That has already happened to lots of people. Many, many others are dropouts and we are paying for them through social security disability, and on and on.
The only way I see things getting better is for the cost of living to go way down. Even then there wouldn't be the type of jobs to support it for enough people.
Come on. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed money. It won't last forever.
This is a problem than can't be solved by fighting. Sorry I feel that way. I don't know where it will end.
In the meantime, I think people who are in thinking mode should think as innovatively as they can and try to make their own jobs somehow and not depend on corporate or government daddies who only enslave you in the long run.
We have almost 1/5 of our population having jobs paid for out of tax revenues at the federal, state, and local levels. These jobs contribute NOTHING to the GNP. Then we have thousands of jobs which suck up money in the health and insurance fields. All necessary, I suppose, but produce no revenue. Most of the rest of the jobs pander to people who don't or can't do things for themselves like service, carpet installation/cleaning, etc.
Farmers are another category and the average person can never hope to break into that field.
What kinds of jobs are left for our kids? Even college is going to be no guarantee to get and keep a job that will keep one in a decent lifestyle in the future.