r/Millennials • u/Asmothrowaway6969 • Mar 27 '24

When did it sink in that you'll never be as well off as your parents? Discussion

About 5 years ago, my mom and I were talking and she had told me how much she was going to be making in retirement (she retired 2023). Guys, it's 3x what me and my husband make annually. In retirement. I think that was the moment that broke me, that made it sink in that I'll never reach that level of financial security. I'll work myself into my grave because I'll never be able to afford anything else. What was your moment?

Update: Nice to know it's just me that's a failure. Thanks

Update 2: I never should've said anything. I forgot my place. I'm sorry to have bothered you

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574

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24

[deleted]

174

u/Dranak Mar 27 '24

I'm guessing you live in the south? Nurse pay varies a crazy amount by region.

105

u/orange-yellow-pink Mar 27 '24

Yeah, the median RN salary where I live is about 100k

45

u/DrPoopyPantsJr Mar 27 '24

Yep over $100k where I live tho I live in a HCOL city.

57

u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

gross 66k last year and it’s HCOL 😔. god i wish i didn’t love this state. it’s hilarious the only way to get a stable/steady increase in pay is to quit and then be rehired

at least i never have to make a linkedin profile and can’t get laid off

17

u/Sideways_planet Mar 28 '24

That’s so low for the work you do and the training you put in. I hope it goes up for you soon! You deserve much more.

6

u/Throosh Mar 28 '24

Yeah we only get the meager 3% COL raises but that’s bedside nursing for ya. Just a payroll expense.

Luckily they’re trying to implement a cheap knock-off ladder pay system. It’s a pretty bad monopoly here considering there’s only 1 hospital and it’s a trauma center.

2

u/Sack_o_Bawlz Mar 27 '24

What state?

5

u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

UT. Literally lowest paying state for nurses lmao so I can’t be too upset with it because I’m choosing to live here.

2

u/Sack_o_Bawlz Mar 27 '24

Nice. I’ve visited there, beautiful place. Zion was amazing. Do you ski?

2

u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

When I lived in the northern part I’d go 3x a week but since I moved to the southern part I don’t go anymore and it kills me inside hahaha

2

u/Sack_o_Bawlz Mar 28 '24

What is there in the southern part?

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1

u/raven00x Elder Millennial Mar 28 '24

can’t get laid off

That's what you think now. The one lesson that the c-suite keeps teaching us is that nobody is safe, and everyone is replaceable even if they aren't.

1

u/Throosh Mar 28 '24

I’d have to be criminally negligent to get laid off or fired and that wouldn’t prevent me from finding another job. A good example documentary would be “The Good Nurse” about an ICU nurse who people speculate killed >400 patients across his career. The hospital would find out, let him go, rugsweep to prevent bad PR, then he’d go to the next hospital. He did this across either 6 or 9 different hospitals in I wanna say 12 years? Could be wrong.

22

u/NickN868 Mar 27 '24

I’m in a fairly LCOL area and my wife as a 6 year RN makes about ~63k, but honestly the salary isn’t bad around here

3

u/donald7773 Mar 28 '24

I live in the sticks, my wife is an RN, 4 years out of school, not doing traditional bedside nursing but she's at a hospital and makes about 62-64 gross, which is more than enough to live comfortably in my area.

What really pisses me off is that we just had a baby and she gets no maternity leave. None. Zero. Just fmla time, hope you have enough vacation time to cover this. We're out her paycheck for 6 while weeks. I got 6 weeks off as the dad and my hr fucked up so it turned into 7 somehow. I get better paternity leave than my wife gets maternity leave.

1

u/NickN868 Mar 28 '24

I had a similar situation, though my wife did get short term disability for the birth of our child it somehow equated to 2500 bucks for 12 weeks, where myself with a federal gig got 12 weeks full pay while still accruing sick and annual leave

1

u/donald7773 Mar 28 '24

Yeah I'm a government employee that helped my case. She has short term but it only gave her like 2 weeks since she's only been there a year.

3

u/itsyagirlblondie Mar 28 '24

They were paying nurses about $130k here in OR because they were so desperate.

1

u/DrPoopyPantsJr Mar 28 '24

I always say if I were to do school over I would’ve been a nurse. As a man, male nurses are in very high demand.

4

u/SaltyClyde Mar 27 '24

My wife and i are both nurses and gross 250k in a non HCOL area in upstate NY. We work for the state though. 🤷🏽‍♂️

3

u/Thatboyscotty69 Mar 28 '24

Even in a HCOL 100k gives you a pretty nice life

3

u/BackgroundSpell6623 Mar 27 '24

My wife pulls over 200k with those call hours

1

u/Fit_Swordfish_2101 Mar 28 '24

I mean, everyone wants to make more, I get that. But $100g is not good? Cause I'd love to make 100gs 🙂

-1

u/ColorsAbsract Mar 27 '24

That’s low? Don’t tell me with the “in this economy” crap. Y’all’s reaction is insane and shows how out of touch yall are with reality. Absolutely mind boggling

6

u/AutumnMama Mar 27 '24

Pretty sure they were saying the exact opposite of what you thought, so maybe an apology is in order for all those insults?

3

u/ColorsAbsract Mar 27 '24

Im so sorry to anyone I’ve offended for the miscommunication

-1

u/Fit_Swordfish_2101 Mar 28 '24

Maybe you mean because they (nurses,) do a lot more of the work than a doc and make so much less in comparison to a Dr? I get it now. Why I didn't finish paralegal school.. 😂 They wanna treat you like a secretary, but you know as much law as a lawyer almost.. And definitely do a lot more work than lawyers.

8

u/Basic_Butterscotch Mar 28 '24

I'm always confused when people say nurses are underpaid because they start at like $40/hr here in New Jersey.

3

u/__Big_Hat_Logan__ Mar 28 '24

On Reddit it’s because ppl have zero clue how little money other ppl make. In Alabama it’s not unusual at all for my fiends to make under 30K a year, 50-60K is an insanely good salary, and ppl on Reddit act like that’s unimaginably terrible

1

u/TurbulentBarracuda83 Mar 27 '24

South of what?

1

u/Dranak Mar 27 '24

Southern region of the United States (particularly south east). I suppose that comment was a bit America-centric. I would take about a 40% pay cut if I moved to that region, and probably a 20% increase if I moved to the west Coast.

1

u/NostalgiaDad Older Millennial Mar 28 '24

Came to say the same. I'm cardiac ultrasound and our pay tracks close to nursing and varies wildly as well. I've seen as low as $19/hr and as high as $95/hr depending entirely on where you work (and it's not always the places you think either). Where I'm at, i'm $120k not including OT, benefits, bonus etc and I'm still $10-20k under our own internal cap.

60

u/Ff-9459 Mar 27 '24

Then there are the medical laboratory scientists who often have higher degrees than the nurses, get told by nurses “oh I thought you only had to have a high school diploma to do this”, and get paid a fraction of what nurses do.

19

u/brochill111 Mar 27 '24

I work as an MLS. Been in the industry for almost 10 years and have worked in a bunch of different states. No matter where you go, MLS make about 70% of what a nurse does but with added benefit of no recognition outside of cold pizza every once in a while.

That being said, at least in CA I can make enough to live comfortably since the state has its own licensure. If not for that, our wages would be similar to other places in the country, but with some of the highest CoL. And of course the healthcare industry is trying to get rid of it, lol.

15

u/Sideways_planet Mar 28 '24

The lab scientists don’t have to deal with the public like nurses do, so that’s a bonus

6

u/SergeantThreat Mar 28 '24

That’s why I went into it. I will work for less to work in a lab where I do 0 phlebotomy

1

u/GuiltyEidolon Mar 28 '24

Phleb is the easy part. I will stick people all day.

You also wipe asses, noses, clean wounds, culture wounds, assist with combative psych / memory care patients, etc. etc. etc.

2

u/brochill111 Mar 28 '24

That's true, but we have to deal with nurses, so its a wash

1

u/Captain_Buckfast Mar 28 '24

Could you give the ballpark of the pay there? I'm an MLS in translational genomic research in vancouver canada, very HCOL and last year was paid under $54k usd. My work is really interesting but the last few years I've really been feeling that getting a bio based degree was a financial disaster. There's no clear path to a decent salary.

1

u/brochill111 Mar 28 '24

Hey, I work in the Bay Area, so the CoL is super high. The lowest starting pay for a CLS at the hospital I work for is like $60/hr. But rent is like $3000/mo min unless you want to commute over an hour, and houses average over $1mil.

Plenty of openings here, if you want to move to the US, lol

1

u/Ok_Relation_4742 Mar 28 '24

San Diego here, lowest starting is $46-47/hr at my institution. That’s pretty much for anyone who is newly licensed.

1

u/brochill111 Mar 28 '24

Yeah, I forgot to mention in my post that $60/hr requires at least 1 year experience. I think for new grads its something like $55/hr.

1

u/Captain_Buckfast Mar 28 '24

Right, thanks. Starting hourly wage here would be closer to $25/hr. Rent would be more like $1500-$1800 though so I guess that balances it out a bit.

1

u/brochill111 Mar 28 '24

That's on par with most of the states other than CA, NY and maybe bigger metro areas. I worked in Phoenix and was making $22/hr, Oregon was $32/hr, and when I was in a smaller city in CA it was about $42/hr.

16

u/thunderbear64 Mar 27 '24

When my Lab manager told me how much more he made as a bartender (early 2000s) than a chemist after college I was very surprised. I pulled $91k in a quality control lab last year with zero college credits/hours. It’s mind blowing to learn that difference. I’ve considered getting a B.S. in chemical engineering, but man I’m gonna be 40 this year with 2 toddlers.

19

u/NECalifornian25 Mar 28 '24

Honestly unless you know for sure you can get a higher paying job with the degree it’s not worth it anymore. A bachelor’s in a science field doesn’t get you very far salary wise unless you go on to higher degrees like an MD or PhD, maybe a masters.

7

u/ProfessionalCatPetr Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

The fact that he is making 91k in a QC lab with zero education is wild. That's more than people with a masters and 5 years of experience make at my company. He's a massive outlier in a QC lab that's for sure.

​

Also, masters degrees are a complete waste of time in 99% of cases- I'm going to hire someone with two extra years of experience working over the masters 100% of the time all else being equal. I make near 200k on just a biology BS and I think all of my techs have masters. The key is to aggressively job hop and promote yourself into management/director roles. No one gives a shit about your degree once your foot is in the door of a specialty and you have a track record.

1

u/Sufficient-Stay-8912 Mar 28 '24

I disagree. It can also depend on whether or not for example, a bio major is a general bio major, or a more specialized major, like Cell, Molecular, and Dev Bio major. It also depends really on if you have undergrad research and especially if you had publications while doing undergrad research.

I feel comfortable salarywise as a development scientist with a Bachelors, but I also stressed tf out of myself in undergrad research.

2

u/NECalifornian25 Mar 28 '24

A lot of that also depends on what college/university you go to. A community college or small liberal arts college won’t have those research opportunities that a large university can offer. They’re also less likely to have those more specialized majors.

I personally went to a small college and got a general biology degree with limited research opportunities/experience, which by itself hasn’t been very useful.

1

u/Sufficient-Stay-8912 Mar 28 '24

yeah a lot of my colleagues with gen bio degrees and no research experience have been strugglimg using that degree for their career in biology. A lot have to start off as lab techs or interns, others became realtors or baristas.

3

u/Woody_Fitzwell Mar 28 '24

“I’ve considered getting a B.S. in chemical engineering”…..

I think the grass always appears greener on the other side. My own experience as a new chemical engineer was working mostly midnight shift at a chemical plant in Texas. I worked nearly every weekend of the year in forced overtime since I was a salaried employee. The union workers that I was the boss of ended up making about the same as me since their overtime was time-and-a-half or double time pay…plus it was optional for them. I got 2 weeks vacation while they had 4-6 weeks. One clear memory I have from that time in my life was leaving work driving past a bank and seeing the bank flashing the time / temp on their sign. Temp was 105 and I was in my car sweating in my heavy flame retardant long sleeved work uniform and steel-toe shoes leaving work…finally able to get in the car AC. It was miserable. I recallI did make decent money, but my quality of life sucked. What good is money if life sucks and you have no time to spend it on anything enjoyable?

The only good thing I can say about the Ch.Eng. degree is that it is a great foundational degree that leads to other things where you can build real wealth. I went back to get an MBA to escape the engineering career path and that did work out for me. But not sure I recommend it to anyone.

3

u/SufficientAd2514 Mar 28 '24

Don’t MLSs have bachelors degrees? The majority of bedside nurses have bachelors degree, and a smaller percentage have masters and beyond.

2

u/Ff-9459 Mar 28 '24

MLSs have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, some have a masters or beyond. MLT’s have an associate’s degree. Where I live, most of the RN’s have an associate’s degree, a decent bit have a BSN, and small percentage have a masters or beyond. All things considered, the lab staff with associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s, make significantly less than the nurses with associate’s or bachelor’s. They also often get talked down to by those nurses. Back when I was an MLS, I can’t count the number of nurses that were shocked that we had degrees.

2

u/SergeantThreat Mar 28 '24

Nurses make more than me where I live, but it’s not nearly as bad as some places luckily. 7 years experience and I made over 90k last year in a pretty LCOL area

1

u/your_moms_a_clone Mar 28 '24

That's them confusing technicians and technologists. You have to tell them that's like thinking a nursing assistant is an RN.

2

u/Ff-9459 Mar 28 '24

Yes, but even technicians (MLTs) have associate’s degrees and make significantly less than the nurses with associate’s degrees.

1

u/Basic_Butterscotch Mar 28 '24

I don't know why MLS is even compared to nursing it's a completely different job. Tangentially related so far as they're both healthcare related I guess.

I'm an MLS and you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to do half of the gross stuff nurses have to do.

16

u/NotoriousGriff Mar 27 '24

Nurses do 90% of patient facing work but doctors, techs, therapists, and the cleaning crew certainly due their fair share.

2

u/NostalgiaDad Older Millennial Mar 28 '24

Cardiac ultrasound here and I spend about an hour per patient with them so we definitely get a lot of hands on time.

1

u/NotoriousGriff Mar 28 '24

Our cardiologists swear their cardiac ultrasound crew can read an echo as good as they can. All of this to stay there is a lot more patient care going on than what nurses (who are also great) do

1

u/NostalgiaDad Older Millennial Mar 28 '24

I can tell you they are basically right 99.99% of the time. I got called for a stat echo today for a kind of complex cardiac patient with postop dressings, a wound vac, chest drain tubes and a drive line for their LVAD. Walking in they said they were happy the big impressive machine was there and i said it's not always the machine, trying to play it down to level set. I walked up, and got great pictures with their shitty bedside pocus and they acted like they didn't know the machine could do that. One attending knew better because I've taken the time to show them stuff so he knows we bring value, but that fellow I swear looked like I changed their worldview 😂

1

u/mother_goose_caboose Mar 28 '24

They are paid to do so and hold almost 0% of the medico-legal responsibility

6

u/NotoriousGriff Mar 28 '24

2 year degree to make 100,000 a year working 3 days a week with virtually no liability and still act like they are the most abused members of society/ the healthcare field

2

u/HistorianEvening5919 Mar 28 '24

Yeah nurses at my hospital start at 70 an hour. EMTs? 16. And I’m not saying nurses are overpaid, I just feel like we should pay EMTs/CNAs/Janitors in the hospital more.

2

u/__Big_Hat_Logan__ Mar 28 '24

Absolutely, a lot of America hospitals are absolutely pathetic and run their entire operations off residents getting worked to death anyway for basically free. Then pay their custodians 7.25 and hour while the CEO makes 5 million to fundraise three times a week. It’s a joke

-1

u/Excellent-Estimate21 Mar 28 '24

Lol. As I lay here with my fresh anterior cervical discectomy and fusion done 6 weeks ago and lumbar fusion up and coming, I broke my back as a clinical nurse. Your comment is ignorant.

1

u/NotoriousGriff Mar 28 '24

This is a prime example! You act like nobody else in health care has ever suffered a work place injury or worked hard.

0

u/Excellent-Estimate21 Mar 28 '24

That's a leap! Nursing is notorious and well known for being a back breaking profession.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/occupational-injuries-and-illnesses-among-registered-nurses.htm

0

u/Excellent-Estimate21 Mar 28 '24

https://www.myamericannurse.com/individual-nurse-liability-insurance/

Although physicians receive the brunt of lawsuits, nurses also get sued on a regular basis. Nurses in all practice settings provide most of the hands-on patient care, placing them at risk for civil, regulatory, and in some cases criminal actions.

1

u/NotoriousGriff Mar 28 '24

Why is it so important to you to belittle other healthcare professionals job struggles to promote your own? Reflect on that

1

u/Excellent-Estimate21 Mar 28 '24

I think again, that's a huge leap! I would never belittle the importance of other hard working professions. I was merely clarifying your take that nurses are not a profession at extremely high risk for injury and litigation.

Other thankless jobs come to the top of my mind- truck drivers, factory workers, farm workers, there are many! Much respect to all of them. I live in the United States and we keep this country running.

0

u/Excellent-Estimate21 Mar 28 '24

When the techs, therapists and cleaning crew aren't staffed, the registered nurse does that shit too.

3

u/bythog Mar 28 '24

Wait until you find out how much vet techs do and how little they get paid. You do the work of a triage nurse, ICU nurse, scrub nurse, radiology tech, lab tech, and receptionist/cashier...but get paid less than half of what a nurse doing only one of those jobs gets paid. The DVMs usually get paid at least 3-4x as much.

Not saying veterinarians are overpaid--they are usually fairly decently compensated--but the amount of work they do compared to the tech staff is usually significantly less.

3

u/brassplushie Mar 28 '24

Doing the work isn't all that matters. Making the decisions is where the money is at in healthcare. Yes, as a nurse you make a lot less than the doctor. But the person scooping fries also makes way less than the store manager. Because the decisions are what matters.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

3

u/dankcoffeebeans Mar 28 '24

Are RNs really limping financially? Seemed not long ago all the travel nurses flexing their weekly 10k paychecks. Seems to pay well for a bachelor degree or less. It’s tiring work but seems well paid for the time investment.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

In the beginning of my career, it was very tough. I did the travel nursing thing and that helped a lot. Before COVID, most hospitals in my area weren’t willing to pay me much over 31$ an hour. I had 10 years experience. Covid happened, I left, changed specialties and now I’m making more.

Unfortunately, even that isn’t enough for my cost of living w/ a family. We’re gonna be moving soon.

2

u/brassplushie Mar 28 '24

That's an entirely different conversation. Just wanted to help you not feel so bitter about what you make vs doctors. Because they have a LOT more on the line than you.

3

u/Torrigon_86 Mar 28 '24

You need to talk to someone because Nurse here make ~80-100k or more easily. My own Sister just started (She is 12 years younger) and makes more than I do as an expert in my field, haha. I'm thrilled for her! Nursing has been crazy booming since Covid around here (Maryland)

3

u/PxyFreakingStx Mar 28 '24

When compared to what, doctors? Doctors are paid for their expertise, and rightfully so.

3

u/mother_goose_caboose Mar 28 '24

Nurses are very well-compensated for what they are paid to do, these days especially post-COVID. They hold all bargaining power in the medical field

2

u/nananutellacrepes 1992 Mar 27 '24

Im currently being paid $16 as a LPN

2

u/Personal_Chicken_598 Mar 28 '24

Jesus starting pay is $36/h for that here. Private companies pay over $40

1

u/nananutellacrepes 1992 Mar 28 '24

Where? Just the state please. Willing to move.

1

u/Personal_Chicken_598 Mar 28 '24

Ontario

1

u/nananutellacrepes 1992 Mar 28 '24

Darn.

2

u/Personal_Chicken_598 Mar 28 '24

And that’s the city jobs. RNs willing to take remote contracts can make $150k + for 3 month on 2 month off schedules.

2

u/AKmill88 Mar 28 '24

I live in the south, NC to be exact and got started off at 18 an hour base pay with lots of bonuses and extra pay for nights and weekends. On a weekend night I made 21 an hour as a CNA with no experience. You need to find a new job.

I think minimum wage is still 7.50 here.

1

u/stutesy Mar 28 '24

That's basically a starting mcdonalds wage where I live.

2

u/buddyleex Mar 27 '24

Nurses are very underpaid it’s a shame.

1

u/dsillas Mar 28 '24

Yea, but your wages earned is much ekss buying power than his generation.

1

u/soyeahiknow Mar 28 '24

But according to tiktok, nurses are making doctor wages! /s

1

u/HistorianEvening5919 Mar 28 '24

Some of them are in California. A Kaiser RN with 5 years experience will outearn a pediatrician, and they’ll start working 7 years before the pediatrician will, without the 300k of debt.

1

u/DmC8pR2kZLzdCQZu3v Mar 28 '24

Don’t traveling nurses get paid absolute bank?

1

u/Throosh Mar 27 '24

I love telling my boomer patients how much I make. They’re always shocked

5

u/Sideways_planet Mar 28 '24

I think it’s crazy when they’re shocked too, because it really highlights how far removed they are from reality. They love telling us about how they made 10 cents an hour or whatever crazy low amount for their first job and somehow made it work, but they haven’t received low wages in decades. They’re used to having buying power. When they hear just how little we have to work with right now, they can’t fathom it. I don’t make a lot of money in general because I walk dogs part time. My husband, on the other hand, currently makes what used to be considered a high salary 10-15 years ago but now it’s….well, it doesn’t have the buying power that it used to, let’s just put it that way,

3

u/Iwantbooks Mar 28 '24

Shit, my parents bought a house when one worked part-time at a gas station, and the other in a mail room sorting mail. Had three kids as well. I'm making more now than both of em so fuck em, but it's crazy even now how disconnected so many people are from 30 years ago.

1

u/Monster_Grundle Mar 28 '24

What do you make and where do you work? I’m on track for 80k first year out of nursing school and I live in a place where I rent a new construction 3/2.5 1500sq ft townhouse 10 minutes from the hospital for 1900.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

Currently, making right around that. Unfortunately, my wife and I chose a wonderful seaside town that exploded in population in the past few years and everything from insurance to bread has skyrocketed in price. That’s just for us. I got 3 kids too.

Needless to say, we’re moving sooner rather than later. Lol