mine that had to slog through 5 years of stringing together enough PT jobs to keep body and soul together. My son's peers - graduated from college with nontrivial degrees - not so.
Kindly take your head out of your *ss and begin a long program of study about the runup to the Great Recession, and its aftermath.
The entry level professional job opportunities have - by the numbers - decreased by 70%.
Yet we are paying people to breed, who disparage education and have contempt for those who are working hard in positions that don't pay much in comparison to dealing drugs. And the teachers' unions devote a significant proportion of their resource to fighting against competency standards, while their members reek of ignorance. It's all about what you "feel", rather than what you "know", doncha know. The teachers are not capable of discriminating between the two.
At this point, the .01% and the Social Justice Warriors fighting for the Free Sh*t Army have won. We are in a catabolic decline as a nation.
And you WONDER why OUR kids have the cards stacked against them?
Give me a frickin' break.
Maybe I live a sheltered life out here in Utah but I'm completely surrounded by "middle class" people. And considering my area has a higher than average cost of living combined with a lower than average income, it should actually be easier to do it in most places around the country outside of the coasts.
Yea the job market is probably more competitive but the population (and therefore the amount of competition) has vastly increased and the median income is still hovering around $50K yearly. I know it's entirely possible to live on one income and raise a family in your own home that is in a decent, safe area because I am doing it right now... and have been for years. Is is easy? No... but has it ever really been easy? Get rid of this stupid myth that everyone in the past waltzed into high paying union jobs right out of High School and moved straight into their "supersized lives"... it never was that way.
Your argument boils down to "no, I can't" but that's just not true.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced the main problem is the average American's expectations.
Look at the average "big ticket" items of the 50-70's. The average home was MUCH smaller and humbler, the average car didn't even have air conditioning and came from the factory without so much as a stereo...not to mention that the average family only had 1 car. The average TV was virtually unwatchable in quality by today's standards and electronics in general were just as much and in many cases MORE expensive even without inflation figured in.
If you deconstructed modern life to the "middle class" standards of 40 years ago, you'd find that lifestyle is easily affordable on a single income at a median income level.
So what changed? Well, both mom and dad went to work, doubling their income overnight and creating a market for large bloated homes, multiple cars, constant gadget upgrading and everything else which eventually became "normal" to the kids growing up in the 80's-00's.
...When you're asking why boomers have so much, keep this in mind. It's in no small part thanks to those millennials you hate so much who got stuck with the bill for your excesses and lack of planning.
A totally stupid and irrelevant point since I'm not in sub-Saharan Africa, India, southeast Asia, South American slums, or any of those places where living on $10/day is actually doable.
As if the pickings for scavenger in the richest and most wasteful country on the planet are worse than in the 3rd world. I'm here to tell you you're average 3rd world person would think he'd died and gone to heaven if he could dig through the dumpsters behind your average supermarket/shopping mall. Oh, it's MORE than doable here... it's flat-out easy in comparison.
That's not to say we should go out and dumpster dive right now; I know I have higher expectations and I imagine most Americans do too. Still, you've gotta realize how freakishly GOOD you have it even as a "poor" American millennial than the vast majority of humanity. That realization changes the paradigm from: "It's not fair" and "I can't" to: "Hmmmm...where are the opportunities in my little corner of the planet?"
Just for fun... this guy is true to his word but if you can stay awake long enough, check out electronics prices in this 1982 Radio Shack catalog (especially the computer stuff at the end!):
Even a cheap low end smart phone literally replaces at least $20K in electronics without even counting inflation (remember 1982 dollars are worth $2.47 in 2015! Inflation Calculator: Bureau of Labor Statistics) and does EVERY ONE of those tasks several orders of magnitude better than it's 1982 equivalent.
Spoiled Millennials will argue that's just riding the wave of technological progress that they are entitled to have available to them in 2015 but remember, your parents had to pay those prices to have a poor obsolete version of what you've got in your pocket and get it on 3 or 4 bucks an hour.
Is today really so much harder than it was for young adult boomers? I'm not convinced. The past 20 years was an aberration... an illusion of prosperity which was more myth than reality and was fueled by altered dynamics that don't apply to most young adults today (dual income families....Millennials don't get married as early and easy credit...denied to those who don't have an expansive positive credit history). That is the REAL problem facing young adults trying to start a life of their own today.
It's up to the young generation to bring cultural expectations back to reality... study what "middle class" used to mean before both parents worked full time and credit wasn't passed out like coke at an 80's beach house party and realign your expectations based on reality, not what you see in TV/Movies and what your Boomer parents have 30+ years into the game.
Last edited by Chango; 08-12-2015 at 09:22 PM..
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I'm here to tell you you're average 3rd world person would think he'd died and gone to heaven if he could dig through the dumpsters behind your average supermarket/shopping mall. Oh, it's MORE than doable here... it's flat-out easy in comparison. 
but remember, your parents had to pay those prices to have a poor obsolete version of what you've got in your pocket and get it on 3 or 4 bucks an hour. 
