I don’t understand the point of these posts - at this point we all understand that the economy has changed in the last 60+ years and even changed dramatically in 2000, 2008, and 2019 in rapid succession.
I’ve seen a lot of danger in belaboring these sorts of point, often sowing the seeds of hopelessness, generational dissent (which ultimately isn’t productive), and it never seems to come with a meaningful call to action or what better advice would be.
Which is concerning given the rising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts in younger generations vs previous.
The point is that not all do. My parents don't. I'm young, employed, have savings, invest money, 0 debt and my parents still want to lecture me about how I should be living my life and where I should be living because that's what they did at their age. They still think rent costs as much as it did 30 years ago.
FOR WHO? LOL Even with two people that is almost 100k + salary.
Your math only looks good because your Median income is absolute dogwater made up. Even the rent is crap. I was paying $700 for rent in 2005, not 1995.
One should look at the median individual monthly income which is on average $3,850. The 2025 figure you quote is an 87k a year salary. The individual figure works out to between 42-50k a year and even that is pretty high with many hourly workers still in the $16-20 range putting their yearly in the 30 thousands and many gig workers lower still.
That puts median rent at 55% of income or higher for the average US citizen.
"One should look at the median individual monthly income"
Sure - but that makes 2025 look BETTER vs 1995 than using household income, not worse.
2025 -
Median rent: $1,696
Median individual monthly income: $4398 (Median individual yearly income was $52,770)
Percentage of median income to afford median rent: 38.6%
1995 -
Median rent: $655
Median monthly income: $1,625 (Median individual yearly income was $19,502)
Percentage of median income to afford median rent: 40.3%
These numbers don't make sense to compare. The median income American is not renting. Renters skew low income.
In reality, the percent of Americans paying more than 30% of income to rent has skyrocketed. It's now HALF of all renters.
"In 1960, about one in four renters paid more than 30 percent of income for housing. Today, one in two are cost burdened. Even in 1980, following two decades of worsening affordability, the cost-burdened share of renters was just above a third."
Sorry man, I don't believe government websites that change every 5 years, especially this admins. I lived through the 90's, payed rent in the 90's. A 1-2 bedroom was cheap as fuck, it wasn't anywhere near 700.
"DELANE APARTMENTS (313)439-7374 1 BEDROOM APT. for rent in Milan area Newly decorated. Large living room, bedroom, modem kitchen; Separate entrance. Covered parking space included. Available now. Nonsmoker, please. $450/mo. plus phone."
"ONE BEDROOM APT. Everything included. $450/mo. plus security deposit"
"3-BEDROOM COUNTRY apartment with view. Washer, dryer, new carpet no pets. $625/mo. plus utilities"
" LARGE LOFT-TYPE apartment in Clinton with 1 bedroom and small office. Appliances included. Partly furnished I needed. Ideal for working couple. $500/mo. No pets or waterbed. "
First off, the number you cited for median rent ($655) doesn’t align with the table you linked. If we linearly interpolate between 1990 and 2000 to get 1995 we get about $587 for monthly rent in constant 2000 dollars.
Next, from what I can find, the median income that you cite is the nominal value in 1995 (ie not adjusted for inflation). But when you’re comparing it to the rent price that you cited, you have to adjust the dollars to constant 2000 dollars. Adjusting $2840 in 1995 would be roughly equivalent to about $3,200 in 2000 dollars.
With these we can do the calculation you did previously. We could further adjust these to 2025 dollars, but since we’re just using a simple inflation calculation, ultimately looking at a ratio/percentage, it shouldn’t matter. With these new numbers, we get about 18% of income going towards rent. As far as I’m aware, there’s a difference between 23% and 18%.
Moreover, while medians are usually the best single comparison for an entire population, I would be very interested to know how these things have changed throughout different quantiles in the income distribution. Essentially, if we assume that median incomes and prices reflect middle-class things, then what we are looking at is how these things have changed for people who are solidly middle-class. I suspect things are worse for people on the bottom end.
Lastly, the biggest problem is that it would be one thing if this change was happening only with housing. But the cost of essentials and other important things like healthcare and education have exploded. We know wages haven’t kept up with productivity or inflation. Something has to give here.
It's just more of the division propaganda in the US. Old versus young, republican versus democrat, hatred towards minorities, class wars... anything to keep you all pointing fingers at each other white the ruling class watches you fight over scraps.
It's the same propaganda mechanism - blame "the others" just like America's problems are ridiculously blamed on illegal aliens and transgenders. Rage baiting. Anything to sow division in America. It's called "manufactured polarization" and it is aimed at everything American. Noted in the news that all sorts of divisive posts dropped significantly when the Russian data centers were taken out by Ukrainian drones.
Edit: But please, by all means, vote the boomers out of office.
It really is an amazingly effective strategy. You start with what should be an easy thing to agree on. Like clean water. Add a dog whistle / strawman to the argument, and people are at each other's throats. "Dump raw sewage and forever chemicals in my water. Just as long as the other side doesn't win."
The first mistake is believing every post has a point to make and an agenda to push.
Sometimes it's just regular people getting tired and frustrated and blowing off steam on reddit. Oh, you're seeing these types of posts a lot? Yeah, a lot of people are tired and frustrated.
in 1980 avge income was 20k a year average house price was 50 k or your yearly income was 40% of a house now today avge income is 69k while average house price is 500k or your yearly income is 13% of a value of a house. 1980s $3,617 (18% of income) for private colleges 2026 ~$60,924 (88% of income) per year. we can repeat this with just about any good or service other than tvs. i wonder what changed in the 80s....
How much are you willing to sacrifice? What does that even mean?
There should be no sacrifice. The wealthy should be paying their fair share of taxes, and then we could all have healthcare and some guarantee for basic housing.
See, this is the escape hatch. When you are old and the kids have policies you will not be assured of anything. And thus, will not be supportive. I know this because I see how people older than I react to nonsense posts like this. They are not assured.
Vote for much easier zoning regulations including higher density housing. Wealth taxes, particularly on the wealthiest. Higher taxes on the wealthiest. End of the capital gains tax. Single payer healthcare and colleges. Many other things that they’re generally opposed to.
Well they shouldn't vote for Republicans that want to take away the same benefits that they are living off of in their retirements from those that are younger than them... those younger people that are paying into that system right now to provide those current benefits.
There was a specific mechanism deployed by the neoliberals in the 1980s that asset stripped the western world and turned citizens into economic units. The slow degradation of public life is contributing to the very issues you mention in relation to mental health. The mental health epidemic is a reflection of the society and the conditions created over the last 40 years. For many people life has become an isolated economic loop, where insidious terms like optimization degrade our quality of life by forcing us to metricize our very existence...
Lol the whole economic model is named after him but easier to blame dems instead of a greedy actor turned republican and we're dealing with that all over again now and look where the economy is. Conservatives are just as guilty of benefitting the wealthy as neolibs.
My parents, particularly my father has zero understanding of life in the current zeitgeist. They live in a bubble of 80ish year old people. I told my dad recently i still had 40 years left on my mortgage and he said "but you have had the house for 5 years already, it should be almost paid off..." I'm not kidding, that is exactly what he said, this is the world he lives in.
why would an 80 y.o. of any generation understand the current culture? Boomers know what the world was like when they were young, when their brains were at their peaks. X'ers know their young adult decades best. And so on.
Old people are out of touch bc they are old. What they are experts on now are the pain and confusion of mental and physical decline. They need young people's advice about the current economic situation, bc their experiences are less relevant with each passing decade, yet if they have enough lucidity, much of their non-economic experiences can still be useful. You just have to tailor their experiences to today's reality, be they know very little about much today's economy
well, I mean the fact that there's even a need for 40 year mortgages these days is a dead giveaway that things have obviously gone to shit...for like a hundred years the "regular" term for a mortgage was 25 years, there wasn't even such a thing as a 40 year mortgage...and most people with 25 yr mortgages, if they had a good income, would pay off double each month, and extra whenever they had it, and be able to pay off the entire thing within around 10 yrs or so...
nowadays we NEED 40 and 50 yr mortgages and people can barely even pay regularly each month for those, barely making ends meet
massive difference in the world we lived in even 25 years ago and the world we live in today
Yeah that's all great until a legit 3/4 of the boomers you talk to think there's something inherently wrong with you for working multiple jobs yet not owning property yet, or why you can't or won't start a family in an economic vacuum etc.
It's almost like mathematically and statistically be the case given the size of said demographic. No wonder you're fine w getting economically shafted bro math is hard.
they are out of touch. everyone gets that way as their brains and bodies decline.
Boomers will be long dead before most will realize that boomers were never their problem. Hope your brain still works good so you can actually do something other than blame others
Saying nothing about it is also not productive though.
Historically speaking, nations only move to fix things only after their citizens complain loud enough, not because they just stay quiet and say nothing.
You think Millennials and Gen Z didn’t resent Boomers before seeing posts like this?
Bro, we live this shit every day. This is just venting in a literal shit-post sub. Imagine being on /r/sipstea and saying “this post isn’t productive!” lol
So you were just sitting around steaming about the generational wealth divide hating on boomers when you happened along this post? Sis, this is stirring up misguided resentment against a whole generation of a hundred million plus people based on false beliefs that life was simple and easy back then.
And I didn't say it's unproductive. I said it's harmful.
a vastly higher percentage than any other generation?
So you have no idea? Do you think it is 1% or more? Or more directly, is it a large enough percentage that it merits blaming the entire generation?
i find something like this more interesting
So if you find it interesting, have you factored in what % of the population makes up each generation? How about how people tend to be wealthier later in life as they gain wealth over the course of their lives?
So you have no idea? Do you think it is 1% or more? Or more directly, is it a large enough percentage that it merits blaming the entire generation?
are you making any points or just asking questions? feel free to tell me since you obviously know.
So if you find it interesting, have you factored in what % of the population makes up each generation? How about how people tend to be wealthier later in life as they gain wealth over the course of their lives?
That complaint is laughable given you're the one who started asking questions instead of directly making points.
And when you say "a vastly higher percentage than any other generation" you should be able to answer what the percentage is yourself. It's not my job to do your research.
And if you have actually considered those factors, you should understand how they make the chart you supplied pretty much meaningless.
The point is that boomers have no say in anything related to today's generation since they got to experience life on tutorial island difficulty mode and then pulled the ladder up behind them for any future generation.
I'm all for a generational divide as long as it's every other generation uniting against the boomers.
its funnier when the new gen comes in and blames his generation and he spends 40 years trying to explain how it was the boomers. Then the next gen comes in and blames them. its a hilariously long cycle of playing the victim and not doing anything to stop it, its like when kids start flexing how THEIR generation is going to fix shit when they are at home on their computer while other people are out fighting the system and protesting.
Keeping them out of elected positions, for one - make the mandatory retirement age the same as SS, guaranteeing that any vote to raise the former will be stymied by the latter. Folks who will never see the consequences of their decisions ought not to be making them.
Boomers are, in fact, the problem - they put in place many of the economic and political gates that are causing trouble. Is it your belief that the current crop of sept-and octogenarians are the very best folks for the job? Or could they have stacked it like that?
Repeal Citizens United, so that the corporate candidate doesn't have such a stacked advantage. Introduce more term limits and mandatory retirement ages. Then we can talk - there's no point in playing a rigged game.
Imagine it, we take the wealth from boomers (before they waste it all on end of life care and corvettes) and the subsidize housing for younger people, also doesn’t have to be that, really any social programs
As lower middle aged person one thing I have noticed is that in my part of the world, we were able to grow up with low key drinking and driving and in the last few years I had to adjust to the idea that it wasn’t safe to drink 3-4 beer, wait 2-3 hours and drive… I’m sure I’ll get some downvotes, but that was a very normalized behaviour.
I do think that passed generations had some liberties that current ones never will, for better or worse.
The perception of Boomers will be more comparable to a diety than whatever you described when you see how young generations perceive us when we're awaiting Social Security.
Truth is, not even close to all understand this reality, and the spreading of this narrative is one of the most important things we have to do, to create consciousness, understanding, and effectively, the little action we see today, and more each day.
Agreed. Yeah, the Boomers were the luckiest generation in history, but what does that have to do with me and my life? Are we trying to say that because the Boomers didn't struggle, no one should ever have to struggle again, therefore those who are struggling now should just.......give up? Like, what is the takeaway here? Yeah, Boomers are out of touch, but acknowledging that doesn't put money in my pocket.
And let's not forget, people in the 1930s were way worse off than we are today. If we're going to play the comparison game, why do we only ever compare ourselves to Boomers? Why do we conveniently forget that we're way better off than virtually ever other generation in history? These types of posts are from and for people who just want to complain and sulk. It's pitiful.
Neither do I. Yes, after WW2 the US was essentially the only intact economy, with the others in ruins. That was a unique historical circumstance, and it will never happen again, no matter what any government does.
It probably has something to do with the talking down to younger generations, the fact that social security is being siphoned from the young (that will never see the benefits of the system they are paying into), and the fact that BOOMERS VOTE FOR THESE POLICIES AND OVERWHELMINGLY ARE IN OFFICE ACTIVELY FUCKING EVERYONE.
I agree. These posts minimize the fact that even though times were different back then, people that thrived still worked hard and adapted to changing conditions. Yes, times are hard. But also yes, the folks who are doing well are adapting to changes in the past economy and evolving needs in the workplace.
Its grumpy people trying to find a person to blame, all the while pretending if they were in the same socioeconomic scenario they would be doing it different.
I think the younger generations are sick and tired of the condescending attitude of the boomers that they’ve had to put up with their entire lives. And even with 1 foot in the grave, they’re still in control of this country and trying to exempt themselves from paying as much taxes as possible, putting an even worse burden on the younger generations.
Not to mention failing to learn from previous generations. Very few of these posts talk about how we should avoid the same mistakes by caring more about future generations in terms of reducing deficits etc.
At this point I'm thinking it's a I bot trolls behind all of this nonsense... Funded by the billionaires who have us peasants exactly where they want us.
Humanity is f****** cooked because we're too goddamn stupid
And none of these people want to consider moving to a city where homes are nuch cheaper. No. They cluster all around LA, SF, NYC, and go online to post how unfair it is.
I mean this is just ignoring where a majority of jobs are. I moved out of one of the cities you listed and it took 6 months to find a job to move back to the big city in my state. I had to completely change industries. The competition is 2 other companies in my new industry otherwise I’d have to move (again) for better opportunities.
My brother lives in one of the cities you listed. He wants to move home but again there are 3-4 companies with roles in his industry. He ended up taking a role with one of those companies in his current city and is going to request a transfer in a yr or 2 because there were no openings in this city.
“These people” are there working because that’s where the jobs are. A very small percentage are okay being poor to live in those areas just because. We saw this when remote work was popular in Covid. A lot of small towns complained that city folk with remotes jobs were moving to their towns and driving up prices. My home town still complains about this.
Same way you go on any subreddit of a southern state where somebody posts about moving there. There are always comments about it being full, at capacity or jokes to move somewhere else.
You can live 30 miles from San Francisco and own a condo for under $400k
You can live 30 miles from Northern Virginia and own a single family home in Jefferson County for under $300k
There are plenty of places to live and own your own home if you are willing to make a commute for work without having to live in the city proper.
How long is that commute for either of those places (I don’t know, I’m genuinely asking)?
It wouldn’t matter if Remote work was still the norm but that’s no longer the case so people are naturally going to gravitate to areas that are under an hour commute (one way). I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect anybody to live over an hour (1 way) commute from the hub of jobs in their area.
WV to NOVA you can do under an hour if you are going to Loudoun County, if you are going to Fairfax County it will be an hour or a little over if you work near Chantilly or Reston... Tysons would probably be worth it if the job paid enough, that would be around 1hr15min. Anything past that would suck, you wouldn't want to work in Arlington and live in WV.
Concord CA to SF you can take the Concord BART yellow train and be in the city in under an hour.
It’s a lot easier to live on a full time McDonald’s salary in Omaha or Tulsa than it is San Fran or LA. You can make $20-25 an hour as a fork lift driver in those cities and afford to live. Can you do that in the big cities you are talking about?
I’m not disputing that but how many forklift drivers do you think are needed in Omaha compared to the Port Newark and Port Jersey-Port Authority or Port of LA?
It’s also incredibly telling that you took my comment and used McDonalds/hourly work as a response instead of salary positions.
Most people on here have shit jobs so they complain nonstop. If you are making 80k as a financial analyst you can find that job in much lower cost of living areas. I’m in an infrastructure engineer who makes 140k/yr in a MCOL medium city. I’d make 175-185k for an equivalent job in SF. I like the weather but not more than my badass house I live in now
I see a lot of anger because there wasn't a perfect world waiting for them when they were born. All unsolved problems are the fault of the people before them. All economies are supposed to only get better and better. I told one GenZer that he was going to have to learn to navigate this life just like we did and he accused me of "wanting him to suffer just because I'd had to suffer".
The point is to combat the gaslighting and lies the older generations have told millennials and Gen Z and show that this is a universal problem for anyone 40 and under. It’s not some individual failing like we’re not working hard enough or that we’re buying too much coffee and toast and that’s the reason we can’t afford to buy a house…many boomers actually believe this nonsense.
People get likes and attention with outrage. It's easier to blame an entire generation than adapt and accept. You know, I was thinking about how scary it would be to have gas prices go above $10 a gallon. Then I decided it would probably be good for me because I would have to start biking 10 miles to work. The easier thing is to complain, but the better thing is to adapt.
Agreed. I started my career in 2007. The entire economy was in free fall. The value of my house dropped and I was underwater by 50%. Homes were foreclosing all around us. “Second job” was impossible to find, if you were lucky enough to find a primary job.
One thing we didn’t do was go on message boards to whine about it.
This new generation has no idea what it is to be uncomfortable. And I feel bad for them. Cause when the actual pain hits, they’re likely to be paralyzed by it.
Please explain how this is an “ignorant generalization”. Is this new generation not whining on message boards? I mean Reddit is a dumpster fire for this generation of whiners. Also, what real hardship has this generation experienced? Lowest unemployment rate in history? Information and solutions at your fingertips. Lowest amount of gainfully employed in history? The number of full grown adults willfully unemployed and living with their parents is shocking.
Because you're generalising an entire generation as those people you see on Reddit, and that is the act of an ignoramus.
I'm not going to waste time trying to hold a discussion on what the problems are today with someone who can't recognise a basic hasty generalisation fallacy. That's a huge intellectual red flag.
I mean, anytime anyone talks about what “a generation does” is generalizing. How could you possibly talk about a generation without generalizing? Please explain.
Laws arent being enforced, and government is there to help the rich. First was bitches(the rich) hated unions, so they bribed the gov to open offshoring to break them up. Things like closures back in the day got you in trouble, now is a tactic companies use to keep unions forming.
Next the consolidation of competition, I think Kahn had the last successful stop with Albertson, and Kroger. I think the last one before was in early 2000s. We have many industries that are owned by a few to 4 companies. This drives costs up, and hurts if recalls happen ie baby formula recall. Also hurts innovations as well. High speed Internet might not exist if at&t was not broken up in the late 80s.
High taxes on the wealthy also helped the people more. A gov that tied mw to inflation would also help.
Trying to act like this was just a one time thing from rebuilding Europe and Japan is naive. This is a gov bought to serve the rich and their needs, and we are seeing the aftermath of them getting their way for the last 80 years.
Bullshit. We are being strip mined by $billionaires. Thats it. Thats what is happening. 1% control literally 70% of the money. The bottom 50% have literally 1% of the money. They are bleeding us dry despite the fact they have more money than they could ever spend.
Normalizing? Lol. Was the great depression normal? High income inequality is not sustainable. High inflation is not sustainable. Inflation is one of the reasons we changed our retirement system in 1978 and why we allowed stock buybacks in 1982. Those decisions, along with many others led to what we have now which is an overinflated stock market that is not representative at all to local economies nationwide. Your big government argument doesn't work because we literally have corporations writing laws that government passes. Welfare for corporations is okay but, oh no, social programs that make life better for everyone? That's big government and its bad. Pfft whatever
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u/draconicmonkey 18h ago
I don’t understand the point of these posts - at this point we all understand that the economy has changed in the last 60+ years and even changed dramatically in 2000, 2008, and 2019 in rapid succession.
I’ve seen a lot of danger in belaboring these sorts of point, often sowing the seeds of hopelessness, generational dissent (which ultimately isn’t productive), and it never seems to come with a meaningful call to action or what better advice would be.
Which is concerning given the rising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts in younger generations vs previous.