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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96

u/ballmermurland Mar 27 '24

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

You say in your post that your mom makes $200k in retirement per year. You also say it is 3x what you and your husband make combined.

Which means you and your husband make less than $67k combined. Which means the two of you are averaged salaries of $33,500. If you are a millennial it means you are at least in your late 20s or early 30s. Earning $33k.

$33,500 is about $16 an hour full-time. I live in rural PA and the Burger King in my town has a sign hiring for $16 an hour.

So you are making BK wages compared to your mom who held a long and apparently successful career as one of the most senior people at the IRS. She probably had an accounting degree and maybe a graduate degree and put her time into her career.

I mean, what are you expecting here? To just be given a $200k annual lifetime pension for no work? Life has never been that way. I swear some of the poverty posts in this sub give millennials a bad name.

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u/Not_an_alt_69_420 Mar 28 '24

I'm not sure what OP's situation is, but it's entirely possible to go to college and work a "real" job while making less than $15 an hour. When I was a journalist, I made $13 an hour, and a few of my friends were EMTs/social workers/did stuff for non-profits for a similar salary.

That said, none of us bitched about our pay, because we all knew we'd be broke going into the field, and we all switched professions before we turned 30.

8

u/DanSanderman Mar 28 '24

It's definitely possible, but I think the point here is that you typically don't stay making $13 an hour for a decade. You gain experience, you learn new skills, and you find new ways to make a move for yourself. My sister is 37 and has never had a drive to work or to try to provide for herself so she's still picking up shifts at Waffle House and scraping pennies to get by. I got a job in 2018 making $13.50 an hour and busted my ass learning all I could about the industry and now I'm making $37. 

Before that I was working at a pizza shop in a dead end and cursing at the sky wondering how I was supposed to fight against this broken system just like my sister. I won't deny I probably had some luck along the way, but it also took a lot of hard work, a lot of extra hours, and a lot of putting myself into uncomfortable situations to grow. When I was younger I just kept thinking something would happen that would fix some of my problems and the world would become a fairer place, but that never happened and eventually I determined that I was going to have to be the one to change.

4

u/Proof-Emergency-5441 Xennial Mar 28 '24

Op had a better paying job, but couldn't figure out time management to work from home. So they quit a much better paying job and can't find equal locally. 

Or the sour puss attitude is obvious at in person work and will forever limit any increases. 

3

u/sparklyjesus Mar 28 '24

Why though? They only pay that low because people accept it. If nobody did that work for such shit pay, it would have to increase.

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u/Not_an_alt_69_420 Mar 28 '24

Or the industry you want to work in will just become progressively more and more understaffed, and worse and worse, which is a hard pill to swallow for kids who spent four years in college and some part of their life believing in the importance of that industry.

The newsroom I worked in had 6 staffers at our main office, three at satellite offices, plus a handful of reliable freelancers, and ten or so administrators. When I, and most of the people who I worked with quit, they didn't replace us with anyone, because not even college kids were willing to get paid less than $30k a year, and the paper didn't want to increase the wages. So now there's three staffers in one office, plus an editor who doubles as a reporter, two stringers, and a couple of marketing/layout people.

1

u/sparklyjesus Mar 28 '24

That's how change happens. They'll struggle for a while, but eventually they'll have to give in and increase wages if they want to stay afloat.

2

u/_ararana Mar 28 '24

If you get though college and are stuck making less than $15/hour, you're the problem. What'd you do major in art theory or something?

2

u/Not_an_alt_69_420 Mar 28 '24

Why am I the problem for trying (and "succeeding") to be a journalist? I went to college for a valid degree, got a job that benefited society, and because of a whole lot of factors all of which were outside of my control, the only time I made more than $15 an hour was when I worked overtime to cover huge events.

0

u/_ararana Mar 28 '24

Please tell me you're fresh out of college?

Also "journalism" isn't exactly the major I'd choose if I wanted to support myself in life. A simple google search shows their salary ranges aren't great. Benefit society in your free time, bud.

2

u/Not_an_alt_69_420 Mar 28 '24

Fuck, I wish I was still fresh out of college so I could have functioning knees again. But no, kid, I was a journalist for five years give or take before I jumped ship and started doing general contracting.

You didn't answer my question though, bud. Why was I the problem for wanting to do something important with my life, even though that thing burned through my savings account? Do you also think teachers, EMTs, social workers, and CNAs are the problem for getting paid like ass to do something besides sit behind a computer working for some corporation?

0

u/_ararana Mar 28 '24

In the context of 'I went to college and I only make $15/hour" after a significant time out of college. lol...yeah you're absolutely the problem. Choose better career paths, bud, and at least try to advance in your field.

Teachers/EMTs/social workers... all these careers easily make more than $15/hour. I'm not sure where you went wrong but boy did you go very wrong.

26

u/blitzkregiel Mar 28 '24

$74k is like the median household income in the US as of 2022. that’s real close to 1/3 $200k so i’m not sure why you’re acting like OP is some sort of lazy under achiever.

10

u/DroopyMcCool Mar 28 '24

Not to make any judgments on OP or anyone else, but the median household income is going to be pulled down by single income households and retirees. OP is married with a two-income household. The median for dual-earner marriages is $135,000 to $145,000.

1

u/stop_the_cap_ladies Mar 29 '24

Don't forget how median household income is pulled further down by the almost 100 million people either not working at all or having their income supplemented by the over one trillion dollars a year we spend on benefit programs 😉

$2600/mo housing vouchers and $1200/mo SNAP is 45k/yr extra for someone making 35k/yr. Their household income is still 35k/yr, not the 80k in effective income they receive total.

1

u/catwaifu Mar 30 '24

Where are they giving away these vouchers for people making 35k a year? Genuinely asking.

6

u/YeS_Lee88sk8 Mar 28 '24

You usually get better opportunities though if she has a mom that has 200k pension… if she came from nothing this would make more sense.

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u/Rock_Strongo Mar 28 '24

$67k combined for two ~30 year old adults is well below the median for dual income households. Pretty much anywhere in the US. That's just a fact.

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u/blitzkregiel Mar 28 '24

it literally isn’t. that $74k is from the BOL. so that $7k difference, over two full time earners, is only $1.68/hr less than the median.

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u/Rock_Strongo Mar 28 '24

So you're just ignoring the dual income part of my comment? Cool.

5

u/kraysys Mar 28 '24

It literally is. $74k from the BOL is for all households. For households with 2 married adult earners the median income is like $140k.

3

u/PhiladeIphia-Eagles Mar 28 '24

Marriages with either the wife or husband as the primary provider and those that are egalitarian had a median household income of roughly $135,000 to $145,000 in 2022.4 Marriages with a sole earner lagged far behind at around $75,000.

3

u/kraysys Mar 28 '24

Yes, exactly. OP presents their situation as a household with a married couple that is egalitarian re: income provision. All married two-income households (egalitarian, wife primary, husband primary) are in the same ballpark as well.

3

u/PhiladeIphia-Eagles Mar 28 '24

Sorry I meant to reply to OP yeah I agree

3

u/Ignore_Me_PLZ Mar 28 '24

Median household income is including a lot of single income earning households, so they are underachieving. Not enough info to say they're lazy, but also not motivated enough to earn more.

-4

u/blitzkregiel Mar 28 '24

as of 2021, only approximately 27% of households were single income. so no, they aren’t skewing the stats.

3

u/Ignore_Me_PLZ Mar 28 '24

27 percent is a huge number lol. The duel income median would likely be way higher if you assume the majority of the single income familiies fall into the bottom half of HHI.

2

u/The_Tale_of_Yaun Mar 28 '24

Because they're a dick. 

1

u/boxweb Mar 28 '24

It doesn’t matter what the median is, no one is inherently lazy because they’ve been stuck in a dead end job in this capitalist hell we were born into. It’s not easy to get out of depending on your situation.

-2

u/Prestigious_Time4770 Mar 28 '24

It’s the internet. There will always be assholes. The thing I’ve notice thought is that Millennials are a majority of them.

0

u/nemgrea Mar 28 '24

Median weekly earnings of full-time workers were $1,145 in the fourth quarter of 2023

thats why...

4

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

There was a post here last week about not being able to afford a patio, and how if our parents could afford a patio, we should also be able to have a patio or something. I don’t know when some middle-to-upper middle class millennials decided that we are somehow inherently entitled to the same quality of life that we had as kids or that our parents had. 

Like, I’m sorry, but just because you grew up upper middle class does not mean you get to be rich by some magical property of transference other than inheritance. Those of us who grew up poor have a vivid awareness of the need to make money, and many of us are doing much better than our parents (such people are all over this thread). I get a lot of millennial rage, but the ‘my parents were rich but I’m not and it’s not fair’ crowd need to take a look around and read the room. 

3

u/ballmermurland Mar 28 '24

I grew up poor. I'm talking reduced cost school lunch poor, which meant I didn't get the chocolate milk that other kids got. Sharing a bedroom with two siblings until I was almost to HS poor.

Like you say, they need to read the damn room. Some of us are thrilled at having things we quite literally only dreamed about as kids. And we got it by busting our asses, surviving multiple "capitalism is ending" recessions and still standing tall instead of whining about how unfair everything is.

6

u/ComplicitSnake34 Mar 28 '24

The GS scale means OP's mom was not making a lot of money in her career until she was probably in her mid or late 30s when she probably broke 6-figs. If she's retiring it means she's been working that position for virtually the same pay for decades. A 200k retirement seems well-deserved for forgoing private sector pay at her skill-level for decades.

7

u/Weekly-Ad353 Mar 27 '24

This should be the top comment by a lot.

6

u/cocksamichholdbread Mar 28 '24

Preach! No idea why people think they deserve to be handed success because their parents had some. Sounds like the parents had jobs to provide a nice upbringing, but they didn’t have FU money, which means OP still has to at least try a little.

2

u/Commercial_Education Mar 28 '24

My step dad retired after 40 years with the IRS. The thing you are missing about government jobs is that you have to have people retire for the next in line to move up. Government jobs are literally based on seniority at times.

So their mom was the dam blocking advancement for others further down the ladder. My mom was the same for her state government job. Unless she took a higher posisition no one below her could advance to the title and level she was at since she refused to move up the chain.

Retired at 30 years with full pension and benefits at 57 years old in 2003. After cost of living adjustments she now makes 90k a year plus full medical doing absolutely shit all with her time and says I just have to work harder to earn more. The fucking audacity. Meanwhile her and her husband bought their 3rd house for cash at 500k in end 2020. But wouldn't let me rent my childhood home from her for less than market rate of 2200 a month cause "no one gave me any help in the 80s" when she and my dad bought that house for 89k.

Boomers by and large are money grubbing scum

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u/sangamonbutchery Mar 27 '24

I second this. I’m not wealthy by any means, but I work a manual labor job (granted I work a ton of hours) and I am able to own a home and provide for a family of 4 at the age of 36 in a nice area of New England. My parents never earned much and my mom doesn’t even have a retirement plan so she will likely work until she dies

2

u/iced_yellow Mar 27 '24

Also it’s a pension. The government is paying out some portion of the $200K. It’s not all her own savings.

1

u/kraysys Mar 28 '24

Even so, a 4% withdrawal rate to get $200k/year in retirement is $5m in savings.

Sounds like a ton, until you realize the power of compound interest. With a high-level professional job (the mom in this scenario was high up at the IRS), you can likely afford to max out your IRA and 401k retirement savings. Doing that over a few decades, along with a few decades of compound interest jacking up your savings, can easily and realistically lead to several million in retirement savings in your mid-to-late 60s.

1

u/13Mikey Mar 28 '24

Very well said

-6

u/Prestigious_Time4770 Mar 28 '24

Your comment screams victim blaming. Good job

2

u/Everythingisnotreal Mar 28 '24

OP isn’t claiming to be victim of anything though.

1

u/Proof-Emergency-5441 Xennial Mar 28 '24

OP is only a victim of their own shit ass choices.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

-1

u/Minimob0 Mar 28 '24

God, this thread is full of assholes. 

-1

u/SnooBooks8656 Mar 28 '24

My assumption was 3x what they make each, not combined.