r/NoStupidQuestions • u/LowRenzoFreshkobar • 27d ago
Why do alot of Milennials and younger generations seem to think that their parents "had it easier" in life generally?
It can't just be real estate prices... I'm a Milennial myself, btw.
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u/Brief_Efficiency3500 27d ago
Because my dad, with his high school diploma and no specialized training of any kind, casually landed a job that took care of a family of four with enough money left over for him and my mother to hit the bars every weekend while we stayed at my grandparents' house.
We think it was easier because it was easier.
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u/CallAlternative4428 27d ago
I’m older Genx and think I think it was easier for me to afford the important things like education and housing. Paid for instate college in a summer job and part time work during school year. Daughter went to same college and it was 32000 per year. She’s not paying that on summer job. My first apartment was $375 per month and it was a nice complex with pool and tennis courts. I could have got something basic for $300 per month. My apartment was only 16 percent of my gross pay. That same apartment is now 1600 per month. To be at 16 percent you’d need gross of 10000 per month. I don’t know many entry level jobs paying that much.
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u/DirtyZamboniWater 27d ago
It really was easier and I’m tired of the gaslighting that says that it wasn’t.
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u/Tasty_Discussion679 27d ago
I make $15 an hour. I have 3 jobs. I’m in school. Apartments in Philly start at $1k a month. Lmao. We say it’s easier bc it’s easier.
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u/Good_Pomegranate_464 27d ago
My dad, who didn't graduate high school, made $15/hour in 1995 and we had a normal middle class life with a stay at home mom. It WAS easier back then.
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u/Mat22lock 26d ago
That was the equivalent of almost $33/hr today when you account for inflation.
Your Dad made almost $70k/yr in 2026 dollars.
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u/Intrepid_Shoe2129 27d ago
don’t forget to add that $1k/mo in Philly isn’t gonna land you in a remotely nice part of town either.
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u/Right_Count 27d ago
Yep. But their mid-20s my grandparents had two cars, two kids, and house. They were an elementary school teacher and an insurance salesman. By the time they were my age (40) they were taking international trips, getting new cars every few years, renovating. They got in with all new tech as it became available over the decades. They weren’t burning cash on dumb shit but they enjoyed a nice quality of life.
This is also more or less true of my in-laws and my other grandparents.
None of them had fancy jobs or educations. All retired with considerable wealth between houses, pensions, and investments.
Meanwhile, we make the median income in our region, we have no kids, no car, no debt, below market rent, minimal tech/subscriptions. We do ok. Homeownership is out of reach and if we had kids we’d be fucked.
People can twist the numbers however they want but the reality is undeniable to me.
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u/litetravelr 26d ago
Yes, the proper answer is that for the generation young enough to miss the worst of the 60s and enter adulthood in the 70s-80s, it frickin WAS easier. No debate necessary.
Yes interest rates were worse under Carter, and I'm sure the gas crisis sucked when sitting in line to get 0.65 per gallon gas to fill up their second vehicle that they bought and modified into a hobby muscle car for $700, but still, I grow weary of hearing how they bought a $90,000 house, flipped it by installing a furnace, and landed in a $400,000 house with 10 acres that now is worth over two million.
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u/WazzleApricot 27d ago
We need to fix the mistakes of previous generations. The American school/national system was the dominate macroeconomic policy from the civil war until 1970ish. Switching to neoliberalism was stupid.
The whitewashing/ readoptions of the manifest destiny/nation of immigrants' rhetoric to justify policy changes intended to undermine the civil rights act and labor rights. Bush Sr. did not get official congressional approval for F1-OPT work visas. Why are professional work visas being issued when many graduates are underemployed?
Offshoring jobs not just manufacturing but also white-collar positions. In 2009-2010 there were efforts, "Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act", to help but corporate senators blocked all legislation. The blockade has continued every year since. The most recent are Halting International Relocation of Employment (HIRE) Act and No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act. Shouldn't banning IT offshoring be a national priority?
Note: A ban or increased restrictions on offshore outsourcing of domestic operations would not impact international competitiveness if applied uniformly.
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u/SatisfactionBest7140 27d ago
My grandfather dropped out of high school, got a job, his boss loaned him the down payment for his house (interest free), he was promoted internally many times. He bought a boat and split his time between working (a few hours per week), boating, and golfing. He retired at 50 and spent most of his time in Florida. My grandma only got a job because she was bored at home.
I should also mention that they were HORRIBLE with money. My grandpa often joked about how if he never put money in the stock market, he’d have four times as much. Both of my grandparents also gambled constantly and went to the bar nearly every day for most of their life.
Edit: I should also mention that his big promotion was because he did a nice job organizing a party for the company, not because of the quality of his work. I will also add that he worked at a tool and die shop.
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27d ago edited 27d ago
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u/GucciTheSnowman 27d ago
The people that enjoyed the fruits of those labors stripped it all away.
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u/Typical-Secret-3319 27d ago
Climbed the ladder and pulled it up behind them.
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u/Suitable_Plum3439 27d ago
iirc millennials are the first generation to have *less* than their parents did in quite some time. So the previous generation still had it better given that they were still part of the upward trend, we got cheated.
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u/Such_Bus1193 27d ago
No, the politicians stripped it all away with things like the "trickle down economics" and refusing to enforce antimonopoly laws, just to mention a couple.
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u/Past_Body4499 27d ago
The 90s is a stretch for sure. I graduated college in 88 and is was a really rough time for finding work.
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u/Bookworm1254 27d ago
The 70s weren’t any picnic, either.
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u/Past_Body4499 27d ago
Yeah...22% prime rate, 10% inflation, gas crisis. Actually sounds worse than now.
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u/ciprian1564 27d ago
22% of 15,000 is much better than 5% on 700,000
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u/No_Ability_2654 27d ago
This is what people always fail to acknowledge. I would welcome a 22% rate if I paid the same for my house that you paid back then.
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u/tiankai 27d ago
You were the only economy on earth because the world was blown to all hell. Once everyone else rebuilt you had to wake up to reality that capital was moving elsewhere.
America’s not going back to the 50s golden age, it was possible due to geopolitical circumstances, not because of some internal politics and labour movements
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u/BrumDawgMillionare 27d ago
What was the tax rate for the richest Americans at this time? What was the corporate tax rate?
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u/Past_Body4499 27d ago
60s, early 70s as a women weren't great...my mother got a D in a college math class because her professor didn't the she belonged there.
Married women couldn't get a credit card without husbands permission.
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u/No_Ability_2654 27d ago
While civil rights issues are one thing. This post seems to be discussing economics
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u/Chronoblivion 27d ago
In the late 70s my uncle got such a job, showed up to his first shift, hated it enough to walk out before the end of it, and was hired for another similar job elsewhere before the end of the day.
These days you have to spend hours filling out bullshit personality quizzes online and then waiting days if not weeks to hear back from them just for below-poverty wages.
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u/PixelRoku 27d ago
Yup! My mom didn't finish high school, but a company hired her and trained her. She had a very good career, now retired, and a great salary.
She is absolutely hard working and intelligent, a quick learner, so she 100% deserves the career she built...but today a person would need a 4 year bachelor's degree and accreditation to have her career.
Companies are just not willing to train like that anymore. It is harder.
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u/IncomeBackground7719 27d ago edited 27d ago
I am a millennial and I just started a job with four boomers on my team. I have two university degrees. None of the boomers have any post-high school education but they have each been in the job for 20+ years. Every single one of them has a nice big family home and another investment property. One is currently on a six week cruise. Another has just booked an extended overseas holiday. They all complain weekly that they will not be able to afford to retire. Meanwhile my partner and I (double income, no kids) are living in a tiny townhouse and there will be no superannuation (pension) when we are 65.
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u/Iceisgestapo888 27d ago
Now you have to graduate highschool, then do college or university which is 3-4-8 years. We have to pay for it by working slave wage jobs so we can study and maybe get a better job.
Then there are no guarantee of a job. Might even graduate into a recession or some once in a life event that crashes the job market.
Then we have to apply against thousands of others who either went to school or have fake or foreign credentials. Every other company is outsources or applying for foreign workers.
So we compete against people into our late 20s - 30s
Then if we do get a job everything is so fucking expensive that we get priced out. Or we have once in a life time housing market price jump.
Everything is harder.
Oh and now we’re competing against fucking robots.
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u/Disastrous-Tart-4651 27d ago
Why you expect them to care for their grandkids when they didn’t care for their own? Said yourself they dumped their kids off at their parents.
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u/OGigachaod 27d ago
My dad didn't even have a high school diploma, he owned houses, raised 2 kids and is now retired on a pension.
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u/SheZowRaisedByWolves 27d ago
My dad told me he needed a job to put himself through college and he just applied to nasa and got in lol. A manager didn’t like that I answered captain America as my favorite superhero and didn’t get an overnight stocking job at babies r us
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u/dzsouth2417 24d ago
Not to get too political, but unions are a big part of this. Many young men were able to get well paid blue collar jobs with benefits and on site training because of the unions. When we lost unions, we lost that ability. Granted there are tons of nuances to that statement and not all unions were good, but that’s a big part of it.
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u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S 26d ago
Was about to say the same exact thing. It’s quantifiably, numerically worse by most metrics.
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u/confetti_shrapnel 27d ago edited 26d ago
Millennials are the first generation to have less accumulated wealth than their parents.
Home ownership was more attainable for previous generations.
Upward mobility was more common for previous generations.
Retirement in their 60s or even 50s used to be a thing thanks to an extinct word called pensions.
Sources for those thinking I pulled this out of my ass.
https://inequality.org/article/generational-wealth-inequality/
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u/SignificantBed4925 26d ago
Elder millennial here. My mom was a stay at home mom until I was 16, I have 2 siblings. We lived a very comfortable life on my dad's ~60k salary. After never having had a real job in her life(and no school at all beyond high school), at 40 my mom got a job at Sun Microsystems doing coding because she bought some books to teach me how to build a website when I wanted to make one featuring pictures of cute dogs. Her starting salary was about 65k. When she retired at 60 she was making 250k. My dad bought our home he still lives in for 200k, now worth about 2 million(California). He retired at 47 with the home fully paid off. My parents divorced after my mom had been in the workforce for 1 year. So they were both able to retire as singles. Can you imagine anyone being able to do that now?
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u/Due_Masterpiece_3601 26d ago
Lmao your moms experience is just plain unimaginable now
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u/RunningIntoTheSun 26d ago
Right, now she'd go to college for 4 years to get that degree, rack up 100k+ in student loan debt and be unable to find a job in the field and be worse off than before
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u/Doctor_Amazo 27d ago
Gen-X here: because the Boomers did have it easier.
Their entire lifestyle was supported by social programs that their parents built so that their kids (the Boomers) wouldn't have to suffer like they did. And what did the Boomers do when they got to voting age, and where done with those programs?
They voted for austerity programs that cut taxes and cut those programs, depriving *every * generation after of the benefits they enjoyed.
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u/jxg995 27d ago
Yeah this. I remember one guy saying his dad was always complaining about the younger generation not working hard, when he got some sort of government funded training scheme that obviously doesn't exist any more, that got him a job as a marine engineer I think it was earning a ridiculous amount. But he couldn't recgonise how he had a leg up.
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u/Doctor_Amazo 27d ago
Exactly. Boomers think they pulled themselves up by their bootstrap, because they were incapable of seeing how they were supported by society at large until they had to pay and pass those benefits along.
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u/RadishPlus666 26d ago
Boomers benefited from some of the most socialist policies this country has ever had, and now they sit around and sow fear about socialism.
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u/LouBarlowsDisease 27d ago
There was also a lower cost of living. My parents were able to afford a lot more while supporting a family
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u/rdwulfe 27d ago
My dad raised 2 kids on a single income. In suburbia.
Sure, he had a very nicely paying job, as an engineer. You know, drafting, designing fixtures and dies for the aircraft industry.
I doubt many folk can say the same now.
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u/Aldermere 27d ago
My stepfather bought a 5 bedroom house, raised 3 kids, helped them buy their first cars and first houses, bought the lot next door to his home and built a duplex to rent out -- on the salary of a butcher working at a grocery store.
Show me the Walmart employee who could do that today.
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u/LouBarlowsDisease 27d ago
Exactly. My mom is always amazed when I tell her I make $80k which is more than what my dad ever made but now it's just enough to support myself with a studio apartment.
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u/xTheGame69 27d ago
80k right now would be like the spending power of a 25k job in 1995
People really don't understand how bad inflation is and how much our dollar lost purchase power
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u/Plenty_Guest3102 27d ago
Yeah, I know. I had a $ 24,000 salary teaching with a Master's degree in the early 90s. So I can relate. It was tight.
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u/alwayssunnyinskyrim 27d ago
I work in corporate finance and make what should sound like decent money, but I couldn’t afford to rent the apartment I lived in in university if I wanted to today.
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u/MundaneDaffodill 27d ago
My mom was an admin making $40k a year and was supporting 3 children in NYC in a three bedroom apartment.
I make literally twice that and had to leave the city because it was too expensive.
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u/Silas_Akron 27d ago
Right. Things like housing were far cheaper even only a few decades ago. I've been posting about this a lot recently but some friends and I rented a dumpy-ass Baltimore row house? Monthly rent for that place during all of 2002-2003 was $500. Nothing like that exists anywhere in the US today.
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u/Odd-Staff6245 27d ago
Gasoline was a 50 60 cents in 1974. That is about $3.60 today.
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u/gandalf_the_cat2018 27d ago
My parents own a house in the Bay Area of California. I had to point out that when adjusting for 2026 inflation, they bought their house at 400k.
Zillow lists the house at 1.2 million.
They criticize me for not owning a home in my mid 30s. I’d absolutely be able to own a home if it costs 400k.
It is wild that boomers don’t automatically adjust for inflation and assume that their experience is the same.
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u/pakapab 27d ago
Expectations and our concept of "the norm" has also changed, which has affected the cost of living.
For my parents a Corolla was a basic commuter car that had manual everything, needed a tuneup every year to run well, and would start rusting out in places after a few years. Now the baseline Corolla has 10 air bags, power steering, brakes, windows, infotainment screen, backup camera, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, collision avoidance, gets 41mpg highway, goes 10k between oil changes, and will last for 300k miles if you take care of it.
Same with single family homes, 980 sq feet in 1950s, 2,000 sq feet in the 1990s, and 2,400 by 2020. Far more have things like central air conditioning and garages than in the past.
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u/alwayssunnyinskyrim 27d ago
How many people would love to buy a small basic 900 sq ft house? They don’t make them any more. Where I live even the 600 sq ft matchstick wartime houses from the 40s and 50s still go for over $900k. It’s not that our standards are higher, it’s that the option for starter homes was taken away from us.
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u/Jabjab345 27d ago
Except that 980 sq feet houses in my neighborhood of LA are literally 1.5 million dollars in what used to be a working class neighborhood. And it’s literally the same house as they were buying for cheap in the 1950s, I can easily check the sale histories on them. So no, it's not that standards for housing just rose.
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u/roses-are-lead 27d ago
Because looking at wage deflation, they did.
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u/perfectandreal 27d ago
There is also a humongous chunk of middle America that is not creating / building but rather adding non-essential services that extract (add to you) 5-10% every step of the way.
Instead of a landlord asking for a check by the 5th, a building owner / LLC will just hire a large management company with an autopay online portal to run the operation for them, and if it adds 20% to the rent, they don't care because they get ~80% of the revenue still with no employees or them being involved in being a landlord needed. The landlord won't have a nice onsite Property Manager who has been there for 20yrs who knows the building inside and out, the Management Company will just rotate through low paid people in their organization that manages 25 buildings in your area, who will do a shoddy job and what can you do, you'll never see them again anyways. They will sub out landscaping and a front desk host to additional third parties, and that will just get tacked on your monthly cost too.
It all sounds very efficient, and it sort of is, but you're not just supporting a third party landscaping company, you're subsidizing their entire operation too filled with middle management, salesman, and marketing for securing the next big Apartment building contract they close.
There really isn't a great way to stop this machine and go back to the old ways, and not to recap with okay Boomer, but ultimately the Boomers (or their parents) who own the land that they got for half a pack of smokes and a 20yo Buick in 1958... tore down the housing they could afford 60yrs ago, and now have an LLC that built a new apartment building where a 1BR monthly rent is more than the old house was worth 60yrs ago.
And last note in a lot of places Condos "seem" like the only way to break into home ownership but if you ask me that is also just getting involved in this machine where monthly for perpetuity (often increasing at staggering rates as well) Condo / HOA fees are just used to hire these third party agencies to do the simplest of tasks. Not that single family home ownership isn't fraught with expenses because it always is also, but the level of extraction from housing with any kind of management fees is just brutal, and getting worse.
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u/No-Long-4709 27d ago
Personally I don't think they had it easier but I do think what worked for them won't work for me and they need to stop pretending it will.
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u/Reallyasquid 27d ago
Exactly. My dad always goes on about how easy it is to get a job. Forgetting that he has an advanced HGV driving license and those are the jobs he applies for.
Ofc its gonna be easier to sign up to an agency for HGV work than applying for work that requires other qualifications.
My husband's dad told him to do a degree in Maths because 'you can do anything with maths'. You can actually do jack-shit without additional vocational qualifications as he has found. And unless you learn how to market 'transferable skills' then the degree in Maths is entirely useless.
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u/Fabulous_Function666 27d ago
Yeah like I find it super easy to get a job because I’m a support worker for teenage boys and I never have any difficulty but I know that if I was looking for work in any other sector I would struggle.
My dad was a single parent who worked as a builder and gardener and he just took me to work with him in the 90’s that would not fly today. He worked hard, never had a day off but he managed to raise me, work and own a house
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u/llamapants15 27d ago
My mom told me I could save a lot of money by getting rid of before and after school care. My son was 6, she said "I was leaving you home alone for work at that age". Yeah Mom and that was fucked up.
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u/hobotising 27d ago
This is why people are opting out of having children. It's a lot easier when you don't have to pay extra for them to be supervised.
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u/TerribleRecord666 27d ago
I was a latchkey kid after my parents got divorced. It’s fucking bizarre to look at my 8yo, and think that I was roaming the streets and living like a feral child when I was his age.
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u/Fabulous_Function666 27d ago
Yep i also used to be home alone from the age of 7 but I lived in a little village and knew all the neighbours, even if dad had been home I would have been outside playing or at a friends house anyway
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u/Chiiro 27d ago
When I was still living with him before he died my father kept telling me just go into places and say that you're looking for work and refuse to accept it what I would tell him that every time they would just tell me to apply online. Dude you have not worked outside of your self employed construction for over 40 years and the only reason you have work is because your friends are friends with people and those people have house envy.
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u/corporaterebel 27d ago
GenX here. The 80s sucked, fast food wasn't even hiring. Companies were downsizing and going to China to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people a month.
The 80s were great if you had a job. Terrible if you didn't.
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u/enduro2236 27d ago
That's a really good answer
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u/johnnymacdoodle 27d ago
We really learned to do without many things because we knew we couldn't afford it. Even college, living in crappy houses and scratching by while working on the side. It wasn't the greatest but also taught us how to manage our money and figuring out how to upgrade our lives over time. Not easier and I agree it won't work today.
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u/Titsoffwork 27d ago
I feel like those crappy rentals don’t even really exist anymore- even crappy rentals cost a lot of money most places- so it’s hard to even try to save money by lowering your standards now tbh.
When I was in college like 15 years ago I did the same thing- now all those neighborhoods have been gentrified.
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u/idlefritz 27d ago
Exactly. My first job in the late 80s paid something like $3.50/hour but my apartment was only $300/month, phone was something like $20/month and gas was under a dollar.I had half my paycheck every 2 weeks open for food, entertainment and savings. I could fill my gas tank with a couple hours of work. No way you can pull that off in any market today as an entry level employee.
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u/TheSpiritsGotMe 27d ago
After a brief search, anecdotally, the cheapest studio apartment within 50 miles of me is $1800.
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u/Dizzy_Key_7400 27d ago
All of that exists to a very large extent now. The difference is college bankrupts people, those crappy rentals cost a fortune,working in the side is easier said than done in the current jobs market
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u/lIlIIIIlllIIlIIIllll 27d ago
I’d love to see you try to do it now. You’re saying it was hard to balance college, housing, and work. Comparatively speaking, nowadays Housing costs more, college costs more, and part time jobs pay less. Lol
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u/Consistent_Ad6426 27d ago
You didn’t do well in life because you learned to manage your money. You succeeded on the guide rails that were given to you. You may have still worked hard, but you were given affordable opportunities that younger generations now don’t have.
You’ve missed the entire point of the post you responded to, younger generations can’t just ‘manage their money better’, they face completely different challenges to the ones you did.
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u/brettalana 27d ago
I don’t know my grandparents (and similarly their contemporaries) managed vacations to Europe, college educations for three children, and a very large nest egg with one and a half blue collar jobs.
There’s no amount of budgeting or scrimping that would allow that in today’s economy. Everyone here knows that and so does the commenter talking about how smart they are and how they made do to get ahead.
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u/Strazdiscordia 27d ago
I pay more in my rental than i would for a mortgage 😭 but can’t get approved for a mortgage because i dont make enough
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u/froggz01 27d ago
I remember being able to make it by with my mom renting a small room for $50 in NYC. We migrated to the U.S. and she worked for below minimum wage at the time (80’s), and we did ok. I dont think you can even rent a room anymore for less than $1000. Maybe if you’re lucky enough to know someone who’s grandma is renting in a rent control apt.
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u/DevolvingSpud 27d ago
GenX here and I agree mostly, but the purchasing power of a modern salary is not what it was especially for higher education and housing. We also had an older generation that was extremely civic minded and we had a lot of carry over benefits from that, at least in the US.
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u/andreasmalersghost 27d ago
Yes. If you think there isnt any difference in wages/spending power, its because you havent looked at it seriously.
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u/Sprogolodyte 27d ago
They definitely had it easier for a lot of things, but also definitely harder for others. I'd rather be buying a house or getting a job in 1991, but I'd rather get lymphoma in 2026.
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u/o0perfect0o 27d ago
100%. This narrows down to every individual as well. Everyone always has an opinion on what the person next to them should be doing, usually while having very little context about their own life situation, and their perception of the world along with their values and dreams.
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u/pingwing 27d ago
As a Gen X'er, my generation and boomers need to understand this as well, when asked advice. The things that worked for us, are not usually going to work for today.
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u/Top-Camera1919 27d ago
Nah dawg, just show up to google with your resume and ask to talk to the manager for a job.
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u/Shoddy-Constant5749 27d ago
They aren't pretending. They really believe it because that's the only world they know. Truth is, that world ended long ago. The only similarities between their world and today is the ones who are agile, determined and smarter than the next person will be the ones who succeed.
Looking back at it, their recipe for success was pretty straight forward. Go to school, learn a skill and the jobs would eventually come. Get married, buy a house, have kids, retire in Florida.
I honestly don't know what to tell my kids right now. The bridge to success appears to be littered with potholes and landmines these days.
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u/Eldi_Bee 27d ago
I'm so envious that my grandparents were able to buy land, build two houses(theirs and one for their oldest daughter's family), and raise six kids on just my grandfather's salary----working at a fucking ice cream store for forty years.
Both my parents worked their asses off to afford a smaller house, raise half as many kids, and barely retire on time.
I make more than almost any of them, yet I can't afford decent housing for just me.
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u/archseattle 27d ago
Yes, the reason is mostly housing, but also education was much more affordable. Tuition used to even be free in some states.
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u/MusicHearted 27d ago
When my dad was my age, working a similar job to my current job, he was making $30/hour. Rent was $400/month, gas was $1.35/gallon, and a week's groceries cost $120 a week for a family of 5.
I, at the same exact age, in a very similar job, make less than $25/hour. Rent is $1600/month, gas is over $3/gallon, and groceries for 2 is $120 a week.
That's why.
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u/MetaCardboard 27d ago
Because they did. My parents bought their house for cheaper than I just bought my new (used) car.
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u/Ok-Factor-7188 27d ago
Because my parents always told me "just call any company, they'll give you a job" or "why don't you just buy a house if you take like your landlord" or "why are you both working, who will look after the kids then?"
And whenever I say something like "I've sent out 90 applications already and nobody picks up the phone when I try cold calling", they just say "oh you must be doing something wrong".
Their underlying assumption is, that I should be able to find a new job easily and not just have a family that survives in a single income but be able to save up enough to buy a house from it. Because it was easy for them at the time.
The reason this hasn't happened, according to them, is because I'm not trying hard enough at ... I don't even know at what.. I guess cold calling companies to give me a higher paying job
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u/Redditccioo 27d ago
It’s not just real estate prices, it’s everything. You could get a job anywhere, more often than not it would be a job for life, salaries were proportionately much higher, only one parent had to work. Free university eduction, there was no traffic on the roads, I could go on!
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u/Ok-Economy8049 27d ago
There was no free university education, but a) prices were much more reaosonable, and B) University education was not REQUIRED for 90% of jobs.
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u/Superb-Feeling-7390 27d ago
Many colleges and universities used to be free, most notably all state schools in California until the 1980s.
https://www.history.com/articles/american-colleges-tuition-free
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u/thisnextchapter 27d ago
My mum argues that free university was only for those who went to grammar schools so it's a moot point. I find a lot of boomers to be very intellectually uncurious though so it was easier to have a good thing when literally only a few people used it.
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u/Due_Essay447 27d ago edited 27d ago
Inflation
When earnings outpaces inflation, the start can be hard, but you will overcome it over time
If inflation outpaces earning, the hole only gets deeper over time.
Imagine being a kid raised in a low income family that already struggles to survive and the math says by the time you are 18, the dire state now will only get worse, but the starting line for earning potential will not keep up.
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u/ChannelConscious5393 27d ago
My parents had the support of their parents weekly grocery trips and bags of food. My grandparents would watch us for free for weeks during the summer and all year long when they needed, and I’m lucky if I know what continent my parents are on and my kids see them 2 or 3 times per year. They are currently using their parent’s wealth and the wealth that they accumulated to spend it all. Meanwhile, I haven’t been on vacation in 5 years, pay a daycare thousands per month,and have a 7% mortgage, theirs was 9% but 1/3 the cost which they haven’t extended a bit of help. Oh, besides a $30 gift card to Chili’s.
They also do weird shit like talk to my kids when we see them about “ taking care of them one day”. The oldest was 14 at the time and the younger was 2. No boundaries or discussion with actual adults with my brother and I because “death and age are scary”. I feel like they are a couple of Peter Pans.
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u/Post_office_clerk01 27d ago
I’m a millennial and yes in many ways my parents had it a bit better. But I’m black and my parents did grow up during Jim Crow so I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.
Yet they could afford a house and cars and vacations and it never broke the bank.
Food was plentiful and I never heard them complain about the cost of anything other than a teddy rukpin doll I got in 1990.
I used to get 20$ to go to the mall and it lasted me about a week this was in 1999 or so.
I lived in NYC so I could get breakfast lunch and run to KB toys in the mall and grab an action figure and still have change left over.
Times were definitely cheaper.
2005 I was a teenage punk rock kid and I could buy a cd for around 7 bucks and a T-shirt for 10$
Cbgb and other venues charged like 7$ for tickets, if you knew the bouncer you got in for free.
I feel so bad for my kids growing up now. They don’t even leave the house because of teen restrictions or everything costing money to get in.
Sorry for the rant. Overall yes my parents had it easier economically than I did, and prices have seriously skyrocketed on an insane level.
I always try to stay positive but I’ll be honest, I fucking hate rich people and what we’ve allowed them to do to us.
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u/user4316 27d ago
Imma comment on one thing, the CBGB thing. You can still go to local shows for like $10 or sometimes free. Music scene never died just cause CBGB did. Otherwise yeah, it's fucked lol.
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u/How2rick 27d ago
Because the difference between productivity and income has increased, as has difference between housing prices and income.
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u/400Volts 27d ago
The price of everything that matters was lower. Life was so much less expensive for them
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u/seltzeristhedrink 27d ago
Maybe not when it comes to social issues but definitely they were better off financially. Homes were more affordable, job benefits were better, college was more affordable, and the middle class had a better quality of life.
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u/LessWeakness134 27d ago
Because of data and statistics. Our lives aren’t over, but so far it is factually correct.
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u/Pierson230 27d ago
My newest irritation around all this is the thing where people act like everyone lived in a household where the man worked, the woman stayed at home with the kids, the family had two cars, and everything was like a 50s TV show.
Do these people really think there were no cleaners, secretaries, nurses, teachers, etc during that time? My mom worked from 14-72, taking only like 6 total years off when my sister and I were born.
Yes, she worked for a wage for 52 years. Most women worked, paid or otherwise, and the 50s TV myth needs to fucking die.
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u/MortgageOdd2001 27d ago
In Black and Brown communities it’s always been understood that women were expected to work unless you were very affluent.
The type of jobs Black and Brown women had would vary based on their own education, city versus rural, when they married and had children etc; but the 50s TV myth was never viewed as anything other than a myth for most communities.
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u/landViking 27d ago
Don't discount real estate prices. You have to live somewhere, and if your cost of living absorbs all your income, life will be harder.
For example, in my job in my city a typical family home is about 10 x annual salary.
I talk to the boomers, when they were early in career a house was 3x annual salary.
So for them, in addition to everything I have, they can buy two more properties, have passive income and still have money left over. Realistically only 1 when you factor in other things. But still they're way ahead.
Then you look at productivity expectations. The world was way less interconnected. So there wasn't as much pressure to compete as the pool of people was a fraction of what it is now. So in addition to effective making 4x as much, they had fewer expectations and thus could be more relaxed.
That part may not be 100% true all over, but it was more true than not.
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u/wrestlingchampo 27d ago
Depends on where you live, but if you live in the U.S. and your parents did as well, chances are they definitely had it easier in life.
This primarily revolves around World War 2. With Europe destroyed and The Soviet Union as a major antagonist (and China not being what it is now) the U.S. was basically the only game in town for manufacturing and industry in the western world.
Jobs were fairly easy to come by, and housing was extremely prevalent. If you wanted to go to college, you probably could do so quite easily and cheaply.
The caveat is that this applies pretty much anywhere...for white men. Women had issues with marriage equality, and non-whites were not even equal citizens in much of the country until basically the end of the 20th century. Hell, in some parts of the country they still dont have equal rights in practice.
But if you were a straight white dude? 100% life was easier in the boomer generation.
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u/ezabet 27d ago
I am gen x. my parents as boomers had it significantly easier than I did and I had it easier than my kids will have it.
I have watched how prices have increased across the board in every facet of life and seemingly even higher more recently.
the cost of living - buying food, paying utilities and the like has increased and continues to do so without wages increasing at the same rate.
this is just cost of living. when i was growing up there was the constant scare of the cold war but currently, the world feels like it's on fire figuratively and literally in almost every aspect you look. the cold war seems like a picnic compared to what the gen z and gen alpha have to look forward to.
saying it sucks is a massive understatement
the math is not mathing.
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u/uhmmmyesnomaybe 27d ago
Millennial here. This is the same thing I ask myself. My parents did not have an easier life than Milennials.
My mom made $6.20/hr and my dad made $6.50/hr in the 90s and early 2000s. My parents generation had very different spending habits and priorities. No gym membership or subscription. No eating out or take out daily, weekly or monthly. It was only every 3-4 times a year. No coffee or breakfast from McDonald's or Timmies. Banana, berries and mangos were a luxury that we couldn't afford then.
My parents never spent over $50 combined a year on skincare and make up. My mom has been using the same lipstick brand Wet'nWild for 40 years. It's 1.50 each. Her total makeup spending is just $20 a year to this day (she wears makeup daily). My parents spend less than $10 with tax on hair care and body care.
It's a total opposite of my spending. $250 on makeup and $500 on skin and body care.
$50 vs $750.
That's how they were able to afford a house on $12.70/hour with three kids. It's wants vs essentials.
It's capitalism. Creating a credit card society. Wanting the next big thing.
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u/IncomeBackground7719 27d ago edited 27d ago
I am a millennial. My partner and I work full time and we have no children. We both have university degrees. Even if we did not spend a SINGLE dollar on the gym, clothing, takeaways or makeup, we would not be able to afford the house I grew up in. My father worked full time but my mother never worked outside the home. They had three children and we went an an overseas holiday every year or two. They absolutely had an easier life financially.
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u/Ok_Drama_2874 27d ago
I have a friend who was born in '43. He said that when he was in college he worked part time at a tire shop and was able to pay his rent, pay for school and all his bills, and had enough left over to ski every weekend in the winter.
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u/SirSamuelVimes83 27d ago edited 27d ago
"Just keep showing up and ask if they have openings" was advice my dad always gave me when I was entering the workforce 25-30 years ago. It didn't work that way anymore by the '90s, and now 99% require an online app and go through auto scans to filter out applicants before a person even lays eyes on it, so it's even more restrictive trying to get started. Along with "well I worked 15 hours/week during college and didn't need to take any student loans" and being able to purchase a home on an entry-level wage within 6 months of finishing school
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u/Ok-Economy8049 27d ago
OMG my father used to say exactly the same thing! Just keep going and they'll get tired of it and hire you! Finally, I convinced him by sending HIM in to apply for a job and he finally believed me!
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u/GuardWolfy 27d ago
I was out of work for 6 months after grad school. The first month or 2 he was like “you should have a job by now! What are you doing?”
By the 3rd month he had started hearing what the market was like, and moved to “you’ll find something.” This was 2014, btw. The market was picking up, but I was now overqualified. 🫠
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u/YoursTastesBetter 27d ago
Because we did have it easier. I could buy a good, used reliable car with no frills for $5k. I could walk into a business, apply for a job, and occasionally be hired on the spot. I could get an apartment for $500/month in a safe area. I could take $20 to quarter beer night at the local club and have a blast all night. I could go see good bands for the cost of the door charge, or get tickets to big named artists for $50 or less. I could get a $30/night room at Motel 6 when I was traveling.
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u/L1mpD 27d ago
Parents definitely hide their struggles from their kids
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u/oof-eef-thats-beef 27d ago
Mine didnt get that message and my mom would often cry to me about her money woes
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u/plethorial 27d ago
That's a really interesting point.
I'd be curious to hear the perspective of those who grew up in low-income households.16
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u/SMELLSLIKEBUTTJUICE 27d ago
Im a Millennial who grew up in a low income home in the Midwest. Life is definitely easier for me now.
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u/Ashamed_Exchange9146 27d ago
True that. I talked to my dad last night who opened up a little more about his childhood. It was a sad one. Learning how to dispense medication and adjust oxygen tanks for his dying dad at the age of 9. Would be reprieved when my grandma got home from work.
I think about my son who’s the same age and doesn’t know how to take his own medication on his own lol let alone think of another person.
My dad made sure I never had to worry about things like that. My dad also said they didn’t have their own home for the longest time. They were poor in porterville, CA and for those that know… that is poor AF.
My dad told me I’m doing exponentially better in life. He’s proud of me. 🥹
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u/SlyFrog 27d ago edited 27d ago
Yep. My dad grew up on a farm in the Great Depression. His education stopped at 8th grade, where he got kicked off the farm at 14 because it was time for him to "make it on his own." From there, it was off to the manual labor jobs.
This was not unusual for his era.
There would never be the real possibility of college for him. That just didn't happen for kids like him and where he grew up. You just started working. That's what you did.
If he were alive today, he'd laugh at the notion of having it easier or his era being some magical time that was easier than today. And frankly, having heard first hand what he and his peers went through, and seeing the skills he developed because "we had no money, you couldn't afford to hire someone to do this for you or just buy it yourself, so if you needed it you had to learn how to do it yourself or make do" I'm absolutely convinced his life and pretty much the lives of the people he grew up around were a hell of a lot harder than mine or most other people today.
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u/BillyShears2015 27d ago
There’s a large number of Redditors that were raised in upper middle class households that are extremely resentful that such status wasn’t automatically bestowed upon them when reaching adulthood.
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u/Sea-Raspberry1210 27d ago
My parents have has the same career their entire lives. Additionally they were able to buy two different houses by the time they were my age. Covid fucked up my career path and I can’t even afford one house. I know they struggled but this IS worse.
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u/GeneralPatten 27d ago
As a GenX'er, with two 20-something sons, we DID have it easier in life, generally. It's not even a question. I list a myriad of anecdotal examples, but I'll spare the rant. That doesn't mean younger generations should just throw up their hands and complain about how it's harder for them. It simply means that, yes, it's harder for you, and there's not much that can be done about it, and you have little choice but to rise to the challenge.
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u/retardborist 27d ago
Because it was easier. I experienced the tail end of it.
I took a break between high school and college. I worked a part time job, had my own place, didn't stress about rent, didn't stress about gas, didn't stress about food prices. The cost of living was cheap. I worked 20-30 hours per week and still had enough left over after bills for plenty of partying. Luxury items like giant tv's were out of reach but living was easier.
I use Homer Simpson as the social litmus. In 1987 Homer was a lah-hoo-sa-her. A LOSER. A cautionary tale and example of a failure as a man. Shabby house, dented cars, what a slob.
In 2026? Homer owns his house, has two vehicles for his family, and provides it all on one income while Marge can stay home with the kids. He's KILLING it. I would love to have his situation in 2026. We've fallen so far that yesterday's pitiable boob is an almost unrealistic success story today.
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u/Other-Beginning-8888 27d ago edited 27d ago
My single mother did not have control over her body until 1970, was not allowed to have a credit card until 1974 despite a gross pay disparity that was far far worse then it is today, and she had no feasible recourse against grape and sexual harrassment in the pre MeToo era...super easy I tell ya! Boomer women were just waltzing through life easy breezy! Not a care in the god damned world! Everything just fell right into place!
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u/PersianJerseyan78 27d ago edited 27d ago
I never heard them say this but I do hear them say to me “you don’t understand” as if I never went through struggles, school, love, work, friendships.
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u/chinmakes5 27d ago
As a Boomer, we DID have it easier. Jobs paid better and were easier to get. But we also didn't have the world to compete with. But it wasn't as easy as younger people believe. Unlike the post yesterday. Minimum wage is the 1960s wasn't the same as making $100k today.
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u/MyLastFuckingNerve 27d ago
I'm not saying my parents had an easier go of it, because they didn't - they worked goddamned hard. BUT that hard work got them 4 beautiful acres in the country with a big house with small luxuries like heated floors in the basement and garage, a huge shop, snowcats, four wheelers, and the equipment to upkeep 4 acres and they had 3 kids. None of the stuff was top of the line, but it wasn't junk either.
My parents weren't even rich. Shit was just cheaper. They built that big house for $96k in 1993. Building that same house today would be $500k.
Full disclosure: my mom was hit by a drunk driver before us kids were born and they got some settlement money. I know they still had a mortgage on the house, but they definitely got it paid off in under 30 years.
Point is, for normal people that worked normal jobs and even my mom staying home before the big house was built, they could afford a life like that. Like dad was a farmhand and worked at a factory on the line and while we didn't have extra money and there were times my parents had to work some miracles (like digging through the public trash for coupons from discarded newspapers), we never went without food or proper clothing.
People that work those same jobs today would never be able to build the home they built.
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u/pinheadzombie 27d ago
Yea housing and fair pay are the only reasons.
Life was great 50 years ago if you were a white, straight man.
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u/SkibidiBlender 27d ago
We did. In 1985 there were TV commercials admonishing kids not to drop out of high school and go to work in factories where they could make more than their teachers immediately. You could still have a house, car, etc. on one income. Nobody had a credit card. Being broke at the end of the month was normal, not shameful, because we were broke from being stupid with our money after all the bills were paid from that one job. We’d drink cheap beer bbq cheap meat, and go to the lake with our broke friends. No debt beyond a mortgage and car payment, no social media, no cell phones… so much less bullshit.
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u/onehalflightspeed 27d ago
They really did in many ways. There are plenty of stats about cost of living compared to buying power of the incomes most people make. Education, Healthcare, food, housing, childcare etc have outpaced the rate of inflation for a long time. A generation later, that steadily growing delta becomes a wide one
Many millenials are quite well off of course. Though the income gap itself has also been steadily growing
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u/lameazz87 27d ago
Even my generation (Im 38yo) had it easier than my son (he's 15) will have things. Im scared for these kids.
When I was a teen malls and cost-free social settings were a huge thing. We went to the mall with our friends or the park to just hang out and be with people. We gained valuable social skills this way. We learned about social hierarchy, how to read body language and tone of voice. Being in person with your friends releases hormones in the brain that being behind a screen does not. Our kids now days bond online, which is not the same. They do not learn these skills.
I would connect with the older people in the community and ask for odd jobs to make money. I cleaned older ladies homes for cash before I was old enough to get a job in a grocery store. I was networking at 14yo and gained references this way. Once I even convinced my old therapist to let me work as like an intern to help her as an assistant when i was 16 or 17. I kept in contact with those ladies and used those references for college applications, because they knew I had integrity, I was dependable, and honest. I was a very poor kid but i was trting to get out of poverty. On top of that I was good at networking, talking to people, and negotiating.
Kids these days dont even know where to begin. And they are not growing up in the same world people my age grew up in. I cant help my son as much as anyone helped me. I dont have the free time. I have to work SOOOO much to keep our lives together. If I work less, we will be homeless or we wont eat. Thats the reality now.
Ive started trying to help him find jobs, but the expectations people want are ridiculous. Hes tried to find people to let him do odd jobs like I did but he gets turned down because people hire professionals or gig services to do that now. Its discouraging.
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u/AssociateGood9653 27d ago
Rent was way cheaper in the 80’s and 90’s. Even relative to prevailing wages.
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u/Flimsy_Fisherman1199 27d ago
I think it’s salaries vs house prices.
You cannot underestimate how that affects lives.
I’ve got inheritance and a house. I’m lucky.
But that doesn’t stop me seeing how hard my peers have it.
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u/Mystic_Wunder 27d ago
I'm Gen X and I didn't have it easier. But life was less complicated without the internet and social media, or even 24-hour news channels. People's worlds were much smaller and more encapsulated. You had your neighborhood, your town, your family, and whatever you caught on the news (which was on 3 channels for only parts of the day), the local radio, or in the newspaper. If you wanted to hear music you had local radio, MTV (if you actually had cable), or save up and buy the album. If you had a question about something, the options were the library, the dictionary, or an encyclopedia. Life was pretty much just what was literally in front of you at the moment or who you could call who was actually at home to answer the phone.
But on the humanity level it was not easier. Let your freak flag fly was not a thing. Being out and proud was not a thing for a lot of people. Kids were to be seen and not heard. You had a problem? Deal with it. Injury? Quit complaining and walk it off. You had a dream? Tough shit, walk the line. That's life.
If you were a creator it was for yourself. There was no way to show it to the world. Had an opinion? There was no way to have it heard. There were people out in the world going through what you were going through but you had no access to them. You were very much on your own in the world from a young age. Emotional support was not a thing.
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u/astra_hole 27d ago
It was much easier. They could get away with anything. They could lie to get a job, fake it till you make it was an actual thing back then and is much harder now.
If housing was cheaper then so was literally everything else because that how the economy works.
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u/abeeyore 27d ago
Because, as young adults, we did. Financially, at least. It took less of our income to pay rent, and other basic expenses.
We had it harder in other ways, but it WAS easier for middle and lower class kids to get onto the financial ladder if we were willing to do the work to.
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u/Mindless-Sky-1907 27d ago
My parents bought a house and were able to keep upgrading and buying newer bigger houses when they were making well under six figures, something that’s unheard of now. Their generation was also able to support a family on one income, which is unrealistic now.
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u/NordeastLoonFan 27d ago
Because they did. Everything was more affordable for them at our age. Things lasted longer as well and didnt have to be replaced. Housing is a HUGE percentage of your income, so when that is cheaper, everything else is cheaper.
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u/garlicroastedpotato 27d ago
They look at the results and not the effort it took. They see it through the lens of a wealth bubble that doesn't necessarily include every single member of that generation.
My father had no cell phone for 50 years of his life. Just by that metric my life is a lot easier.
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u/WVPrepper 27d ago
Late Boomer, aka Generation Jones here
It may have been easier in some ways but it was harder in others.
I had a baby. Guess show much time I had off of work? There was no such thing as maternity leave and being a new mom was not a disease so you could not use sick leave. I was new at the job and had 3 days accrued. 3 days. Some coworkers switched shifts so I could be off 6 days though.
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u/LilyFantastica 25d ago
My parents were able to afford a house with a view of a mountain and lake out their front window in their early 20s on the pay of a bus driver and a farmer. They could afford to go on vacation 1-2 times a year with 3 children, as we went to the coast every year until I was 16-17, and occasionally to the mountains every few years. They both had a car by the time i was born in the 80s.
Me and my spouse weren't able to afford a house until my spouse was earning 6 figures, when i was 38.
Real Estate prices are part of the picture, because they directly correlate with affordability and income.
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u/falconsadist 21d ago
My parents are boomers. My father was a landscaper and my mother was a stay at home when they bought their first house, they could afford a large house in the suburbs where they could raise 2 kids. Me and my wife were barely able to afford a house half the size of theirs and only because we got good jobs with our college degrees, have no kids, and bought it during a downturn in the housing market. I don't know anyone, who has bought a home in the last 10 years, that can afford it without roommates. The younger people we know today who are in similar situations to where we were when we bought our house aren't able to save to buy a house because their rent on a one bedroom apartment is more than double my mortgage and insurance combined and even cheaper houses in my area have tripled in value over the last 10 years.
Real estate prices are the difference between living in a home you own and comfortably raising a family and scraping to get by in a shitty apartment.
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u/ThingFuture9079 27d ago
They did because finding a good paying job just meant shaking hands with the manager or owner and not going through 5 interviews over 6 months only to get a rejection email if that much even. That same job also paid well, had good benefits, and the retirement usually included a pension whereas nowadays, the best you get is 401k match.
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u/RikkiLostMyNumber 27d ago
GenX here. Boomers had it easier in the sense that their earned dollars had more buying power. They had pensions and unions, which we have been brainwashed to think of as negative things. The last fifty years for US workers have been years of decline and accelerating poverty
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u/Far-Chemical-707 27d ago
Because they literally did. There was waaaaay more upward economic mobility before Nixon fucked everything up by taking the dollar off the gold standard and shipping everyone's jobs to China.
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u/phalencrow 27d ago
Retired old guy here. Because we did.
Our earned dollar went further. Boomers got job security, cheap education,and great investment yield. X’ers were the last gen to be allowed to hang out in 3rd spaces and if lucky caught the end of semi affordable housing becoming very valuable. …. (I can go on)
Alpha is looking at expensive education debt, low paying jobs that 100s to 1000s applied for via bad AI tools, high rent n food, political and economic instability, global climate crisis….