I’m Gen X.
That’s all you needed to say. You’re part of a victim class that want’s the government to solve your problems. Getting an education post high school is easier than ever, but you can’t make a living with frivolous studies.People with tech school training have a better chance at a decent living than the geniuses being educated in liberal arts institutions, and not nearly the loan debt to show for it
I’m simply pointing out the reality that uneducated low skill jobs pay much less than they did 45 years ago. You can argue a different point, that people need to do x, y and z. I’m only stating life is different.
And, I think we have too much education already. Albeit not in the right areas. But generically I think we have way too many college graduates than the country actually needs. Thus, employers can be lazy and require a college degree to screen out the stupid and or those without ambition. Even tho the job may not require any specific skills past what should be taught in the eight grade. So more education or any advice for that matter only really works on a subset of the population. The whole can’t follow your advice because its simply not possible. There are a finite number of good jobs out there.
Anyways, the book you referenced sounds interesting and I personally agree with the points you shared. I’m only really arguing that on a macro level we are in worse shape. Charles Murray has a book where he argues the opposite. I believe it’s titled Coming Apart. He looks at census data and shows a static income for high school educated “households” between 1970 and 2010. But he doesn’t bother to tell us the percentage of two income households in 1970 vs. 2010.