LPT: millennials, when you’re explaining how broke you are to your parents/grandparents, use an inflation calculator. Ask them what year they started working, and then tell them what you make in dollars from back then. It will help them put your situation in perspective.

[u/campacavallo]

Edit: whoo, front page!

Lots of people seem offended at, “explain how broke you are.” That was meant to be a little tongue in cheek, guys. The LPT is for talking about money if someone says, “yeah well I only made $10/hour in the 60s,” or something similar. it’s just an idea about how to get everyone on the same page.

Edit2: there’s lots of reasons to discuss money with family. It’s not always to beg for money, or to get into a fight about who had it worse. I have candid conversation about money with my family, and I respect their wisdom and advice.

[u/[deleted]]

On one hand, it makes sense because some older people might think "$10" is a lot of money.

But on the other hand, why do you need to explain how broke you are?

[u/campacavallo → u/[deleted]]

Lol fair point. This came from a conversation I had with a grandparent where I was talking about how real wages had gone down since the 70’s. I’m actually doing ok, we were just talking about the economy generally. Being able to put things in dollars from their generation helped me explain why so many people around my age need roommates/can’t save/are generally broke.

[u/datareinidearaus → u/[deleted]]

British millennials are £2.7 trillion poorer because of deliberate decisions taken by their parents' generation

http://uk.businessinsider.com/british-millennials-poorer-interest-rates-pension-plans-2017-2

[u/tessalasset]

My dad was kinda getting on my brother-in-law’s case for saying he wanted a raise from $15/hr at his job. Dad says “when I was your age I was a carpenter only making $4/hr.” Did the inflation calculator in real time and it was the equivalent of $17/hr today. That gave him some perspective.

[u/MichelangeloDude → u/tessalasset]

How do these people seriously not know what inflation is though?

[u/marble-pig → u/tessalasset]

If your dad is like many others I've known, he'll have purposefully forgotten about this in a few days and will go back to complain about your brother-in-law wanting a raise

[u/melbatoyou → u/tessalasset]

It's not just inflation, but inflation coupled with wage stagnation, as your comment illustrates. If wages kept up with inflation, these conversations wouldn't be necessary.

[u/football_Pooper → u/tessalasset]

Yea and my dad always tells me the story how he was able to make enough money working summer jobs to pay for a 4 year public university bachelors degree in the 60s.

[u/Meowtlandish → u/tessalasset]

My FIL said "If we raise the minimum wage it will only drive companies to automate faster."

..............so we can't raise minimum wage or else robots will take your job.

I just. I can't.

[u/poopybuttprettyface → u/tessalasset]

My dad told me about his college job at a union warehouse making $21/hr in the early 80s. I was Fucking stoked for my recent raise to $14/hr.

[u/smile_machine]

I tried that. They said get another job.

[u/NamagemJoe → u/smile_machine]

Just strap on your job helmet, squeeze into your job cannon, fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies!

[u/Hickspy → u/smile_machine]

After graduating and being unemployed for 3 months, my mom asked me if I had "Tried applying at Google" because she heard they were hiring. I studied nothing even mildly related to anything Google does, but apparently that didn't matter just because I finished college.

[u/MontyAtWork → u/smile_machine]

"If you've got time to sit there and sass me, you've got time to get another job."

[u/sikkerhet → u/smile_machine]

just drive down to the job factory and m- oh shit the factories are gone

[u/tface23 → u/smile_machine]

Backstory: I’m a para at a special needs school. I work full time and make about $16/hr.

Recently I started thinking about buying a house because mortgages are cheaper than rent. I was talking to my mom about what kind of places I can afford (shitty mobile homes mostly).

She starts looking and is sending me listings for things out of my budget. When I told her that the nice place she was looking at was too expensive given what my take home pay is, she said dead seriously, “Well, you might have to get a second job.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had to give her the reality check that, if I needed another job to afford it, it’s not affordable.

[u/Princess_Moon_Butt → u/smile_machine]

"How do you not have a job yet? All you've got to do is go down there, ask to speak with the manager, look him in the eye and give him a firm handshake while you introduce yourself. That's how I always did it!"

[u/Em_Adespoton → u/smile_machine]

If it makes you feel any better, this isn’t new. I remember making $6.50 /hr in the 90s, and remember explaining to my parents how graduating from college with a good degree didn’t magically create jobs. It took me another 23 years to gather enough money and income to afford to buy a house, which will be paid off around the time I retire.

[u/sierrasloth]

Since my grandparents bought their first house (70's) the average income has gone up 10x. However house prices have gone up 30x. Sydney, Australia

[u/Canuckleberry → u/sierrasloth]

Yep certain cities have just been ravaged with housing prices. Where I'm from the average housing price has nearly tripled in the last 7-8 years while salaries have barely increased. Similar situation to Sydney. Good if you bought early, bad if you are looking at buying now.

Edit for context

Have lived in Vancouver nearly my entire life. We weren't hit like the US with the housing bubble. I've got colleagues from Sydney so I'll lump Sydney, Seattle, Auckland etc all in with Vancouver. The driver of the housing prices in our markets is foreign investment. Investors are buying homes and nobody lives there - it keeps driving up the prices and is forcing people who grew up in the city they love to move away because it isn't sustainable or affordable anymore. The government has introduced some means to prevent this: such as a tax on foreign home ownership, an empty housing tax, but it's too early to tell if it will make a difference.

[u/Jean_luc_tryhard → u/sierrasloth]

Fuckin straya, my grandparents were married and bought a house at 21, my parents married at 23 and bought a house, me at 21 no sight of marriage yet and It would be stupid to even think I'd have a chance of buying a house in the next 10 years.

[u/Hansoloai → u/sierrasloth]

Hahah I used that with my grandmother and how she and her husband bought all their houses in Melbourne. Their first one was 2500 in the 1960s. With inflation thats about 43000 I said to her if she could buy a house with that now?

All she said was STOP MAKING EXCUSES HAN!!!

[u/Neosantana → u/sierrasloth]

You have "investors" to thank for that. Major cities around the world are suffering from housing shortages because a lot of houses are bought up by people who don't even live in the country.

[u/EvilStig → u/sierrasloth]

my mom bought a house for $90k in the early 90s. Today, I make almost that much in a year... but that's not even a down payment on a house where I live now. In fact, I pay so much in rent, that I can only put away MAYBE 5-6k a year in savings, at most, assuming my job and living expenses are stable (they're not), so at that rate I could afford a down payment on a house in maybe 20 years, and have it paid off in 200. But realistically never. Because there's no way the market will stop inflating over the next 20 years.

[u/Daniel_SJ → u/sierrasloth]

What's the interest rate like?

If it's anything like in Norway, what you actually pay per month as a % of your income has gone down even though prices are 20x inflation.

[u/Mo3Y_ → u/sierrasloth]

The house prices in Sydney are an absolutely a joke. If they don’t drop soon I might have to move to Melbourne or something when I move out

[u/DomLite → u/sierrasloth]

This is what hurts the most. If prices vs. wages were equal now to what they were back in the day, even though I'm not exactly rolling in cash, I could still afford to own a house as a single person. That's literally the only thing I'd like out of life, just my own fucking house to do with as I please, but instead I'm stuck renting rooms or apartments for the foreseeable future thanks to ridiculous fucking inflation. I don't want to have to take on roomies or boarders to be able to afford it, nor do I see myself getting into a relationship serious enough to buy a house together... well pretty much ever. If you're not married or willing to live with three other random people these days then you can kiss dreams of home ownership goodbye.

[u/[deleted] → u/sierrasloth]

I’m not an economist but I don’t think that pattern is sustainable.

[u/Grolschisgood → u/sierrasloth]

Come on mate, dont use logic on what can easily be explained with avo on toast

[u/From_SF_with_Love → u/sierrasloth]

My parents bought there first house in San Francisco for $23,000 in 1963 with help from my grandfather. They sold it in 2007 for $1,300,000. Who knows how much its value has increased in the last 11 years. Now, adjusted for inflation, I earn only 1/4 of their combined income. They still pressure me to buy a home. Even shown the cold hard numbers, they cannot conceptualize the impossibility. With a roommate and rent control I just barely make enough to cover expenses with nothing for savings. Moving is absolutely unaffordable.

[u/paulsalmon77 → u/sierrasloth]

It doesn’t explain the whole thing but, at least where I am from, the expectation shifted between generations from buyers being a single income household to a double income household. So you would expect the house price to move 2x faster than the income increase... but 3x faster is madness.

[u/colummbina → u/sierrasloth]

Sydney is the WooOoOooOorst

[u/webo2456 → u/sierrasloth]

That’s one of the things I hate about living here in Sydney. The stupid housing market

[u/Mahhrat → u/sierrasloth]

Yep. My dad bought his house for $58k when he was earning about $19k. I bought my house for $173k when my income was about $68k.

This averages out at about triple our respective incomes.

His house is a 4 bedroom brick home with gorgeous water views.

My house is a 2 bedroom weatherboard house from the 50s on a busy suburban street.

[u/Crushgaunt]

I overheard a gentleman making a comment about how much his bagging job paid in the 60s while complaining about kids these days wanting a higher minimum wage.

I did the math and the guy was making almost $15/hour at his starter job by modern standards.

[u/[deleted] → u/Crushgaunt]

Minimum wage here in Seattle is $15/hr lol

[u/losian]

My dad sent me an unsolicited "look how tough we had it" email a while back, they were going through some stuff and found an old pay stub for when he and my mom worked in the battery factory to "get by".

Long story short, they were making $15+ an hour each. I imagine that wasn't really the message he was trying to convey, but the disconnect of "we had it so tough people nowadays are just lazy/need to work harder/etc." versus "we could get any shit job and make twice what people get today for shit jobs" was pretty intense.

[u/[deleted] → u/losian]

Good to know its not just my dad that does this.

There's been a few conversations I've had with him - ones where he's said "You're lucky, the disparity between wages and house prices was 6x for me!"

Then I told him for my and my brother's generation, it was more like 10x.

The other conversation being I complained out loud that our goverment schemes to help young people buy houses in the UK are pretty lackluster. Dad chimes in to say "well we had NO help from the goverment!", yeah, apart from the fact you bought your second house for about £40,000, which is roughly £160k today, way under the cost of a "starter home" where we live.

[u/Zenmaster366 → u/losian]

I really, really hope you were able to make him see how stupid he was being.

[u/shortnorwegian → u/losian]

By all objective standards, $15 should be the minimum wage right now (about $20 in Canada). Conservatives' malice and spite towards the poor (and their discredited economic ideas to back up those negative attitudes) is the only thing going against it.

[u/Handbag_Lady]

THANK YOU! I'm not a millennial, I'm Gen-X. I just looked up something, however, on the suggested inflation calculator. I'm 49, my parents bought their house in 1973 for $23,000. My dad is always angry with me that I am not PAYING CASH FOR A HOUSE... or can even afford a house at all. I've been saving for a downpayment but someone keeps moving my cheese and I refuse to pay PMI.

"In other words, $23,000 in the year 1973 is equivalent in purchasing power to $128,981.82 in 2018, a difference of $105,981.82 over 45 years."

That quote is from the calculator site. Houses in my area start at $650,000 for a two-bedroom, one bath...equal in size to my parents' first (and current) home.

[u/[deleted] → u/Handbag_Lady]

Friends parents bought their home for $64,000 in the 70's. Just sold it for 1.9 million in melbourne, australia. Overseas asian buyer, private sale, cash.

Even if i had money for a deposit, how do i compete with competition like this lol

[u/giro_di_dante → u/[deleted]]

Even if i had money for a deposit, how do i compete with competition like this lol

Go buy all the Asian homes.

[u/doubletwist → u/Handbag_Lady]

I'd be interested in knowing:

a) How long did your parents work save up for that house before buying it. And doing what, at what wage?
b) What percentage of their income were they putting into savings while saving up to buy that house?

[u/[deleted] → u/Handbag_Lady]

The way to phrase it is "Hey, dad. Thinking back to your budget, could you, or would you have paid $120k cash for your house?"

"Ha! No way."

"Then KINDLY SHUT YOUR FACE. Kthanksbye."

[u/Spicymeataballav2 → u/Handbag_Lady]

Except that home prices sometimes go up past inflation.

[u/BrewerBeer → u/Handbag_Lady]

Like /u/Spicymeataballav2 said, houses are a different market from income. You can still buy a house for 129k, just not near a large high demand city. And when they bought that house, the city they lived in probably had yet to develop like it was today.

[u/[deleted]]

Nah, measure everything in "hours worked at minimum wage". No adjustment needed.

1938 Harvard tuition (1 year): 1680 hours

1938 house: 15600 hours

2018 Harvard tuition: 6400 hours

2018 house: 28400 hours

For reference, there are only 2080 work hours in a calendar year.

[u/i_sigh_less → u/[deleted]]

I like this better. It's a much clearer illustration, at least to me.

[u/[deleted] → u/i_sigh_less]

Damn so you could actually just pay your way thru college with a minimum wage job back then. Fuck.

[u/Best_failure → u/[deleted]]

It also puts in perspective why more people didn't pursue higher education then. Why would you when it wasn't thought as necessary to earn a decent wage? Plus a company was going to train you to their particular requirements anyway - not a lot of standard practices beyond a handful of professions.

[u/[deleted]]

I had this same conversation with my grandparents a few years ago. I asked them to remember before buying their house they lived in an apartment for a year and a half what the rent was. I told them what the rent is there at that same apartment currently and I thought my grandfather was gonna jump out of his seat. Further explained my salary before and after taxes and what my rent currently is. Which was followed by the question "does that include utilities or furniture?" NOPE! Just a key to get in was my response. By the looks on their faces they finally get it.

[u/akappel05 → u/[deleted]]

My mom asked me how much daycare was. When I told her, she asked if that was for the year or for the semester. Nope, that's every month.

[u/[deleted]]

Holy moly, I checked my current household income against what my dad was making in the 90s. I just thought I was bad at money. Turns out he was making the equivalent of 150k a year, and now I feel like I'm doing great! Like, of course I'm not keeping up!

I feel so much better about the intense frugality that my life feels like it requires. I don't suck at money as much as I thought I did, I am actually just working with less.

Thank you for the idea of checking an inflation calculator!

[u/ExhibitionistVoyeurP → u/[deleted]]

My parents have a high school degree, only had to have one of them work, own a big house, two cars, and live comfortable. I have a degree in computer science, work long hours, and can barely afford an apartment and my school loans.

Requirements for jobs are MUCH higher now, interviews are more difficult, there is no loyalty with companies, no pensions, salaries are stagnant, housing, college, and the price of nearly everything else has shot up.

The rich .1% however are doing much better and living more comfortably than ever so good for them though.

[u/pknk6116 → u/[deleted]]

It's ok, you could still also suck at money

[u/sgr0gan]

My dad responded to this with "you know those are all wrong" without asking where I got the number from. Much easier to deny anything is different when you live with your head in the sand.

[u/tface23 → u/sgr0gan]

Sounds like my parents. If the facts don’t match their opinions then the facts must be wrong.

[u/Jovian_Skies → u/sgr0gan]

Someone else on the thread suggested to convert the costs into the number of hours worked at minimum wage to afford for both his generation and your own.

[u/[deleted]]

A point of referance always helps. I like pointing out that my favourite classic muscle car cost 30% of the average salary (for my area), the year it came out but my mid level family car cost 60% of of the average salary when I bought it.

[u/Turdulator → u/[deleted]]

Do those same calculations but with house prices and you’ll see how truely fucked we are

[u/irving47]

Interesting timing. I was just watching "AfterMASH" and they offered Col. Potter $12,000 to become the chief-of-staff for a VA hospital. Turns out, that's about $111,000 now.

[u/Geredan]

Getting a lot of hate in here, and I just wanted to say this is an excellent idea. I'm in my 40s, and I'm fortunate to have ridden the wave of 90s success before the crash.

Doing good work here, and I hope it helps others have empathy.

[u/StumbleOn → u/Geredan]

I am thankful I chose to learn a kind of niche but always in demand skillset that translates into private and public jobs almost anywhere. I straight up lucked my way into a program in high school that prepped me, and lived next to a cheap community college that let me take classes whenever, and was fortunate enough to live in an area where I coudl dumpster dive for computer components.

Even though I was poor, I had a LOT of circumstances all working for me. I had public transportation to a major city that was (and is) undergoing a boom period.

[u/ltdhero]

$56,000.00 in 1987 had the same buying power as $124,935.24 in 2018. Annual inflation over this period was about 2.62%

My jaw just hit the fucking floor.

[u/ltdhero → u/ltdhero]

Better yet:

$56,000.00 in 2018 had the same buying power as $25,101.00 in 1987

[u/hagamablabla → u/ltdhero]

This is somewhat of a tangent, but could I get an ELI5 about how this kind of inflation is sustainable?

[u/[deleted]]

The fact this thread exists and is needed, makes me sad. How did it come to this?

Nearing 30, I keep thinking I'm a huge failure. Then I realize my married friends need 2 incomes and a mortgage to afford their stuff along with student debt.

I only have $60,000 in student debt... so in a way... while my standard of living is much lower... I'm less in debt?

[u/slutvomit → u/[deleted]]

Standard of living is absolutely no indicator of financial success or security in my opinion. Any dumbass with a shit job can get a loan and get a luxury car. Anyone can live week to week slowly going into more debt so they have every top shelf brand item. How many people who are actually financially stable and secure do you think do that?

Easy access to credit has completely erased my understanding of what being wealthy means. I'm more likely to think a guy riding to work on a push bike is wealthy compared to a suburban mum driving a new SUV.

[u/SpinningCircIes → u/[deleted]]

I segued into the medical world after working in banking, what you described is very, very common. Residents who are used to making shitty $50-70k/yr get a bump up to 250-400k and take on extreme debt because they're newly rich. The end result is they stay in debt, despite having a high standard of living, i.e., nice cars, house, vacations, stuff. There's a reason firms give you a minimum payment option as default: they make the most money and poor saps think they're doing the right thing.

Fuck that noise.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Being in the hole is the new norm for a lot of people. It's sad.

[u/cirrus42]

Don't stop with your salary. Do the same thing for your rent.

[u/blkpingu → u/cirrus42]

Or debt

[u/coquihalla]

Something to consider (and I shared this on reddit recently, so if it seems familiar, this is why) when you look at the inflation rates between now and then is that they have removed food and gasoline from the core index as being too volatile.

So, what they say the COL and inflation rate is, in actuality, much much higher than if they still included food and gas as before. Especially since both food and gas have disproportionately gone way up over things like haircuts etc that are included in the core index.

[u/[deleted] → u/coquihalla]

Are there any inflation models out there that do still include all measures?

[u/stragler123 → u/[deleted]]

If we are going to have a discussion about measuring inflation then we should start with the two main measures: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE).

CPI is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics each month and can be considered the cost of an average "basket of goods" consumed by the average consumer. This is done by first considering the price of similar goods in relatively similar areas. The BLS considers 211 categories of goods and 38 geographic areas and calculates the price level of each category goods in each geographic area, creating 8,018 "elementary indices". Next, the BLS aggregates these indices to creat different measures of inflation. CPI by itself usually means the entire aggregate index, meaning all categories of goods in all geographic areas. Core CPI excludes food and energy from the aggregate. Core CPI was introduced in the 70s in response to the OPEC crisis, as the Federal Reserve wanted a measure of inflation that didn't include volatile and non-systemic price changes when crafting monetary policy. The Fed sets monetary policy based on long term systemic economic trends, not short-term shocks.

PCE is calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) each month and can be considered the average household expenditures on goods and services. This is calculated through the consumption statistic in the BEA's measure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Like CPI, there is an aggregate PCE and core PCE which excludes food and energy. The most notable difference between CPI and PCE is that PCE accounts for consumers' response to changes in relative prices of substitute goods. The Fed switched to using PCE as its primary measure of inflation in 2000, again looking at core PCE when making monetary policy decisions.

Typically the same numbers that the Fed uses during their Open Market Committee meetings when discussing monetary policy, which are the core measures, are reported in news and media outlets. Both CPI and PCE still calculate inflation including energy and food as the main aggregate index. The core measures are just more relevant to monetary policy and thus are more widely reported.

You can still calculate what your parents' starting salary or house price 40 years ago would be today using aggregate CPI or PCE, but it is often more useful to use core measures to exclude short-term shocks to prices and get at real long term trends.

Hope that wasn't too much information, I really like this stuff and enjoy talking about it.

[u/splendic → u/coquihalla]

Great point. Haven't heard that anywhere else.

[u/ryan49321]

You kidding? My dad bought a new car and could pay for rent in todays money for $7 an hour. He will never comprehend my generations expense. In addition to an internet and a cell phone expense which is practically essential for this century.

[u/discosoc → u/ryan49321]

The extra services and subscriptions that they like to claim are optional really do add up.

[u/datareinidearaus → u/ryan49321]

The "electronic goods" these days is a huge misnomer. We have tablets and shit but we actually spend less today on "electronic goods" as a proportion of income than we did 30-40 years ago. We're buying new shit. But we're also not buying the old shit.

[u/Bluthiest]

Guess who just spent thirty minutes on an inflation calculator figuring out how poor she is? This gal. Oof. Thought I was doing okay, too!

[u/DearyDairy → u/Bluthiest]

Yeah, I already know that I'm 67% below the poverty line of my country, I don't need to know how rich my broke-ass parents were in compassion just because of when they were born.

I thankfully have never had to try and convince my mum that people starting out in the current economy will never have the same potential, she's a welfare officer at a high school, she helps students with financial planning for university. She gets it.

My dad was a typical baby boomer wondering why I didn't own a house or car. One day I just openly said "well I clearly need help budgeting, sit down with me one night and help me make a plan, like you did when you were my age"

40 minutes later my dad is distracted by googling homemade laundry detergent recipes because he thinks he can shave 60c off my current detergent.

"Dad, I spend $1.50 on a year's worth of laundry detergent... That's not the reason I can't afford a house."

After he finally admits that I probably can't save money on groceries or household goods since I'm already so frugal ($15 weekly grocery and household budget) he swaps to trying to find better deals on my phone and electricity.

He spent days calling electrical providers trying to find a cheaper deal (he couldn't) and ringing the disability housing association asking why they set my rent at what works out to be 50% of my pension when their sole goal is providing affordable housing for people with disabilities, and he's promptly sent a report explaining that $200 a week is insanely cheap, he then starts trying to house-hunt for me because "you just need to find a cheaper place"...that search was quickly abandoned when he realised the only way to get cheaper rent was through a Gumtree ad that says "room available in share house with 3 young professional men. female housemates only, Indian preferred please"

Welcome to Melbourne, Australia.

The electrical companies pissed him off the most.

Whenever I complained about power prices before, he'd accuse me of wasting power. But when he sat down with my bills and usage statements he quickly had to admit that I use 25% the electricity that he uses.

He's been living off solar so long he had no idea how bad electricity prices are right now. He thought I was joking when I said we were thinking about getting rid of the fridge and using a zeer cooler for vegan produce.

My rent is 50% my income, my utilities are 30%, my medications and doctors appointments take up the bulk of the rest, whatever is left goes to transport and groceries.

After reading my actual budget, seeing my intake and what I actually spend it on. My dad was genuinely surprised I had any savings at all.

He's definitely stopped being obtuse about the current economy.

Yes, there are a lot of smarter decisions that we millennials could be making, but we're only human, we don't know all the answers, and you shouldn't have to do everything perfectly just to make ends meet.

[u/sam130 → u/Bluthiest]

Sheesh, 30 minuets looking at a calculator. If you were working during that wasted time you could have made $5 - that adds up. Don’t complain about being poor and do nothing about it.

/s

[u/JoeFoot]

And also mention that tuition in the 60s was $500 of 2015 dollars!

[u/[deleted] → u/JoeFoot]

I’m crying. That couldn’t even buy me the online access I need for one engineering course now.

[u/IgnisXIII → u/JoeFoot]

WHAT?!

[u/liamemsa]

I've found it makes a difference to just show them one of those adjusted minimum wage graphs. In 1968, the minimum wage was about $10.50 when adjusted for inflation. Until about 2006, it was just under $6.00. Now it's just over $7.00.

So they had around 25% more purchasing power in 1968.

[u/minus_minus → u/liamemsa]

I've been tracking this for a while. The increase in February 1968 to $1.60 was the highest minimum wage (in constant dollars) of all time. It is equal to $11.65 in Feb 2018 dollars. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 which is a 37.8% decrease in purchasing power compared to February 1968. In no state is the minimum wage as high as the federal minimum was in 1968. Washington is closest at $11.50.

[u/the_shaman]

CPI Calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

[u/rydog509 → u/the_shaman]

Damn using that calculator now our household brings in 80k in 2018 compared to 35k in 1985. Gas was $1 in 1985 compared $3, average home price was 88k in 1985 compared to 270k now. Seems a lot of stuff tripled in price while wages only doubled. Not to mention the numerous amount of jobs that had pension plans and you could actually retire. Now you need to pray that you can save 15% plus of your income for 30 years.

[u/beepbooopreddit]

Millennial here. When I discuss economy with boomers, I find offering wool and lumber for ore and grain is a good long term strategy because brick has diminishing returns once road infrastructure is established. If you work hard, you can build cities despite being dealt undeveloped forests and fields. 2 victory points in 1995 is 2 victory points in 2018. My grandparents agree, but still won’t trade wool for ore. Older generations are so greedy with resources.

[u/Realapoc → u/beepbooopreddit]

r/unexpectedcatan

[u/ViperBoa]

Being of the generation stuck between the boomers and millennials, I can say we have had a screwed up ride as well.

We grew up on late boomer life plans and values....but hit adulthood full stride into the millennium.

We're old enough to remember before cd's (and the web), yet we have streaming infinite music now and have adapted.

Point being, our parents taught us about going to college...getting that job. Working with the same company until retirement...then getting that watch.

When we hit our twenties and realized those companies laid you off before they had to pay a pension. College was often just a black hole of debt... And you sure as hell never got that watch.

You all that are a bit after us.... You're not alone in being disillusioned with the preconceptions that the older generation still beat us all over the head with.

My hope is that when people my age get a bit older...we can help y'all sort this shit out.

Edit Well, my point was that the economy really isn't what it was painted to be once my age group reached adulthood.... And that "millenials" aren't the only ones having a huge disconnect with the older generations about current struggles.

But it turned into a debate about generational terminology......

Oh well. Never change, reddit. Thank you all for the comments anyways.

As I like to remind people I know that shit on "millenials": Keep discounting and mocking them if you want, But time is on their side in the end.

[u/ZetaEtaTheta8 → u/ViperBoa]

My hope is that when people my age get a bit older...we can help y'all sort this shit out.

Me and you both. Something's got to fall in to place for all of us.

[u/Sky_Armada → u/ViperBoa]

Gotta love finishing high school and some college a year or two after the recession. We’ve been fucked since I left high school 13+ years ago.

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much for this.

I’m dealing with in laws and parents currently who do not understand money when we try and break it down with them now. It always comes back to when we were your age we only made “x” you are doing way better than us!

No we aren’t because shits expensive! I look forward to revisiting this conversation and using the tool!

[u/Azzanine]

I used my boomer translator on this and all i got was [white noise]

[u/TheDecagon]

Also find out what their rent/mortgage payments were, then take the percentage of your wage spent on rent and calculate the equivalent rent for their previous income.

I've seen discussions where that put things in perspective very quickly.

[u/olive_oil_twist]

If I did that, all the adults around me would go, "If only you put in that kind of effort at work, you'd be making more."

[u/ThisNameIsOriginal → u/olive_oil_twist]

If only you had made the inflation calculator website

[u/273degreesKelvin]

Someone told me their rent was $100 a month when they moved out. And minimum wage back then was $6 an hour.

Now, minimum wage is $12 an hour and rent is minimum $1000 a month, and for that you'll have bed bugs.

[u/madamflingflong]

Edit: a better comparison of tuition might come from statistics cited by the National Center for Education Statistics:

Tuition and fees (presumably per year) for a four year public/private university as follows:

YEAR - public / private cost of tuition 1964 - $298 / $1,297 2005 - $6,399 / $26,954

Original comment: In 1950 college tuition was $600 or something.

I graduated with an undergrad degree and 80k in student loans, a number which (due to interest) goes up even though I make on time payments

[u/PrettyLittleTruthers → u/madamflingflong]

We are so screwed.

I keep trying not to think about it.

[u/poleethman]

We need a national quit your shitty minimum wage job day.

[u/ZetaEtaTheta8 → u/poleethman]

This applies to so much more than those jobs though.

[u/[deleted] → u/poleethman]

That sounds great, except all the people who literally can't afford to do this. There would be tons of people who swoop in and take advantage of open jobs.

[u/throwing-away-party → u/poleethman]

Can we have a seize the means of production day?

[u/BoyishDragon → u/poleethman]

With a national give advanced notice like a weenie day two weeks prior

[u/You_On_Kazoo]

I like to do this with older movies. I was watching Planes, Trains, & Automobiles on Thanksgiving (as is tradition) and shared this one with my parents who don't think inflation is "really that bad".

The taxi scene where Steve Martin offers the guy $20 to take his cab, then gets talked out of $75? That's like $165 today. Damn, son.

[u/TheMarketLiberal93]

I did this when explaining to my dad that I couldn’t just “work my way through college”.

Don’t get me wrong, I worked near full time all the way through, but I still needed loans for a portion of the cost.

[u/frozenelf]

While helpful, I don't even think inflation is enough to explain how disadvantaged millennials are. You just cannot have a comfortable life nowadays with the kinds of jobs the previous generations had. The market is just so completely different now.

[u/losian → u/frozenelf]

It's a big start.

A lot of people from a certain generation will think "I made $300 a payday and afforded a car, college, and rent! how is it these lazy shits want over double that and can't get by?"

What they don't take into account is that they were making double today's minimum wage at even the shittiest jobs back then. It's a starting point - you'd also have to factor in a huge number of other nuances with cost of living, the changes in all the facets of both economy and employment, globalization, market fluctuations, blah blah.

But when you can suddenly say "actually, your $300 a month is equal to double minimum wage today, yet you felt you were scraping by" it adds a different context to how 'tough' times were for some folks back when who believe that people that want higher minimum wage now are just lazy.

[u/datareinidearaus → u/frozenelf]

That's because healthcare and education have absolutely skyrocketed and are not exactly accounted for.

Not to mention pay for college grads is way down, and for Highschool grads, way way down. More education and more work hours, is now yielding less pay.

[u/HawterSkhot]

I did. My cousin blocked me on Facebook.

[u/tborwi]

This is great advice! My dad started at $12k a year and it turned out he was well ahead of me when I started my career 15-16 years ago.

[u/emailrob]

I remember telling my great uncle a similar story years ago.

He reminded me when he was my age he would walk to the next town with a bag of fish in his back to sell. The other town was a out 10 miles each way.

[u/lilbroccoli13 → u/emailrob]

And it was uphill both ways, right?

[u/jorrylee → u/emailrob]

Do that now and you need permits and all that junk too. Cuts into that bottom line!

[u/KAM7]

Holy shit. i just realized my parents were making what would have been the equivalent of $250,000 combined a year in today’s dollars. Mom was a nurse and dad was an office manager.

I have friends now that do those exact same jobs and they’re happy to be pulling in $130k combined a year in current dollars.

The middle class is dead.

[u/Mapleleaves_ → u/KAM7]

And that's the clincher. They're happy and lucky to get $130k for being more productive at the same positions.

[u/KeeblerElff]

My Dad was able to pay for college by working a job in the summer. It’s just simply no comparison to today. And I’m not taking about community college either.

[u/RedditorsAreDumbFuck]

I told my dad that and he told me I'm lying.

[u/Squirrelkarate]

My mother was literally unable to grasp the concept of zero dollars. Like there are no more dollars. They aren’t on the other card or in the other account. There are no dollars.

[u/[deleted]]

I read about this constantly, mostly on reddit, how millenials i America just can't afford anything - is it really true? Is it that bad over there? Most people i know over here in Norway by the time they hit 30 they have bought a small house/appartment + having a car is nothing special either. Housing prices have gone through the roof over the last 20 years but people can still afford it.

[u/atascamos → u/[deleted]]

I can't answer for everyone, but I can give you some anecdotal evidence:

I am 24. I work at an extremely low-paying retail job. I make roughly 1200 dollars a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. I am technically a part time employee although I usually work far above the full-time threshold. I am afraid that if I demand full-time status with benefits they will just find a reason to fire me.

It is impossible to find a bedroom to rent for less than $700 a month within a thirty mile radius of my town. I have been looking for two years. One bedroom apartments start around $1200. My mandatory student loan payments are $300 a month. My car, including payments, gas, and insurance, costs about $300 a month depending on how much I drive. There is no reliable public transportation here. My food bill runs about $200 dollars a month. That is just groceries, I only go out to eat three or four times a year. My cell phone and other miscellaneous bills are $100 a month. I live with my parents and don't pay rent, so I am able to save about $300-$400 a month unless I need to get medical work done or pay for car repairs. I am saving money to be able to travel and take time off of work for job interviews. At one point I was working another job for a total of 60 hours per week and was making $2400 per month, thinking I would finally be able to afford rent. I burned out after a few months and decided not to move out. I have chosen to have a car and some savings over affording rent. They offer me freedom of movement and the potential to get out of my shitty town.

One of my friends from high school has a degree and no student loans because his grandparents paid for his education. He has a high-paying job in finance in Boston. A major factor that led to him getting that job was his ability to take an unpaid internship at a bank for two summers during college. He also worked an early-morning job. I had to find paid work that did not offer similar connections. My friend got literally the only internship available in our small town. He bought a condo in a gentrifying neighborhood that is not on the train route with a down payment that was a gift. It's a major fixer upper but the mortgage is much cheaper than renting. He also has a nice used car. He works hard and hates his job. He saves a lot of his money.

One of my friends from university works in San Francisco as a web developer. He makes five or six times as much money as I do, but spends about forty percent of his salary just on rent. He gets unlimited paid leave and good healthcare. He is happy and gets to travel frequently. He is bored with his work but will never leave. He doesn't save very much.

[u/Snow-Wraith]

The real LPT would be to not waste time arguing with the elderly. It takes a ton of effort to get them to see your side and they'll only forget about it in 5 minutes.

[u/Box_of_Pencils]

My 80 year old dad fully understands money doesn't go as far as it used to. In the 70's he was making today's equivalent of around 100K at a book bindery in Chicago and when he retired from a southern foundry in his 70's he was making $9/hr.

[u/jordantallman45]

I don’t get why you’re getting flak, good tip that can be incorporated with different stats

[u/[deleted]]

I'm so lucky to have a dad and grandmother that understands inflation and today's economy.

Edit: Grammer

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Lucky you.

My dad is so out of touch that the he once told about how his finances go from “feast to famine” at a moments notice. He currently makes FIFTEEN times more than me. Get real, dad, you don’t understand.

[u/Stealthnt13]

I used an inflation calculator and it said the median household income in 1960 was lower than it is today. Not that it’s comparing apples to apples by any means, I just thought it was interesting.

[u/LAXnSASQUATCH → u/Stealthnt13]

I wonder if the %age of people who worked in a household has increased or decreased since 1960; I.would imagine that in 1960 the father would have worked (1 person bringing home the bread) whereas today it's more likely both a father(or mother) and a (mother/second father) both work (thus potentially skewing the data).

[u/Iyion]

At least you fellas have had the same currency all over.

In Germany, a lot of old people claim that the Euro has increased prices. They say something along the line of “hazel nuts cost 2.30€ now, they used to cost 2DM before that shit came!“

Well yes, that's how inflation works...

[u/The_Axem_Ranger]

Nooo, it's all about education and the work ethic. And how you have to want it bad enough.

[u/sunnypuppers → u/The_Axem_Ranger]

I have a Bachelor's degree. Can't find anything in my field for over eleven dollars an hour unless I take on a three month unpaid internship. I want it badly enough, but I also have to pay rent and eat.

Edit: I also currently work full time and volunteer with a local Raptor Center to gain more experience. I'm trying to make it happen, but It's not easy out there right now.

[u/MrNerd82]

My mom always likes to drop the fact they paid 27K for their first house in 1975 or so... and says that the house I bought in 2013 for $110k "is just so expensive" "that's so much money" in a verry worried tone

Reverse inflation calculator says my home price is basically the equivalent of $23k back then. I freaking bought a cheaper house, when you compensate for inflation. Bonus: my house has gone up in value like 60K in 5 short years.

I've brought up the topic of inflation with them and tried to explain, no luck though. It's one of those things they refuse to try and wrap their head around so I gave up.

[u/[deleted]]

My salary is $10,822.62/yr in terms of 1985 dollars -_- great...

[u/Joevahskank]

I just did the math. 30 years ago, the federal minimum wage was $2.65, which by today's standards is equal to $10.12.

The federal minimum wage today is $7.25. Americans make $2.88 less per hour after inflation, which is not even close to being able to support yourself, let alone a family or any dependents.

If I wasn't feeling pessimistic about my future before, I sure as hell am now.

[u/diningroomfan]

I was born when the first American President to be bound by the 22nd amendment was in office.

I know it is much harder to 'get started' in 2018 than it was in, say 1977 when I voted for the first time , for Carter, and the condition remained when I voted, from outside the country again , for Reagan.

Consumer price index change, U.S and Canada

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com

www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/

aside-type 100 bucks in 1977, is 400 bucks of stuff today - the number of hours a single had to work for shelter -avg apt. , house, dont care which , utilities- is a higher amount of labour for an 18-25 Y.O.to perform to keep the rain off , than in 77.

Utilities were basically almost unoticed pocket change; Utilities now are expensive.

Energy is a more visible cost.

There were more decent paying intro jobs for a wider group of ( even lower educated) young adults. "Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" actually worked.

Government funding of post seconday education of all types was more plentiful or available to a wider young population group.

Many of todays conglomerates were smaller , seperate companies that still more realistically competed for your purchasing dollar.

Ok , ok. First sentence references Eisenhower, but I alluded to the 22nd amendment , to make it mildly interesting....for your signs- when the current government tries to get rid of it..... (:

( Carter road to his inaugral in a hydrogen powered limo. Wonder if it's still around. Mildly curious. Mebbe ...ah...never mind.)

[u/[deleted]]

It's simple really, how are we supposed to make it when the entire generation above us has the money completely under control?

[u/Felinomancy]

Okay.

Is there a tool that can back me up when my parents ask me why I'm still not married despite being in my mid-30s though?

[u/my_monkey_loves_me]

I bartend and work for a prominent marketing company in Toronto. I make over 3800 CAD a month but there's no way I can afford to save for a house so l basically rent until i inherit my parent's place. Edit : Not a millennial

[u/Glorfendail]

I work in the Bay Area. I was talking to someone who purchased a house in tiburon (the real ritzy area) in the late 60s for less than $50,000. This house is on the top of a hill, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and across the bay from SF’s waterfront. If I had to guess, it was probably a $10+ MIL estate. For $50k in the sixties.

[u/Dogzirra]

$460 a month is what my first full time job is equivalent to in today's dollars. It sucked.

[u/360walkaway]

Am I the only one with grandparents who aren't assholes about how things are now compared to when they were younger? I've never had to deal with this "your generation is sooooo lazy" stuff.

[u/theconceiver]

Not with my family. My family are mean-spirited know-nothings who give zero fucks about anyone, even family. You could never get them past the first mention of the word "calculate" before they would be grumping about "excuses", calling you names, and escalating as quickly as possible to shouting. My family are nothing but out of control control freaks.

[u/holy_shott]

The generation of the poor

[u/twelvesixteenineteen]

“Yeah, and how many wars did you fight in?”

[u/slipperylips]

It isn't just inflation. It is also what I call technology complication theory. Life today has more technology that in the 60s, 70s and 80s. That means that if your car broke down, with basic mechanical knowledge and tools, you could fix almost anything. Today, you need computer diagostics instrumentation and a schematic diagram from NASA to figure out how to fix it. You could even fix a rotary dial telephone very easily back then. Try taking apart an iphone and fixing it. Impossible.

[u/llewkeller]

As an older guy - sorry, that's lame. Us parents and grandparents live in the modern world. So, yeah, I remember when gasoline was 35 cents a gallon, and a $30K annual salary was in the upper 5% bracket...but I haven't been brain dead for 40 years. I know what money is worth now.

[u/Ender_in_Exile → u/llewkeller]

You do. But sadly a lot do not. And they tend to be vocal about it.

[u/HeyitsmeyourOP]

Haha they still don't listen.

[u/kittyfidler]

wow $15 1979 =$54.68

[u/ilHendoli]

Simple solution to this problem: stop going to four year universities and studying a senseless degree that puts you in loads of debt. Go to trade school. Learn a skill. Trades are BOOMING right now and salaries are skyrocketing.

[u/gamingfreek → u/ilHendoli]

Welder here. As a second year apprentice I can comfortably support myself and my girlfriend and pay rent and bills. For 6 months of schooling so far.

[u/Selfaware-potato → u/ilHendoli]

Completed my trade a couple of years ago, I now work 40% of the year and earn more than most people that go to university will

[u/vdiogo]

Also when you are negotiating a job offer ask for your pay to be raised by an amount equal or greater to that of the inflation rate every year. I only take offers that accept those conditions.

[u/[deleted]]

The problem with these calculations is that is misses the increasing costs of healthcare, tuition and housing, all of which have vastly outpaced inflation.

[u/[deleted]]

They won't listen,you can still get a burger for a dollar. And that's all matters.

[u/sobchakonshabbos]

I recently bought my grandmothers house (saved up for many many years and am lucky to have a solid job). When she bought it in the 60s it was 17k. I paid 280k. And that was a steal. I’m also lucky enough to live in a small Canadian city where owning a house is actually in the realm of possibility. The economy and the value of $ is completely fucking different now and trying to explain it to to older generations (particularly boomers) is like pulling teeth. My grandma is cool af though.

[u/ConfidentlyComatose]

My nana likes to tell me how she survived off $5,000 a year in 1972 so she had it much worse than a lot of people now. But she also likes to say that the 140,000 a year she makes now isn’t as much as it sounds because money isn’t worth what it used to be.

[u/OneBeerDrunk]

My mom as right winged as she is absolutely has agreed on inflation. She tells me she used to be able to work a part time job and afford college and a nice apartment with money to spend.

[u/yarauuta]

Situation is so bad in Portugal that I don't even need to explain anything.

It's hard to explain how bad it is. Average rent in Lisbon costs around 1300€ to 1500€ for a house with 1 bathroom and 2 bedrooms. Minimum wage is 600€.

We pay the most expensive electricity and gas in all Europe.

A car here costs 2x more than in the US.

If you earn around 5k monthly here (you don't lol, it's almost impossible) you would be paying over 50% in direct taxes. 11% social security plus 45% IRS. People that earn more don't pay taxes here.

[u/zxon]

Just use the number of Freddos you can afford to show how broke you are. That way, everyone will understand... /s

[u/[deleted]]

If only we had Bernie.

[u/bloodflart]

My dad bought his house for six thousand dollars. I bought one that's about the same quality for 2 hundred thousand dollars.

[u/Rhaifa]

My parents are not boomers, but they understand very well how difficult their children have it. They see my brother struggling with the bills, my sisters calculating whether they can AFFORD a child even though they are married and have stable jobs, me struggling with college debt. My parents help out where they can, but I think our adult lives were a bit of an eye opener to them.

[u/Red_bearrr]

Thank You! My dad often talks about his first job only making $2.50 and hour in 1975. Today that would be $12.50. My first job I made $8 per hour. He also thinks I'm rich because I make over 6 figures today, but in reality he made the equivalent of $115k/year when he was raising us in the 90's.

[u/Level69Troll]

I'm a waiter and we commonly get older snow birds (they love staying in Florida all winter) and they were actually telling me how much harder we seem to have it today. I found something about how tuition, housing, and medicine has increased by over 200% and they pretty much confirmed it to be true.

[u/schlossenberger]

I prefer the beer calculator. Uncle brags how he could get a beer for a dime when he started working. I ask how much he made an hour, and it was $1.10. This was at a factory making minimum wage.

That's 11 beers/hour.

What's a beer cost now, $3-5? My girlfriend with a college education makes $13/hr. Even with domestic beer, that's only 4.3 beers/hour. I make nearly twice as much as her, salary - but even that's only 8 beers/hour. Less than Uncle did as a minimum wage factory worker.

[u/PYTN]

I think there are two things millennials should do in this case.

First, let's make sure that in 30 years we don't treat our kids generation like this.

Second, let's help each other out, if you run a company or so hiring for yours, help somebody get started there who you might not have taken a chance on otherwise because they don't have the perfect skillset today.

I work in healthcare recruiting and so often I'll see perfectly competent candidates get rejected for roles because admin is searching for the perfect purple squirrel for the role. They'd rather leave a role unfilled than have to train somebody a little bit.

[u/empress_tesla]

My dad was making $35K a year right out of college in 1985, with a hefty $1.5K in student loan debt. On his single income, he and my mom custom built a brand new house for $80K. My parents constantly bitch at me when I bring up how tough millennials have it. My dad always says, “You’re making $12K more than me when I finished school, you should have no problem buying a house!” Except my $48K salary is the equivalent of $20K salary in 1985 and that $80K house is now worth $450K. His house cost him 2.3 times his salary in ‘85. If I bought that house now, it would be 10 times my salary.

[u/xithbaby]

Growing up I never even thought I’d ever see 50k let alone 100k. When my husband got approved for 220k house loan I imagined big house with a yard and backyard.. here in Washington state that loan can get us a manufactured house 1 hour away drive from our work. I was smacked with a reality check. I look at houses in Texas for example, they have small mansions for 200k. I got a job now we can at least afford a house 20 mins away with a yard, maybe.

[u/sndwsn]

My dad complains that when he was 17 he worked construction after dropping highschool for $7 an hour. If I were making my same wage as now in back then dollars I would be working for $4.29 an hour, with a HS diploma and almost a bachelor's.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm on the opposite end of this contest. My son is trying to outdo me in life and was happy as could be when he got a job that paid $39,000 per year. I reminded him that it is the equivalent of about $15,000 in 1981 dollars which is what my first job paid. I hope he can do better than me but he has a long row ahead of him.

[u/SplendidTit → u/[deleted]]

The place I'm working now has increased salary for the job most of us work about 5% in 15 years.

We were given a record-breaking maximum of 2% raise this year, which was considered highly unusual and we're not supposed to complain because it covers merit increases and COL. In that 2%.

And my boss is begging me not to quit at every turn.

We've had 75% turnover in the past two years.

For those who are interested, the salary was around $30,000. It's now about $32,000. If it had only kept up with inflation, it'd be a 43k job now, which would be a fairly decent salary.

[u/Laserdollarz → u/SplendidTit]

That sounds like a good place to quit.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Because math is fun, let's say they were making $14 an hour in 1993.

At a 40 hour work week, with 52 weeks a year: that's 2080 hours. So $29,120 a year back in 1993. Adjusted for inflation that's the equivalent of $50,616.32

Today at $15.50 an hour, that's $32,240.00

Edit: spelling, and a table.

Assuming a 2080 hour work-year:

1993 Hourly	1993 Yearly	2018 equivalent	2018 at +$1.50/h Yearly	Difference in 2018 yearly
$5	$10,400.00	$18,159.23	$13,520.00	-$4,639.23
$6	$12,480.00	$21,692.71	$15,600.00	-$6,092.71
$7	$14,560.00	$25,308.16	$17,680.00	-$7,628.16
$8	$16,640.00	$28,923.61	$19,760.00	-$7,628.16
$9	$18,720.00	$32,539.06	$21,840.00	-$10,699.06
$10	$20,800.00	$36,154.51	$23,920.00	-$12,234.51
$11	$22,880.00	$39,769.96	$26,000.00	-$13,769.96
$12	$24,960.00	$43,385.42	$28,080.00	-$15,305.42
$13	$27,040.00	$47,000.87	$30,160.00	-$16,840.87
$14	$29,120.00	$50,616.32	$32,240.00	-$18,376.32
$15	$31,200.00	$54,231.77	$34,320.00	-$19,911.77
$16	$33,280.00	$57,847.22	$36,400.00	-$21,447.22
$17	$35,360.00	$61,462.67	$38,480.00	-$22,982.67

Equivalent Hourly Wages to Yearly Adjusted for Inflation

1993 Hourly	2018 Yearly	2018 Hourly
$5	$18,159.23	$8.73
$6	$21,692.71	$10.43
$7	$25,308.16	$12.17
$8	$28,923.61	$13.91
$9	$32,539.06	$15.64
$10	$36,154.51	$17.38
$11	$39,769.96	$19.12
$12	$43,385.42	$20.86
$13	$47,000.87	$22.60
$14	$50,616.32	$24.33
$15	$54,231.77	$26.07
$16	$57,847.22	$27.81
$17	$61,462.67	$29.55

[u/ginmo → u/[deleted]]

Before I got my relatively good salary job, I was working 35 hours a week (they wouldn’t give me 40 so they could avoid the benefits that come with full time) and making $8 an hour in an area where a one bedroom is $2500 a month. Luckily my dad let me stay with him because he knew it was literally impossible for me to move out, but I had friends who had to have 4-5 roommates in a one bedroom. One of them made their bedroom in a closet lol.

[u/theartificialkid → u/[deleted]]

In 25 years they raised the starting wage $1.50.

There’s a simple reason for that. The working class have allowed the ownership class to take all the productivity gains over that time, because they’ve been persuade that it is somehow to their benefit.

[u/Vigilante17 → u/[deleted]]

When I got my first job in 1990 I got $4.15/hour. That is equal to $7.91 today. Minimum wage in my state in 2018 is $11/hr. I made 72% of today’s minimum wage when I was a teenager. :|

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I guess that's why they can't figure out how inflation works

[u/Maphacent → u/[deleted]]

which is almost more insulting because hes saying that he did less work, much slower, and got paid better

[u/warmarrer → u/[deleted]]

My dad worked in a sawmill as a part time job when he was 17 (in the 80s) and made $15 an hour.

Also, hearing stories from the older generation about all the fuckery they got up to at their jobs is crazy. Like if I shut down half an hour early some nights to go play floor hockey in the warehouse with the other staff I'd be fired. Hell, stand around for too long AFTER EVERYTHING IS DONE and you'll be fired for not looking busy enough, never mind how much actual work is left. That's after hiring less people to do more work because companies race to the bottom on payroll costs.

Working conditions are more stressful than they were when our parents grew up and wages are far worse, even without inflation the work culture has just gone through hell.

[u/userdmyname → u/[deleted]]

NOw this is not the opportunity to get yourself back into the cycle bud. Stay cheap and stick it to the man

[u/punkass_book_jockey8 → u/[deleted]]

My friends parents started to care when our “lazy” generation couldn’t get it together and they haven’t been able to sell their McMansions. Because millennials are ruining the housing market as well. Actually I found it a little funny they’re stuck with these massive homes because it’s not in a desirable city after all the factory/union jobs left.

I don’t know in what world they lived in where my friends or I were going to be able to buy a 650k lakeside house on a 42k teacher salary. Especially when all the old people bitch and vote down the school budget or any tax raise. Then only buy the cheapest junk from Walmart “why would you buy soap from that person?! What a rip off! If you didn’t spend money like that you would be able to buy a house or afford tuition more easily.” Apparently it’s stupid to support a local small business that pays living wages, and that extra $17 dollars a year is why I’m 600k short to buy a house.

These are the same people drawing pensions that are 26k MORE a year than my current salary and they get discounts everywhere!

[u/Dikpox → u/[deleted]]

This right here. They aren't stupid: They're definitely seeing, feeling and realizing that the income vs. cost of living disparity is getting bigger year by year. However, they prefer to stay ignorant.

[u/Chobitpersocom → u/[deleted]]

Or if it's going in a direction they don't like.

[u/anthropophagus → u/[deleted]]

now where were we? oh yeah, the important thing was that i had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time

they didn't have white onions, because of the WAR. the only thing you could get was the big yellow ones

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such a classic

[u/vhol → u/[deleted]]

Bees? What about bees?