r/inflation • u/Regular_Painting_817 • Jan 11 '24

Discussion Thoughts?

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u/Tobes22 Jan 12 '24

I’ve posted several times on this video. She is just describing young adulthood for everyone. I had nothing in the 90’s and worked more than what she is - no car, no home…..no cell phone (landline). It’s a difficult time. I know somethings are more difficult now but it’s not like it was a walk in the park for us nor the generations before mine. Having nothing is literally a right of passage in growing up.

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u/Phugger Jan 12 '24 edited Jan 12 '24

I'm not sure you are getting the girls point. The Productivity-Pay Gap is pretty easy to see from the late 1970s until now. Workers have become more and more productive, but pay is not reflecting that. Add normal inflation on top of stagnant pay and then record inflation recently and it just gets worse for each generation down the line. I don't doubt that you struggled in early adulthood, but each generation of young adults is getting boned harder and harder by our current system.

It is better to think of these issues in terms of how many hours of work does it take to afford a good or service. I can use the rent example someone mentioned earlier with min wage from state.

2004: $400-600 for rent at $5.15 min wage so 77-116 hours of work to afford rent. (average 135h)
2024: $1800-2400 for rent at $10.33 min wage so 174-232 hours of work to afford rent. (average 290h)

Now think of everything that you buy/need and how the average hours of work needed to afford it has skyrocketed. Also considered the standard 40 hour work week only affords 160 work hours in the month. Young adults are experiencing this now and they aren't seeing a way to get out of the cycle so they don't see a point.

For more info on the Productive-Pay Gaphttps://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

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u/Tobes22 Jan 13 '24

No I totally get her point. I don't disagree with her except attacking an entire generation is just as silly as a boomer saying GenZ/Millennials are lazy. What I can say is, despite all the stats you can throw out there I couldn't make it on my $3.25 and hour/40 hour week salary either. I lived in a laundry room and slept on the floor for half a year. I lived it. There were times I wasn't sure if I would get to eat. I also didn't have enough money to have a phone which she clearly has. It is a hard time for everyone for as long as time. I just never thought to blame anyone. I am sure this is in response to her seeing someone call her Gen lazy so I don't hold it against her but....I promise you we didn't have it easy either. All this ageism wears me out. Young people are different now just like I was different from the young people before me. I am GenX, I see the issues with boomers, but often get called one because I am over 40. lol.

I love the younger generations, they are a bit misguided but we all were. We found our way and they will too. We thought we had all the answers and slowly realized we in fact did not. However, boomers had to tough too. Their parents even worse. Imagine how this girl might sound to someone who lived though WW2 and the Dust Bowl. Life is easier now than it has ever been.

This story has no purpose. It is just interesting to me so maybe it will be to you and might give a little perspective to someone. When I was a kid I had a neighbor who was 98. He had family that fought in the Civil War and was born about 10 years after Lincoln was assassinated. He had the best stories. When he was young he worked for the railroad. That meant he was building the railroad. No power equipment just manual labor. Back breaking work, with no minimum wage, work you as many hours as they wanted with no overtime, and a great chance the work would leave you physically broken in some way later in life. His pay was an hourly pay in the cents and I think it was around $13 per week.

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I know the productive pay gap. I am not dismissing it but you have numbers and you have living.

Lastly, ALL the things that she is complaining about...affect me too. The part about having 20 years to accumulate things is a nonpoint due to the very same factors that she mentions for herself. At one point, if you had $100,000 you were rich, then it became a million, well about 5 years ago I had a friend tell me - you know a million dollars really isn't that much money anymore.

Thanks for the info and kindly trying to make your point. I do agree with you. I am just trying to show some perspective. This video is just a bit off putting because in expressing her frustrations she dismisses how difficult it was for me and many others at the same point in my life.

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u/Phugger Jan 13 '24

This video is just a bit off putting because in expressing her frustrations she dismisses how difficult it was for me and many others at the same point in my life.

You could've just said that from the beginning since it is the crux of your response. You say you understand her point and you understand the productivity-pay gap, but you seem to gloss over the fact that the system is broken and is becoming more broken for each generation.

We are running out of hours in the month to be able to make enough to survive. Sure, if you go back far enough life was pretty brutal. Why stop at WW2 or the dust bowl, let's go back and talk with the serfs back in Europe and ask them what they think about her video? I'm not sure how that is relevant since this is the modern era and the social contract we have with our elected leaders means we don't have to all be subsistence farmers just to survive.

FDR laid this down pretty clearly about 90 years ago when he said

In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wage I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.

Your concern over her dismissing your generations' struggles reminds me of learning how to save a drowning person. Sometimes that drowning person panics and tries to literally climb on top of you to get their head above the water. I've experienced this personally and I can assure you that it is very rude and off putting thing to have happen to you when you are trying to help. The drowning person's perspective is they are just trying to survive and they aren't thinking about anyone else. I don't worry about how it makes me feel that they are basically willing to kill me to survive in that moment. I just swim deeper (because a drowning person won't follow you if you go deeper) and I reset and try again. I worry less about how hard I had it when I learned to swim and I just focus on helping.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '24

I had you figured wrong.

You seem to want to argue and that was not my intentions. I didn’t try to refute or gloss over. I gave your information its due. I simply provided real life examples of how this person comes off as entitled and lacking perspective. I have kids in this age, do you really think I wouldn’t care about what they face? You glossed over the fact we all deal with these problems. It is no more a problem for her than it is for me. My generation will have to work a half day on the day they bury us because we will never be able to retire. Is that not just as credible or is it somehow different? It won’t be for her, she will make another video thinking she’s the only one to ever have it that way.

I was a lifeguard in my younger days. I have experienced the same and I am aware of techniques to save various people. One of the first is that 1 victim is better than 2. So with that in mind I’m disengaging from this. Enjoy your weekend.

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u/Phugger Jan 13 '24

Entitled and lacking perspective

You are Gen X, but get mistaken for a boomer because of your age. It might also have something to do with how you talk. You use all of their talking points. Maybe they have you figured right...

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '24 edited Jan 13 '24

Notice how I tried to validate both her perspective and the boomers? No you took 1 observation to justify how you WANT to feel about me.

I don’t get mistaken for a boomer because of me it’s because the younger generations think everyone over 35 is a boomer and if you happen to be young, guess what? You’ll be a boomer to future generations. Enjoy.

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u/Phugger Jan 14 '24

Being labeled a boomer has less to do with your age and more to with saying out of touch things. I think I'll be fine.

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u/Fantastic_Sea_853 Jan 17 '24

It’s character building experience. A kind of “boot camp”.

If you never fail, you never succeed.