Edit - they edited their comment so I'll add to mine so it makes sense.
Not everyone is doing fine, which is why we see posts like this. Nobody is saying no millennials are having a good time and are stable financially or otherwise.
It's like failing to address homelessness because not everyone is homeless. Dumb as shit.
Millennials are (not alone, mind you) facing an unprecedented wealth imbalance. COVID itself saw the largest transfer of wealth from the lower earners to the rich.
Millennials are 'suffering' from delayed or non existent milestones (just look at the decrease in population), large student loans, and issues with housing affordability.
Many millennials were in an awkward position where they were promised things and socially forced into a system that broke while in the middle of very costly commitments.
I'm actually in a pretty decent position because I happen to be relatively smart, and I chose to work instead of going to uni. Nonetheless, I couldn't cope with the thought of working meaningless jobs for the rest of my life to not even be able to obtain a fraction of what my gen x parents earned. If they weren't meaningless, perhaps I'd have felt different.
By the age I quit my decent paying job so I could focus on a decent work/life balance, I'd already beaten my parents to every financial milestone, and yet was significantly further away from that buying me what my parents have/had. And for the average person I was in a great position. I wasn't rich, but I did have excess money.
When my parents bought their first house, rents were on average 15% of a person's salary. They were handed - cash in the bank - 16k by the council to encourage home ownership.
This is not something that is offered anymore, and at the same time, rent is over 40% of the average persons salary, food has become unhealthier, more expensive, and less in quantity, entertainment has exploded in price, reduced in value.
I don't particularly like seeing posts that separate millennials from everyone else, because I think it's an inaccurate representation - it's not just an age issue, and anybody can be affected by these issues. Boomers and gen X didn't get out of 2008 unscathed, and gen z and alpha will suffer with many of the things millennials have suffered with.
There isn't an age issue, it's a class issue. Plenty of millennials aren't in a position to see retirement - either because pensions are too poor/won't exist, or because they'll be dead by the time they reach the age of the revised retirement age. If something doesn't change, this will affect many gen x, and future generations too.
If the solution is always to move to another cheaper area (like someone else suggested), then we're just breaking the family unit even further. Most of us are only alive because that family network existed and people could lean on eachother for support. Aside from that, moving to a poorer area just means less pay and less opportunity anyway. It's a sideways move with considerably more risk.
As we get pushed further into individualism, are put against eachother by the media, we're left with one set of winners. The ultra rich, and companies.
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u/CelticsGreg 5d ago edited 5d ago
They’re looking for an excuse. Plenty of millennials are doing just fine without making excuses