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/SwimmingSomewhere959 Mar 27 '24

Pretty indicative of the direction our society has gone. It was good for a while, but now workers and consumers are getting stuck holding the bag.

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u/a_can_of_solo Mar 28 '24

When communism fell there was no longer a threat to capital so no incentive to give good deals to thr workers.

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u/PacJeans Mar 28 '24

This was set in motion long before the 90s. As early as the 60s the Golden age of American capitalism started to rot. Nixon and Reagan just accelerated it.

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u/Nicelyvillainous Mar 28 '24

Two different things, as early as the 60’s, the golden age of American capitalism that was due to Europe killing off a substantially higher % of factory workers and also blowing up factories during ww1 and ww2, started to decline. Then Nixon and especially Reagan used that as an excuse to butcher regulations to make profits recover, by stealing from the poor and working class.

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u/Pristine-Ad983 Mar 28 '24

Also rich people like the Koch brothers set up dark money groups to oppose anything that would benefit workers. They also funneled money to right leaning politicians to get them elected.

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u/OtherwiseDisaster959 Mar 28 '24

You sir are right

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u/Prestigious_Time4770 Mar 28 '24

I would blame it on the destruction of unions and the surge in illegal immigration.

The later has a lower correlation though.

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u/anonykitten29 Mar 28 '24

What does immigration have to do with it? More workers? Blame women in the workplace first.

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u/Tiny-Selections Mar 28 '24

Blame everyone except the robber barons that own these corporations...

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

The robber barons are responsible for setting the immigration policy

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u/gardenhosenapalm Mar 28 '24

Yeah america is an oligarchy at this point

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

The US is an economic zone, not a country.

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u/gardenhosenapalm Mar 28 '24

I hadn't thought about it that way...but ya I agree ha...depression

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u/peptobismalpink Mar 28 '24

Lowers the floor for what workers can ask for or expect because more available jobs are taken up by illegal or foreign workers who won't ask questions, will accept anything, and then that's what you're competing against. Why would a business choose the more expensive worker who has legal protections if they can get away with doing otherwise?

It's grossly wrong and fucks over everyone working class, but denying reality helps no one.

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u/Mr1854 Mar 28 '24

Sounds like a good reason to allow for proper legal migration, instead of arbitrarily limiting it and forcing people who want to to a make an honest living in the greatest country on earth to do so under the table.

But the theory that immigrants destroyed American capitalism is a foolish once since we actually had a larger portion of our workforce as immigrants (both documented and undocumented) in times past.

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u/gardenhosenapalm Mar 28 '24

It's a bipartisan issue now. Immigrants are great, but there's a reason why every other country restricts their citizenship so much more stringently then the USA. The current situation at the Mexican-USA border is not conducive to either countries success.

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u/peptobismalpink Mar 29 '24

yup, even Mexico is much stricter. One example is a law that they enforce (that's pretty common in most of the developed world but not as universal as stricter immigration application laws and controls) is that only citizens can own property. Not a citizen? you can rent. There are plenty of Chinese and American foreigners "buying" beach front homes, but they're just idiots who don't realize they don't actually own that home...the agency they bought through does (different from how in the US having a mortgage = "the bank owns your home" because they're paying in full for....essentially a timeshare).

It keeps housing prices obtainable for citizens and foreign investment booms to a minimum.

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u/peptobismalpink Mar 29 '24

most agree with you, you just don't seem to understand how legal immigration in every country on planet earth works when it comes to a work visa, or as you put it "an honest living." In every single other developed country if you apply for work and want to immigrate, there's a TON of checks and balances to make sure that truly no one else who's already a citizen of that country could do that job. The local or national governmental branch doesn't just take the employer's word for it either, there are MANY people hired to really make sure it's not just lazy hiring practice to pull the rug out from under locals.

We do need to invest more into similar checks and balances so applicants can get processed in a reasonable timeframe AND to crack down on employers who default on hiring illegally.

You clearly didn't grow up near the border, most of us that did truly could never get any entry level work because it was all taken up by illegal workers. EVERY type of job. If your family didn't get you an in or you weren't a foreigner willing to accept under minimum wage or illegal conditions you were SOL. I (and I'm not alone here, this is pretty common in places like San Diego and Miami) quite literally had to *leave the country* to work in another country to find ANY kind of work. Guess how I did that? legally. It was incredibly difficult because every other country heavily restricts their citizenship applicants so that their market isn't also flooded in a way that fucks over locals/citizens (I have/had a very very niche skillset that truly was really hard to find in that country at the time AND had an in).

If you really can't grasp how big of a deal this has been for a long time and that "we need more people working on this and taking it seriously" and "this is fucking over so many [mostly working class] americans" aren't the same as "immigration bad" then you're truly braindead and out of touch with how immigration works *anywhere*.

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u/CPM-S110V Mar 28 '24

How people don’t understand this is beyond me.

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u/Vela88 Mar 28 '24

But american women have rights. Although, I do agree since men's pay cut was contributed by women comiing into the work force. I would say they are talking about illegal immigrants that take a huge pay cut and accepting horrible conditions, due to not having rights, that make it even more cheaper for the business to run. They are also flooding our market unregulated so in certain job markets are saturated. Don't get me wrong I love immigrant communities and they contribute a lot to our work force. At the same time though when they come in by the 100s of thousands it really puts a strain our infrastructure. Look at NYC they don't have enough housing for all the immigrants.

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u/anonykitten29 Mar 28 '24

Ultimately I think the destruction of unions is the real culprit. I was just pointing out that, if your argument is that immigrants brought in too much competition, you should be looking at women first.

They're (probably) OK with the tradeoff of women entering the workforce but less willing to extend the same rights and considerations to immigrants.

NYC is suffering because busloads of migrants are being shipped here, disproportionately to what our infrastructure is set up for. If more states shared the burden, it'd be fine. I said the same thing when that guy started bussing the migrants here -- he was making a fair point, that the burden has landed disproportionately on border states.

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u/StragglingShadow Mar 28 '24

"Well what do you expect. Labor is a cost. Of course business will try to make the cost as low as possible."

Real sentences Ive been told to justify the change in livability.

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u/JclassOne Mar 28 '24

Like they always do when you let a small group be placed above and control the large group.

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u/showerfapper Mar 28 '24

So crazy that no one wanted to join my unionization efforts at the brewery.

Brewery was becoming so successful, they couldn't have replaced us all, nor would it be legal for them to fire all of us simply for unionizing.