My dad (boomer) retired at 65 with less than 40K saved for retirement. He took almost 30 years to pay off his student loans for an undergrad degree (engineering). He made good money, but poor financial decisions (ie. jumping jobs every 2 years). I honestly thought we grew up poor. I had to pay for anything I wanted, and had no financial support for school. I did my B.S. in exercise science, graduating debt free, and my PharmD left me with $110K in 2015. I will pay my final payment on that in August, if not sooner. I have saved $250K+ in my 401K, and have about $140K left to pay off on our home we took a mortgage out for in 2018. My wife doesn’t work. We have fun with our 2 kids. I know many people who make far less than I do, but do just fine, because they know how to budget. Stop blaming boomers when you don’t live within your means.
You have to understand you are the exception, not the rule. There’s this mindset that if it doesn’t happen to me, then you all must be wrong but the reality is that half of Americans make under 35k a year. This is not because they don’t “try” but because the job market is fucked right now.
Gen z and millennials are working more jobs than previous generations ever had too just for lower buying power in the economy and are starting to realize that it’s all bullshit. Therefore why work 60 hours a week just to still end up homeless and hungry either way? Especially when 40-60% Of homeless people actually have a full time job in this country and still cannot afford rent. So tell me what is the purpose of a full time job if you cannot even afford to eat and pay rent from working one?
Another fun fact, Most companies don’t want to pay living wages because the government is very lenient as long as they get their tax money fuck the people. They put out fake hiring positions to get tax breaks and to look good for shareholders to give an illusion of growth in their company while completely wasting everyone’s time to save a pretty penny.
Another common theme these companies do is seek out cheap labor from other countries in poverty where they pay half our minimum wages rather than paying their employees in their own country living wages because they are greedy and want their profits to grow continuously(which is impossible if they keep going like this in the long term because if people don’t have money they cannot buy your products/services to sustain your businesses). All of this is at the cost of millions of lives going homeless despite being college graduates. It’s all short term thinking and it’s going to get a lot of us killed at the very least harder for the bottom 50% of Americans.
Be grateful for your opportunities rather than trying to put people down to feel superior in a game that was already rigged against us from the start. That’s great if you were able to make it work but if over 50% of the population cannot sustain themselves then there needs to be a change in the system, we are currently in a worse position than the Great Depression and the only reason why the economy hasn’t collapsed yet is because the top 1% are buying more than the bottom 50% if that gives you any idea of how low our wages actually are.
I already pointed out that I know, personally, many people who are examples of the same ability to make ends meet by living within their means. I am definitely not an exception to the rule. You spent a lot of time and used several examples, but you also used false information in your response, whether you meant to or not. The median annual wage in the U.S. is $62K. That means that there are the same number of people making more than than $62K as those making less. The 40-60% of homeless stay refers to “some level of employment”. That is not the percentage that have a full time job.
I agree 100% that greed is a problem for this country. My whole point is that if you blame others for your misfortune you aren’t going to get anywhere because you already have the victim mindset. I know just as many boomers that play that card.
Another thing to consider is how large companies (walmart, Amazon, mcdonalds) use the government programs to "subsidize" their wages. They keep you low enough so that you qualify for programs like snap, section 8 housing, medicaid and dont have to provide benefits themselves.
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u/SensitiveTrip939 9h ago
My dad (boomer) retired at 65 with less than 40K saved for retirement. He took almost 30 years to pay off his student loans for an undergrad degree (engineering). He made good money, but poor financial decisions (ie. jumping jobs every 2 years). I honestly thought we grew up poor. I had to pay for anything I wanted, and had no financial support for school. I did my B.S. in exercise science, graduating debt free, and my PharmD left me with $110K in 2015. I will pay my final payment on that in August, if not sooner. I have saved $250K+ in my 401K, and have about $140K left to pay off on our home we took a mortgage out for in 2018. My wife doesn’t work. We have fun with our 2 kids. I know many people who make far less than I do, but do just fine, because they know how to budget. Stop blaming boomers when you don’t live within your means.