Federal politicians' deficit spending and vote-buying destroyed the currency:
1972 McDonalds menu
Posted on 05/28/2026 11:50:55 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
For many millennials, the economy can feel like a game of musical chairs where previous generations already grabbed the seats, refinanced them at 3% interest and now insist there are still plenty left if younger people would just "budget better." Somewhere along the way, the American dream started feeling less like a finish line and more like one of those carnival games rigged just enough to keep people throwing money at it.
That frustration spilled into Reddit's r/economy subreddit when one millennial who grew up in the 1990s posted a blunt message about the growing disconnect between younger Americans and boomers over money, housing and financial expectations.
"I'm a millennial who grew up in the 90s and what boomers don't understand about us is that we're working three times as hard for a third of what they had at our age," the Redditor wrote. "And the milestones they want us to hit weren't postponed by laziness, they were priced out of reach by the economy they voted for."
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
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Such crap.
I don’t deny that the kids are dealing with crushing school debt. I appreciate that homes and cars are more expensive.
But things were not all ice cream and candy in the late 1970s to late 80’s.
Can you imagine the screeching of mortgages were at 15%? Or unemployment at 10.3%? Because that what it was when I graduated from college.
In any event, if kids have partners and a career plan…they can absolutely work it out. I have two kids, neither are “management.” One is a paramedic married to a state trooper. The other is an artist married to another artist. Both couples have bought houses and have kids. I never gave them a nickel after their weddings. (I would have, but they never asked.) They started their “lives” about two years later than my wife and I did—but they are truly living the American Dream.
As much as I would like to think my kids are “special” they aren’t. If they can do it… other kids with better jobs can do it as well.
This has nothing to do with “understanding” what they are going through. It’s looking at people (their peers) and wondering why they are not putting in the effort that I put in, my wife put in, or my kids have put in to achieve in life.
It’s funny…most of my kids close friends are all hard working and “living the dream.” It looks like they are having fun too. They bitch about a lot of stuff, but not about the job market or their homes.
“Those 5k dollars were worth way more then 40k a year now.”
Show the math.
My first real job after picking strawberries at 10 years old, was working for Sears in 1977 when I was a HS senior. $2.75/hr + 3% sales commission. I thought I was rich!
Life is not a zero-sum game.
Just because one person gets richer doesn't mean someone else gets poorer.
The main difference in purchasing power between boomers and later generations are that the younger generations' discretionary expenditures are higher.
Things such as expensive cars with lots of options, expensive cell phones, expensive gaming computers, larger houses with higher rents/mortgage payments, expensive designer clothes & shoes, expensive Starbucks coffee, buying lunch instead of brown-bagging, eating out for dinner, etc.
The cost of living vs. income has remained pretty stable over the years. Sure, prices are higher, but so are wages.
For example, the median annual income in 1970 was ~$9,900. Median home prices in 1970 was ~$25,000.
The median annual income in 2020 was $97,973. The median home price in 2020 was ~$317,000.
Wages in 2020 were ~10 times higher than those in 1970.
The home prices in 2020 were a little higher at ~13 times, but as I say homes today are larger, with more amenities, such as garages and central HVAC, etc., so command higher purchase prices.
This is why I don't buy their complaint that they're having to work 3 times as hard to achieve, 1/3 of what boomers had at their age.
They just need to be more frugal and stop wasting their money.
They just don't want to admit it.
They are also deluded about "what they had". I was talking to someone this week who was complaining about how "small" the new houses in a housing development were at around 1,200 square feet. His parents had started out in a much bigger house!
Asked him for the address of his childhood home and pulled it up on Zillow. 846 square feet. And that was the "larger" one they had moved into.
We don't remember things very well and, frankly, social media is lying to you about a LOT of things.
Same here!
They expect a 5,000 square foot home on the ocean, a brand new sports car, a twice a year five star vacation, and dinner in expensive restaurants every night, without taking any financial risks or working very hard to achieve that, which takes years of hard work.
Why don’t they complain to the Ivy League schools who have endowments in the tens of billions of dollars? They could cut tuition by 90% and scarcely put a dent in that money.
And then they indoctrinate you, rather than educating you.
And housing? Complain to the liberal land use types who put absurd restrictions on builders. And then there are the nonsensical permits and environmental BS. All of that and more drives up the price of housing.
Another example of how it was a mistake to get rid of the draft.
Take a chainsaw to government. Not the safetied, OSHAd versions we have today. Find one of the old McCulloch bruisers with the half a motorcycle engine on it.
Ignore the bleeding and screaming. Keep cutting.
Get government out of the way. That’s the only fix.
War Baby.
That’s the problem in a nutshell...they vote democrat.
I made $18.90 a day after getting my BS degree in Biology. Taking inflation into account, that is $76/day, or $9.5/hour.
I’m no fan of open borders or free trade, but not many recent college grads working for less than $10/hour...
TheRe you go stating facts again.
Wages just aren’t keeping up. Too much of the pie is going to capital. In 1980 we didn’t seem to have so very much wealth concentrated in so very few hands.
The only one of your facts I question is the cost of college. $2400 a year is about what it cost me to attend a state school then. That is about what I could make in a summer and my parents sent me $200 a month during school where I also worked about 40 hours a week. Inflation adjusted I think the cost would be much more than you state.
25 years later I have no idea what it cost to send my son to college. Most of it was paid by the USAF so I bought him a house and an airplane when he graduated.
Federal politicians' deficit spending and vote-buying destroyed the currency:
1972 McDonalds menu
In 1975, the median U.S. household income was roughly $13,720 In 1975, the average cost of a new home in the United States was roughly $42,600. so 3x salary. Today average salaries are around 62k so 3 times 62 is 186,000. so with average prices around 500k it's definitely become more difficult.
They regard it as someone who is older.
They called a young friend of mine a "Boomer". She is not quite 30.
“And their budgets include all kinds of eating out or delivery fees...”
Just out of college, 1980, I bought DRIED BEANS to soak because canned beans were too expensive. I doubt recent grads even know what those are.
Nice that you bought your first house in your 20s. I bought mine when I was 40 - in 1998. Back then, the Texas panhandle had cheap housing.
The problem now is likely due more to regulations and zoning than “boomers”. And no, I’ve never voted for a tax increase or more regulations.
The problem is the ruling class project of exporting productivity and importing cheap labor, not those who previously made it.
Boomers are not the problem. The left is the problem, which includes leftist Boomers as well.
I don’t have children, ergo no grandchildren.
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