Subsidized Survival: The Millennial Illusion

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Even those who look like they’ve made it — shielded by traditional leaning Instagram profiles, steady jobs, travel photos, maybe even a house in a quiet middle-class neighborhood. But quietly, every month, help arrives: a check from mom, a mortgage co-sign, a Venmo for groceries.

There’s a growing economic crisis no one wants to talk about. Entire generations — Millennials and Gen Z — who are supposed to be in the prime of their careers, building savings, starting families, and living like their parents did at this age, are instead blowing through what would have been their inheritance just to keep the illusion alive. Or worse, just to survive.

But what about the ones who don’t have help? Those whose parents can’t send anything, or aren’t around to try? They’re not faking stability, they’re fighting collapse. They’re crashing on couches, living with three roommates in overpriced apartments, moving back home with kids in tow, or slipping into homelessness while still working full time jobs. The illusion only exists if someone can afford to fund it.

What the Numbers Really Show

Real incomes for young adults are flat and even falling compared to previous generations. Research shows that each generations median wage at a given time is lower than the generation before it. Although Millennials’ household incomes at ages 36-40 are still 18% higher than Gen X’s were at the same time, the rate of progress has slowed dramatically in recent decades while wages have failed to meet inflation.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/subsidized-survival-the-millennial

[slightlv]

1. Grandson, hubby and I combined households and

split costs to keep all of us afloat. In addition to allowing us all to survive, my cats, should they survive me, will be well taken care of when I'm gone and the house is my grandson's, free and clear. We're back to living multi-generationally, as we did in the days of the great depression and prior. All the gains we made since FDR are being systematically erased. For me, I can trace it back directly to the early 1980's, and the advent of "saint Reagan." Things that had been traditional for decades prior to that suddenly were cast aside and illusory replacements offered. Instead of set pension plans, for example, we got IRAs and 401ks. Poor substitutes. Families who had worked for a major factory or other business, who had seen parents sometimes start and end their work careers in that one business suddenly found themselves thrown to the "Right to work" wolves. And where it used to be traditional and normal for one income to fund a family of four, it now took 2 incomes (or more) to do the same thing... and yet, still, women were consigned to "female" jobs like secretary or receptionist. They could be denied a position simply because they were of child bearing years, whether or not there was any desire to have a child. And if a position had to be cut, you could be sure the woman was fired before any man would be. And we're basically back to those days once again. In fact, it looks like we're going to have to do another VRA demand for women soon, and take history lessons from any we can find on the Suffragette movement that came before us.

And I'd better never come face-to-face with some self-serving male telling ME (or any of my female descendents) to submit to anyone... I wield a mean cane and walking stick!! And I am not shy of telling them where they can shove that kind of sh*t.

[Skittles]

2. I think young people have it MUCH HARDER than I did when I was young

when I got out of the military I worked an almost-minimum wage job while taking college classes, and I could still afford rent and was able to buy a used car - no WAY could they do that now - NOPE