Millennials are legit screwed

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/06/millennials-are-legit-screwed.html

2 Likes

I read that to my husband, and he asked if we are somehow secret millennials. That entire list is us, minus the living with our folks. (We support them financially.)

34 Likes

I’ve had a really rough time living on my own for the better part of a decade, i think a pretty large portion of that has been my own doing. Adjusting to adulthood has been tough, but i can’t say that opportunities have not been repeatedly given to me.
The one bit that i am pessimistic about is college and student loans. I feel like all of that was a complete waste of effort, time and money. And it still affects me to this day.
I am however thankful that i am in a more stable situation now, with a decent job that has allowed me to grow as a person. Though i still feel like i’m living paycheck to paycheck, even if i am making way more money now than i ever have in the past.

10 Likes

So this week millennials exist?

7 Likes

They’re just mad because we ruined everything before they had a chance to!

33 Likes

Yeah…I think this mostly applying to millenials is nonsense.

I dunno about the 'states, but a little over 1/3 of the entire Canadian populace works at or just above minimum wage. For life.

11 Likes

I blame the Green Hippies. Back in the day you could work in the coal mine for decent pay at a Union protected job. You didn’t have to worry about retirement because you died from Black Lung before that.

Ah, those were the days.

Now with all the “coal bad!” rhetoric, you would have to spend all your pay drinking after work to alleviate yourself of the guilt. And have you seen the price of craft beers?

24 Likes

Well at least we all have those trophies they gave us. We can always hock those in a pinch.

22 Likes

Certainly drugs and sex. Then we fucked with the economy because why the hell not.

2 Likes

Are you Arthur Scargill?

8 Likes

I blame the Hipsters. Being unable to work, I lost my job in the dildo mines after some hipster, high on artisanal beard balm, ran me over with his Penny Farthing, then with much grunting and straining, gradually accelerated away from the scene.
 

From what I understand, us Boomers invented intercourse and drug use. History gets hazy after that, on account of the latter.

36 Likes

Negative. I am a meat Popsicle.

22 Likes

These kinds of reports are IMO completely counter-productive, in that they measure success, wealth, etc ONLY in terms of participating in the very same economy which is acting to marginalize them (as well as nearly everybody else). It isn’t hard to argue that when buying into an obviously rigged game, every move is reenforcing one’s own oppression. Even for those who consider themselves still comfortably “middle class”, it’s still a losing game for you if every dollar you make makes 100-1000 for somebody working against you.

If you measure wealth the same ways that the 0.1% do - you’re gonna have a bad time!

8 Likes

In my (Boomer) opinion, this is largely to be expected (that is not to say that it’s okay). During their lifetimes (in the the US anyway), among the things they’ve seen: two “100-year” market corrections within a decade, near-zero (net negative even) interest rates for a good quarter of their lives, completely flat real wages for 40 years or more, and house-payment-worthy student debt.

They’ve spent much of their lives in a world where most of the benefits of macroeconomic growth (and the wealth it generates) were enjoyed by others.

19 Likes

The entire list is the 70’s in the North Eastern USA, I got the f’ out in 76’ and never went back.

5 Likes

"74 percent are worried they won’t be able to pay their healthcare bills if they get sick."
To some degree it sounds like millennials aren’t any more screwed - they’re just more aware of being screwed than other generations have been.

23 Likes

Millennials are probably less screwed than the Baby Boomers who happen to be the reason this extremely successful first world nation seems like a developing nation in so many ways. It’s one thing to be struggling and 30 it’s another to have the same concerns at 60, and with how the young are shaped and continuing to hold their opinions (rather than lose their heart) things will be forced to change eventually.

Hell you can easily find an article about the top earning millenials who are less concerned about material wealth and how much that confuses older people in the same positions.

5 Likes

‘We’re screwed but we’re not going to vote’
-millennials

4 Likes

My Dad (from the “Silent” generation between the “Greatests” and the “Boomers”) often said that he felt sorry for the Millenials and younger generations. Given climate change, the economic shift that’s underway as we close out the postwar anomaly, the massive debt that seems required to achieve a dignified life in mainstream America, and the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism worldwide, I couldn’t help but agree with him.

I’d only add that a lot my fellow Gen Xers are facing a precarious old age in the same leaky lifeboat. And many about-to-retire members of the Boomer generation that’s largely responsible for the 35+ years of policy that led to this mess in America got dinged hard in the aftermath of 2008, too.

@emo_pinata

Hell you can easily find an article about the top earning millenials who are less concerned about material wealth and how much that confuses older people in the same positions.

I always find that amusing, the Boomer’s puzzlement over why an urban Millenial making good money would put $6000 toward an amazing vacation experience but not commit $70k toward a luxury car that isn’t used 90% of the time.

16 Likes

"Vote for the establishment corporatist DINO or Marmot Head Hitler. You have to vote. No third parties."
Better?

16 Likes