37. Crippling depression =/= ‘laziness.’.
“Crippling depression =/= ‘laziness.’”
38. We’re at the mercy of the open market right now; for better or worse, it can be absolutely ruthless.
“The frustrating ‘You’re making what I was when I was your age, and I did just fine!’ sort of statement needs to be rebutted. I take the time to present and lay out why almost every time someone brings it up because it’s a very important lesson to understanding the current times. My argument is summed in one word: ‘Inflation.’
Now, inflation isn’t the devil itself, it’s a useful tool, and the fact that it continues to adjust prices over time is intentional BUT most common folk do not really know how it works. To a lot of people ‘inflation’ is just a word and a term thrown about by people on the news or market watch, nothing more. This is where the disconnect starts a lot of the time. Older generations still think of the dollar they had when they were younger, and treat it as if it is still the dollar today. It is not. The wages most older generations recognize as similar to what they were making back in the day, really need to have inflation applied to them. If a person started out making X dollars an hour and think by browsing over a present-day paycheck that millennials are now making that, by all means—they should please go and apply inflation to their original wages and compare for those of us in the present day: we’ll wait.
Here is a basic dollar value inflation calculator: That X$ per hour starting wage your grandfather made in the 60s-70s is not = to the starting wages today. Believing wages have held up with inflation is utter foolishness.
Also, while everything is much more accessible, knowledge, information, training—it’s also much more competitive. Getting hired for a job nowadays often means fighting with hundreds, if not thousands of other applicants depending on the field. There are WAY more people, not just in the USA, but also in the world! Sometimes you have to compete with people from overseas willing to work for half the pay because a normal US salary would make them the equivalent of a six-figure in their country. To them, taking a 40K salary for a 60K average job is a fair deal! That’s freaking hard to fight when you need to pay off rent/student loans/vehicle and transport costs/medical insurance. Tough gig.
So really, at the end of the day I try my best to explain that the playing field is just very different, and those who can’t adjust to the new normal we’re shifting towards are going to get run over and crushed. Successful millennials have to be extremely capable to acclimate to their environment. We’re at the mercy of the open market right now; for better or worse, it can be absolutely ruthless.
To shamelessly quote Tron: ‘The game has changed.’
My recommendation to other millennials is that you get lean, practice frugality, and capitalize on any advantage you can carve out for yourself as diligently as possible. Research retirement accounts, tax-advantaged accounts, and basic investing with regards to index funds and real-estate. Understand the value of your dollar. These are the tools available for people of lower salaries. It is most certainly going to be difficult, but it’s not yet impossible.”
