'Boomers can't conceptualize': This college student on TikTok says older generations don't know about inflation, never had to fight for jobs — and the comments are in full support / (Barf Alert!)

Yahoo! Finance ^ | May 13, 2023 | Vishesh Raisinghani

[Tired of Taxes]

Since the 1980s, the economy has changed in ways that are simply difficult to describe. The real impact of inflation and wage stagnation isn’t apparent unless you dig deeper into the numbers. That’s precisely what a recent college grad did when her mother commented on the idea that young workers “expect too much.”

“I think boomers can’t conceptualize this [struggle] because they never had to fight for jobs,” said Cat, a 21-year-old college student. She recently took to TikTok to explain why older workers might find it difficult to empathize with the economic struggles of younger people after a discussion with her mother about mismatched expectations. The video has been viewed 2.2 million times as of May 12.

Cat says her mother made $36,000 a year as an entry-level bank teller in 1980. Meanwhile, the average entry-level worker in America now makes $55,260 a year, according to her calculations. However, when adjusted for inflation the entry-level salary in 1982 — about $33,700 — was closer to $102,200 in today’s dollars.

Effectively, a recent college grad is making half as much as his or her parents did if they graduated 40 years ago. This is also true for low-income workers. The federal minimum hourly wage in the U.S. was $3.10 in 1980 and just $7.25 today. These workers may have doubled their income over 40 years, but it’s apparent the cost of living has accelerated more quickly.

-(SNIP)-

“Boomers had the door wide open and then slammed and barred it behind them,” said one angry commenter to Cat’s video.

[TalBlack]

Daughter is doing what many in moms generation did; imagining she knows more and has better understanding than people decades older than her do. The circle is complete.

[machman]

Entry level tellers don’t make $36K per year today, let alone in 1980.

Don’t have empathy for stupid people. You would think this generation would know about the internet and Google.

From Zip recruiter:———

As of May 6, 2023, the average annual pay for a Bank Teller in Texas is $27,605 a year. Just in case you need a simple salary calculator, that works out to be approximately $13.27 an hour. This is the equivalent of $530/week or $2,300/month.

[SoftballMominVA]

I was a bank teller in the 80’s. I started at $13k and it was a big deal when I moved into the back office and after 5 years I hit 20k. This was in the DC area, which I would have thought would be higher

[EBH]

I was a bank teller in the 1980’s and never made any where near that much. More like 15-20,000 per yr. If I recall it was like $8.10 per hour.

[sauropod]

Collector’s item.

[HamiltonJay]

Agreed no bank teller was making 36k in 1980

Not even close

I can remember both my parents taxable income was 20k ish combined in the late 1980s and we had 4 kids. Mom was a secretary and dad was a navy Cot
Corpsman.

My mom had been a teller for years before her secretary gig, and she never made anything remotely close to 36k a year.

I walked out of college in 1994 with a degree in comp sci and the median wage for a comp sci degree was 38k

This poster is ignorant,

I will say that wages have declined in real dollars since the 70s. But no way in hell was a bank teller making 36k in 1980

[Hot Tabasco]

If the mother had a job in 1980 during the Carter years, she was lucky. Around that time my company sold off it's wheel and brake division in Detroit, resulting in approx. 800 employees losing their jobs. Thousands of people in the auto industry here in Detroit lost their jobs and businesses as did small tool and die shops and small parts suppliers that closed down

A few of our employees had to move to Texas to find work. Not even going to mention the gasoline shortages and mandatory nation wide 55 MPH speed limit.

[himno hero]

With his attempt to stall the seventies inflation he crashed the global economy for 5 years. All the G7 nations were messed due to their trade relationships.
As a result, the global turd world nations did worse.

Its like today’s problem, the unbounded expansion of the American money supply created inflationary pressures in the US and were exported once again.

It just shows might of America one more time.

With the obamanites in power we know the disaster ahead

Only a Trumpian enema can save the corrupt shithole the obamanites have created... Globally.

[FLT-bird]

I’m not even a Boomer. Those were my older brother and sisters. I’m a Gen Xer. Lemme tell ya honey, never had to fight for jobs???? You don’t know your azz from a hole in the ground to say something like that. I came out of grad school just in time for the tech bust of 2000. Think jobs were plentiful? Think again. We were in a recession.

Then after I managed to get to my feet and climb out of poverty having been in school most of my 20s, came the Great Recession. ie THE worst and most prolonged recession this country has had since the Great Depression. Didn’t have to fight for jobs? LMAO!!!!! Tell ya what. If we go into a recession this year as is expected and if you’re still struggling along with the rest of America in in 2031 which, yes, is 8 years from now, come talk to me. Then you’ll understand what the Great Recession was like.

[mikelets456]

The problem with these millennials and some of Gen Z, is they’re too stupid to realize government has caused all these problems and all this would be a moot point if government was reined in….the hard times would be so hard if we had a more limited role of federal government.

With that said, our industry is “scary” slow right now. God help us

[PIF]

Poor fellow is ill-educated - doesn’t know the meaning of the polysyllabic word he flung around, not even modern American history. Sad.

[Yo-Yo]

I was in the Air Force when Jimmah Carter had 14% inflation and government pay raises were limited to a 5.5% pay cap to “fight inflation.”

When I went in in 1977 my Vietnam-era G.I. Bill would have covered full tuition and room & board at a major midwestern college. When I left four years later, the amount of the G.I. Bill didn’t change, and wouldn’t even cover full-time tuition at that same institution.

The first house my wife and I bought in 1987 had a 12.5% mortgage.

No, we never knew the pains of inflation.

[SamAdams76]

I was just starting out around 1980. No way was an entry level job for a bank teller paying $36k. Maybe the bank vice president.

I joined the military making $501 a month as a private - $6k a year. Upon discharge in 1985, my entry level wage in the electronics industry was just shy of $20k a year and that was considered good money at the time.

[fluorescence]

To be fair, the feds have jimmied the calculation of inflation so much that the numbers today are not comparable to the numbers in 1980.

Yep...

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

[NoLongerTrappedInNY]

I graduated from college with a computer science degree in 1988 and considered myself lucky to find a job as programmer starting at $26K after months of searching. Oh yeah, and my new car loan was at 10% interest. Fun times.

[joma89]

The dumbing down of the next generation goes on unabated.

[Wilderness Conservative]

Logan’s Run will soon be a documentary.

[ronniesgal]

best answer ever! and i agree we were better off.

[DownInFlames]

Yep. Got out os college in 78 and started entry level programming at $6.75 per hour. I thought that was a fortune until Jimmy Carter started his crap.

[Baldwin77]

Video was just taken down.