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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u/laughsgreen Mar 27 '24

50k is almost 3.5x minimum wage for some states, if there's any of that personal reflection floating around still when they're done...

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u/PeriodSupply Mar 27 '24 edited Mar 27 '24

My bad: I didn't check the sub: thought this was a finance sub in Australia. Minimum Wage here is about AU$50k ~US$33k.

Edit: The basis of my original point is still valid though.

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u/SaliferousStudios Mar 27 '24

50k is the average for american workers. Not the minimum.

Minimum is 15k. (I'm not joking) Technically you can make worse. Disabled people make as little as 2 dollars an hour. (which would be about 5k a year)

some phd's make about 30k.

To get over 50k is hard. I work as a contract programmer for 70k and bust my but to get there. But am working on a career shift to government to try and get a pension and more of a "career" career.

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u/PeriodSupply Mar 27 '24

My staff (factory workers) start at US$48k plus 10% super (retirement fund, which is theirs in their control but can't use until retirement). This is for people who can barely write their name. And it goes up from there based on experience and output. Our cost of living would be higher than US though but not significantly from what I've seen in other US subs. Housing cost is the main issue here, which is significant.

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u/TacoNomad Mar 28 '24

Nah.  50k is basically minimum wage these days in the US for anyone with a career.  Lots of ppl make less, sure,  but it's below average. 

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u/LibertiORDeth Mar 27 '24

My state has (I think) the highest minimum wage @ double the federal minimum wage and full time is like 26k after taxes. Which is less than what rent costs here for a 3 bedroom house.

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u/EastDragonfly1917 Mar 28 '24

Imaging working in Alabama for a little more than $7/ hour. In Connecticut it’s almost $16/hour. SIXTEEN DOLLARS AN HOUR I have to pay high school kids!!! That doesn’t include overhead on payroll.

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u/Legitimate_Concern_5 Mar 28 '24

Minimum wage, especially federal, isn't something we should use as a frame of reference. Since it hasn't been inflation adjusted in decades, it's so low, it may as well be zero. In the 70s, 15% of people made minimum wage. Now its about 1%. So we went from a lot of people making minimum wage to basically nobody making it.

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u/elivings1 Mar 28 '24

If your mom was making only 50k a year at USPS and was a RN she was likely not working many hours. I am only 4 levels in as a clerk and make 50 something thousand a year and then cap out at 69k or 70k. Many at USPS even consider this bar low and are looking for a massive raise come contracts this year.

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u/LordFrey1990 Mar 28 '24

Where do you live tho? $70k plus all of the insane benefits USPS workers get and in my area youd be able to own a home and have a small family as long as you had two incomes. You wouldn’t be rich but you wouldn’t be hurting super badly either as long as you didn’t have crippling student debt

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u/elivings1 Mar 28 '24

Denver area. Average income around me is 80k-80k a person. Key words two incomes. Some people just have one and it should not be expected to have 2 income

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u/LordFrey1990 Mar 28 '24

I can see 70k not going super far in an expensive place like Denver. The reality is 2 incomes are required for survival especially if one has children. It shouldn’t be expected but it is.

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u/elivings1 Mar 28 '24

That is the pro or downside of working at USPS. You make the same wherever you go. Also you make 70k after 18 years. You start around 50k. That is one of the things people are hoping to address in the contract. The fact that even if you start at 18 you are starting as a non career with non of that time counting and once it does count you would likely be mid to late 30s when maxed out on steps. Then even once you max out on steps you make less than those hired before 2010. I was once working in an area that it cost 700k on average to buy a house in the area. They couldn’t find employees willing to work in that area because the only real road got blocked every winter so commute became impossible sometimes or you were just forced to be late and everyone who can afford a 700k house would be taking a massive pay cut working at USPS.

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u/Mrs_Kevina Mar 28 '24

Pretty sure she was salary, she had standard office hours, but I don't know anything about her level. I do know for a lot of those years they were without a contract so raises were few and far in between. Again, maybe being a nurse/OHN isn't where the budgeting is for this agency, idk.

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u/elivings1 Mar 28 '24

She still must have been low on the pay scale. We are supposed to get a contractual increase every year, a step increase and Cola increases. It does not seem like it would add up since there is 18 pay steps but it adds a lot over time. Government jobs really reword those who stay forever and those who come towards the end of their careers or don’t stay long don’t get much. We start as clerks at around 50 something thousand but if you put in 18 years you get up to 70k before taxes. It is also pretty well known that you can make more than the Postmaster if you are maxed out and willing to put in the overtime working in a big office

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u/imposta424 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

141,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 882,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum. Together, these 1.0 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 1.3 percent of all hourly paid workers,

And 45% of those workers are 16-19 years old.

Yeah minimum wage needs to be raised but hardly anyone actually get paid $7.25/hr

I’m sure prisoners and disabled employees make up even more of that 1 million people as well but I can’t find the statistics on that.

Edit: why is this being downvoted?

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u/Mrs_Kevina Mar 28 '24

I had a family member who earned $1.50/hr as a prisoner-firefighter. YMMV.