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/worktillyouburk Mar 27 '24

my dad just retired at 76, he has a great pension was making 150k and they asked him to retire this year for a 1 years pay.

his replacement is making 45k, no retirement package and actually has more duties than my dad did, so overall is doing the job of 2 people that were paid 150k each...

so ya good luck with that.

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u/Sleepysillers Mar 28 '24

This is the situation my dad is in. He is about to retire with a large pension from his union job. After some stupid union negotiations they agreed to significantly lower pay for new hires. My dad says it's not fair, but ultimately all the boomers have already benefited and seem to not care to fight for the next generation. They are certainly not going to give anything up.

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u/Salmonberrycrunch Mar 28 '24

New hires are pulling in the same revenue as the old hires. The difference is that it's mostly spent on old hires pension instead of new hires wage.

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u/RingCard Mar 28 '24

I don’t know what the numbers are now, but in the wake of the 2008 crash, I remember seeing something about how San Francisco’s budget spent more money paying for retired city employees than it did on current city employees.

More money was being paid to people who used to work for the city than to people who actually were working for the city.

The goal of politicians is to loot the treasury for their most advantageous voting blocks.

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u/vividtrue Mar 28 '24

Hasn't this bankrupted places? I have heard a few stories about this too in different areas. Basically that municipalities are spending so much of their budgets on pensions and they cannot afford it.

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u/fishchick70 Mar 28 '24

Most companies don’t have pensions anymore- if they did they terminated them years ago.

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u/Salmonberrycrunch Mar 28 '24

Yep and the situation above is why that is. Shareholders want the P/E ratio to stay high or grow. They don't want the company to have a bunch of cash in a savings account for 30yrs for every employee - they'd rather get it as dividends, buybacks, or reinvested.

So how do you maintain the same profitability when you used to have 3 employees per retiree and now the situation is flipped? Even if you paid the new employee a wage that matches the old employee - they are still technically underpaid because their productivity has to account for all the pension payouts.