I just read another post on FB from a whining millennial who says he can't get ahead in life due to high taxes and student loans/the cost of college. this is what I have to say when I hear younger people whining:
This type of "claim/statement" is insulting to "boomers" everywhere. After leaving a long marriage, I lived at the poverty level for several years as I entered the workforce at an entry level position at Walmart. Even though I had a BA and a teaching credential, a BA in English is fairly useless and I could not find a job as a teacher. I returned to school at age 47 to get an MA; that was 22 years ago and I will be paying student loans until I am 78. I bought a house 12 years ago when Pres. Obama "gave" me $8,000 to do so. My interest rate is the same as anyone else who is buying a house today. In fact, I refinanced twice to get a lower rate than the original loan.
With the MA, I haven't been able to get a full-time position, so I teach for three schools, part-time, online. I didn't go for a PhD because of my age. When my local school cut back the number of classes adjuncts could teach, I applied at a dozen or more online/seated school and got ONE interview; luckily, the school hired me. I work everyday grading and posting in discussions and will continue to work until I can no longer do so. However, I teach six classes concurrently because I have no pension and my SS is $1,090 a month. With so many classes, I make good money, but I save half it so I can have something to fall back on when I can no longer teach. I can afford to buy those expensive coffees (if I drank coffee) and have lunch/dinner out, but I don't because I don't want to wind up an old woman eating cat food. I drove the same second-hand car for 15 years until it died.
There are millions of boomers trying to live on SS who are at/below the poverty level. They worked at menial jobs their entire lives and were unable to pay a lot into SS OR save money. If I had not gotten an MA, I would be one.
I have read younger people say that old people are hogging all the good jobs and refusing to retire, thus preventing them from getting those good jobs. What do they expect some of us to do? Besides, 99% of them can't do my job and, in addition, the playing field is open and many of my colleagues are younger than I am.
So, no, "THIS" is not "IT." This blanketly stereotypes boomers and the claims are fallacies.
By the way, my millennial son makes in excess of $80,000 a year with an AA degree in IT--not an advanced degree. He would make more in a big city or another state, but he and his wife prefer not to move. Together, they make well over $110,000 a year--not bad for Missouri. My other son is homeless in Cali. "IT" can be about life choices.
Another by the way, I lived in a house without running water until I was six years old. Until my mother got a wringer washer, she washed clothes in a pot in the yard. We didn't have electricity until the late 40s/early 50s. "Dirt poor" doesn't even begin to describe how poor my parents and grandparents were. And yet, we had it better than inner city people because we could at least grow food. Five out of the seven kids my grandmother bore lived. I had untreated ear infections so bad that my ears bled--there was no local doctor and we couldn't get to bigger towns in winter.
Imagine that--boomers who had no luxuries, didn't buy a house until they were in their 50s, and face old age with uncertainty because unlike SOME of their counterparts, they didn't make a lot of money but worked for minimum wage their entire lives. In fact, "Over 15 million Americans aged 65+ are economically insecure—living at or below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) ($25,760 per year for a single person in 2021)."
Thanks, I did not realize just how Kate and I rate. I just did my taxes and as in years before I had a negative taxable income. No taxes paid. I would be more than happy to have had to pay a hundred thousand in taxes, as that would mean I had the income to afford it.
On the other hand, for the last few years, I have owed as much as $2000. That is fine as the income that made me owe far outdistanced what I owed. My only complaint is that the rich people need to pay their fair share. I have lived at the poverty level as a child and as adult; the fear of being there again drives me on.
@Gwendolyn2018 I used to do taxes for a dozen or so people. I always tried to explain to them that a refund wasn’t a gift from the government, but a loan they made to the government totally interest free! And if they didn’t make any income, they wouldn’t have taxes to pay. You aren’t taxed on what you have, but what you made.
@Barnie2years for some reason, people can't seem to understand this! I have heard people say that they were going to work less so they would get a bigger refund--this made no sense. I could pay less back if I dropped one of my schools, but the loss of income would FAR outweigh the tax "break" that I would get.
The thing is, there are whiny people in every generation, just as there are successful people and barely getting by people. There are rich people and poor people and vast numbers somewhere in between. Those who meet a challenge head on and those who crumble at the first sign of a challenge. Those who are scrupulously honest and those who steal anything not tied down.
The biggest difference between generations is, in my humble opinion, communication. Our generation didn’t have social media, 24 hour news, hundreds of channels of talking heads, You Tube, video cameras in our pockets with instant access to send them around the world in seconds.
Our parents didn’t have television growing up like we did, many didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing let alone a radio. Newspapers generally dealt with local news except for major calamities, and even then the news was a day or two, at the very least, old.
So when you see millennials or GenX or whatever kids posting rants and whines, just remember that they do not, except in the media represent all of their generation. And the fact that others want a better life than what you had is not diminishing your experience. We all had our own experiences that shaped our lives and continue to do so. Many of our contemporaries had as bad if not worse than what you did, many didn’t survive to even have a chance to do better.
Enjoy what you have, feel good about what you’ve accomplished on your own, and be thankful that you had the fortitude to push through. Not everyone in your circumstances might have done as well. That makes you special, not our generation.
And begrudging others their attempts at making their lives easier will never improve yours. One of the things I found most disturbing when I was a Union member, was when another Union went on strike to try and improve their contract, my fellow Union members would whine that the strikers already had more than we did, so they had no business trying to improve their lot. If early Union members had taken that attitude, sweatshops and abusive working conditions would still be the norm.
Sorry for the rant, love your spunk!
No apology needed for the rant and I agree with you! It is also amusing and annoying when "they" say the boomers need to step down from government positions because the younger people will change the world. No, they won't. That's what the hippies thought, and that got use nowhere.
"Get off my lawn...!"
If there were any kids in near me, I would yell at them to stay off my lawn!
After a lifetime of working menial jobs, sometimes two or three at a time, I now live on a disability income of less than $13K a year. Millennials like to claim that I'm experiencing the consequences of my "poor choices," as if I had access to some sort of crystal ball in my twenties that could have foreseen the direction the economy, and humanity in general, would be taking today.
Life is a crapshoot. I also have made every good choice as I had the ability to choose them. One has limits, some self-imposed and some arrive as where you live only has poor options. The trick is to make the best you can from what is available. Cudos to your ability to do what you have been able to do.
I had a friend who was working at McD's when she was in her mid 60s. She worked at menial jobs her entire life, but she always had a job. She never missed work and did her job as she was supposed to do it. She had no education, quit high school, and frankly, she was not smart enough to get a higher paying job or a college degree. After a lifetime of work, her SS was about $800 a month. According to the Mills. she also would be suffering the consequences of her "life choices." BS.
And I teach millennials--many (and I will say "many" ) are not college material. They might get a degree as it is the policies of schools today to pass 'em on, but they are also going to wind up working ad McD's. They would be better off attending a technical trade school.
@Gwendolyn2018 I was about 12 credits short of a degree. It would have been in Philosophy and I have no idea what difference this paper would do for me. I have always been a person who liked to run machinery. I had a scholarship to a technical school in Los Angeles but did not go for it. I did not want to live in LA. I went to a state school, I am glad I did make the choice I did, though I wish I had an idea of why I was actually there and what I was going to do with the degree.
Since being in college I have met several people with Ph.D. in Philosophy. Onle\y one had a job that used the information he learned, everyone else was a supporter of some social movement. I learned I could do the Political Movement thing easily, it just did not pay. Though I did meet a lot of women. Had no idea what to do with them other than discuss political movements and theory.
@dalefvictor honestly, philosophy is like majoring in English: people who major in both become teachers. Some might write books and get enough of them published to make a living, but not many. I got an MA in literature so I could teach, so I am good with my decision and it has afforded me a decent living. However, some adjuncts live hand to mouth.
Whining is a measure of selfishness. Endurance is measure selflessness. I imagine all of us need to step back from time to time, look around, and appreciate what we have.
Indeed.
When I look back on my life, I never expected to be where I am today. I appreciate everything
I have, and none of it was handed to me.