It’s not just Gen Z…
Yeah, as an elder millennial, I’ve never been able to afford to live alone. This is by no means a new problem, but it’s definitely getting worse.
I worked with a old woman in her 60s with a roommate in 2015. Her salary doesn’t provide for her living alone.
For me, my rent doubled. So Im betting she’s now with 1-3 more roommates since then.
Moving out of home when mum dies, because that inheretance is probably the only way I’ll ever buy a house
fucking sad
Are we pretending that millennials are affording apartments alone? Cause I know very few doing that. Moving back in with your parents, though, that shit’s common.
I was gonna say, most of Gen X has had roommates since we graduated college.
The headlines just keep repeating. Insert newest generation and print
It’s getting measurably worse at a fairly predictable clip - boomers had it easy, x/y less so, it’s dark for milennials, and impossible for zoomers/alpha.
The guardrails were removed and wheels set in motion by the boomers so they could more effectively ransack the economy - everything since then has been a consolidation of wealth and power at the direct expense of workers.
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It is actually worse each time, though. In previous times, it was “oh lordy, prices are going up, shucky darn, guess I will only have 2 pieces of avocado toast each day from now on”. Now people just can’t even get by.
I’m in the Midwest. Most millennials I know are living on their own or with their partner. However, the younger millennials and gen Z I know? Very few I know aren’t living with parents.
I’m an older millennial and my brother is younger. Our parents are old enough we each have a parent living with us.
I’m in Seattle, most of my friends have roommates or moved back in with their parents (which I did in 2020 when I lost my last job). I am making slightly more than my last job now with a second degree but after inflation I’m making quite a bit less and rent has gone up significantly since then. So I still can’t afford my own place.
Older Millenials are more like younger Gen X, while younger Millenials are more like older Gen Z.
Landlords dream of a future where they can charge so much for rent that you need 3 generations of people crammed into a tiny apartment to make payments.
Which would be exactly why the rest of us dream of a future where they don’t exist
This feels like a rerun
History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.
Time polish up that guillotine.
Black Rock l, vanguard and others are turning the American Dream into a subscription model
Isn’t that called a slum lord?
Used to be. It’s moving towards just being a landlord though.
It’s called one of the sexiest human beings alive and they would have most people you or I would be interested in at their beck and call.
We breed for greed.
Just a reminder.
In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average home was $11,000.
So, national minimum wage is $7 something, so homes should be about $77k, right?
Quick history of inflation in America. President Eisenhower started the US/Vietnam War, and JFK kept it going. Ike and Kennedy both wanted to keep it small, but LBJ made a major commitment of troops and air power to deliver a knockout punch. That turned into a quagmire where the US couldn’t pull out without looking like losers. President Johnson [LBJ] started printing money to pay for the War, rather than raise taxes. Nixon was elected as a peace candidate. Nixon’s Vietnam policy alone is worth several books, but we’ll just talk about the US dollar.
Nixon doubled down on Johnson’s bombing policy; the US factories were working 24/7 to make more weapons. Great, except the money was all paper. When the Arab Oil boycott hit the price of everything went through the roof. Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.
Then came Reagan. Big tax cuts for the rich were supposed to make everything golden again. In 1980, $1 million was considered a vast fortune; by 1992 it was what a really rich guy paid for a party.
Dang.
The working class has been selling itself out ever since the end of world war 2.
Que the Iraq war part deux. Immediately followed by the Afghan invasion.
Paid for on credit card. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Don’t forget the giant expansion of the government under Bush² either, the TSA, DHS, Medicare expansion
The aughties fucked over the entire upcoming century. Obama swaging the wall street plutocrats after 2008 with, not just the bail outs, but with relaxing corporate control of rental property is looking really, REALLY short sighted about now
Trump repealing Obama’s DoddFrankLite is gonna come back and haunt us too, when wall street implodes in the inevitable 2008 repeat, because if you can trust a banker to do anything, it’s to suck as much blood out as possible and let the public pay for life support. It’s gonna happen again. Guaranteed.
Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.
This was not because of inflation, but because women were beginning to be seen as fully human
Frankly between this and “but the money was paper” just makes you sound like some kind of neotraditionalist goldbug.
‘Were forced to work’
VS
‘Were permitted to work’
I’m not sure what went wrong with your brain to not be able to distinguish between these two. You’re responding to someone who said the first version. You clapped back with serious attitude about the second version.
They’re not the same though.
SCB is just a contrarian, block them and move on they aren’t worth your time.
Yes I am aware that this person used slanted and incorrect language. That’s sort of my entire point.
You’ll forgive me for not taking someone, who wants the gold standard and traditionalist housewives back, very seriously.
You funny. I never mentioned the gold standard or ‘traditional’ roles. If you’re going to put words in my mouth, I’d like them with an order of nachos and a fruit punch.
You can still buy one for that, as long as you don’t mind living in Flint and like the taste of lead.
I got one in a niceish area for that. All you have to do is buy a small foreclosure and then spend literal years renovating while you live somewhere else and run up a bunch of high interest credit card debt paying for those renovations. 🥲
Man you just dashed my only last real dream of home ownership with your reality. I was like yeah I’ll just find a fixer upper and make it work. I know better now. Thanks for the heads up.
That’s it? Sign me up.
I came in to say something similar. Don’t focus on the price of the rent. The problem is the salary. Rent to salary has been going up and someone is pocketing the difference.
The problem is both.
Edit:
Of course this isn’t universally applicable, but in my city there’s basically six large landlords that own and manage the types of large, multi-family apartment buildings where the majority of people live.
There’s no competition in housing and it shows in the pricing, which has been skyrocketing not coincidentally as the firms consolidate and then all “somehow” price align using the same software market rates.
That’s not how an inflationary economy works. Rent will always go up in yesterday’s money.
If the market was doing its job, salaries wouldn’t be much behind. So the ratio of rent:salary would be relatively stable.
So you’re saying solely blame employers for consistent rent increases that top 10% year over year in some markets?
Employers aren’t going to keep raising everyone’s salary 10% every year to compete with the amount of greed in housing markets. Small ones can’t afford to, and large ones will be punished brutally by their investors for doing so.
Two things can be true: salaries can have stagnated, and rents / housing prices can have skyrocketed as well.
It’s both. You’re getting robbed both ways. It’s not one or the other.
That’s $10.39/hr adjusted for inflation.
'Adjusted for inflation ’ is kind of a joke. If inflation worked the way the adjustments would have you believe, the average home of today would be $120,000 apx. It’s about three times that.
Adjusted for inflation works to show people how much less they’re paying us every year.
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‘Abysmal?’ Because they didn’t have computers and air conditioning? Are you saying that improvements in technology are dependent on inflation?
If you think that they were terrible because they were smaller than the average house today, I suggest you look at the tiny houses and multiple room mate situations people are looking at today. In 1960, If you had three house mates you were probably in prison.
I’m a disabled millennial. I live in a dangerous old house with 5 roommates and I am still spending over half my money on rent.
Well there’s you’re problem! You’re disabled, so therefore unprofitable. It’s criminal that you have the ability to live while someone who could make profit for our corporate overlords might not. Shame on you for being a leech on society! (In case it wasn’t obvious, /S)
Disabled people are literally paid just to be alive.
Trying to paint reality as a hellish dystopia only works if you say true things.
Jesus Christ, who hurt you?!
No one? I don’t understand the question
I’m referring to your comment about disabled people. I can’t imagine being such a piece of shit that I can’t see the value of anyone beyond what money they can bring in through physical labor. What a way to view the world.
Well it’s a good thing I never implied anything of that sort.
You ok man?
Your comment “Disabled people are literally paid to be alive” heavily implies that you view disabled people as though they have no value at all, and are nothing but a drain on society. If I’ve misunderstood, please feel free to explain.
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the traditional way of life has been snuffed out by the forces of capitalism. there’s no point trying to live a normal life anymore, we have to forge a new path
Let me stop you for a second.
In North America single family houses became the norm after the second world war, that means you might still have living relatives who weren’t raised in what you think is the “traditional way of life”.
It’s more traditional for North Americans to live in multi generational housing or housing provided by their employer than it is to own their own house and expect to only be two living in it once their kids leave.
Everyone getting their own single family homeis unsustainable and 70% home ownership is an historical anomaly that pretty much only concerned WASPs. It’s the American dream, not the American tradition.
Way ahead of you.
The traditional way of life was multi-generational homes. If your goal is to live with as few people as possible, the traditional way of life is not for you. Why are you complaining about having the choice to live in homes with many, many fewer people than was traditionally required?
Lol, what? The American tradition has always, in the last century, been to move out as an adult and work your way up into a house and raise a family. On your own. What hell are you calling traditional? Farmer families from the 1800s?
Always, in the last century… those two statements contradict each other. Never mind that it wasn’t that common outside of the middle class, even during the height of American wages.
This is completely false and there is 0 data to back it up. There were 3 small blips of young people moving out regularly and otherwise the norm has been not to do that.
He’s probably from Europe where historically a wealthy family of multi generations all lived in one house. Because people wanted to be near their family (cringe)
If I heard “traditional lifestyle” out of context and I had to assume the rest, I’d be thinking about, yeah, living with your family unless married. Most of the people in the world live like this still.
Big “bUt ThErE aRe ChIlDrEn StArViNg In AfRiCa” energy. How dare someone complain when things could be worse, right? What an ungrateful dick for wanting better just because the previous generation had that, huh?
That’s the point.
Expect things to continue to get worse as long as most people believe the disparity in wealth should continue to grow.
It blows my mind just how many people support this through their rabid worship of billionaires. Not because they love the billionaires themselves, but that they think in some fevered future they too will be billionaires. Well, guess what? It’s never, ever, ever, ever going to happen and every day that passes the now-billionaires are tirelessly working to consolidate money and power to prevent proles from getting foothold. Stop being morons, and stop working against your own interests unless you’re a masochist then go nuts I guess. Leave the rest of us out of it
I saw a quote that I found 100% applicable and will never forget: “Europeans vote as if they will one day be homeless. Americans vote as if they will one day be billionaires.”
US really needs a reality check on which one is more likely.
We believe it’s more possible to claw yourself up to the top in this country purely on the basis of dated propaganda. More Americans believe the “American dream” is possible here because look at the name of it, when the reality is social mobility by every measurable metric is worse here than many other countries.
I think a lot of them see it as a degree of “fairness.” That these people earned it (ignoring the facts that got them to where they are now) and they deserve to keep it. It’s more of a moral thing to them than any real worship, and there definitely is a touch of “don’t let that happen to me.” As if their wealth is at risk.
That’s hardly a new situation.
The only people I know that live alone do so in extremely tiny apartments in unpopular areas.
The only real way to buy is as a couple, and has been for decades.
Yeah, that’s been true for most Millennials.
Yeah no kidding – I moved out of my parents at 18 in 2006, and had a roommate all through univeristy and afterwards until getting married (and I couldn’t afford my current flat without my partner’s salary). Very few people I knew had a place to themselves, and if they did they were either scraping by, or they had help.
You’re literally talking about when you were 18. No shit.
Right? I had some kind of roommate every place I lived into my early 30s. And I’m GenX.
This is not a new situation, it’s rediscovering the wheel by this new generation. The boomers were probably the only generation that could graduate, grab a good Union factory job, and buy a small home in suburbia in their early 20s. Everyone else I know had a transitional period of working smaller jobs and sharing an apartment for a long time until they got a really good job or paired up and married.
In my father’s case, he worked part time pumping gas at Sears and had an apartment with three friends while still paying for all of college in cash. The early 1970s were the place to be, apparently.
lol can’t believe you got downvotes for this. people really do drink the koolaid.
We need a new deal, I mean a new new deal. Because this is getting ridiculous, I’m lying it was ridiculous 20 years ago, now it is just the reason why dystopian fiction is impossible to write, how can you top real life?
What kills me is when you go into the realestate subs and they talk about how they have to constantly increase every year because the cost of everything is going up.
Nah bruh, I’ve had my house for 4 years and nothing has increased at any noticeable level.
Yeah boy am I glad I pulled the trigger on a real estate purchase when I did. My costs (mainly HOA, and to a lesser extent taxes) have gone up very slightly in the last few years, but nowhere near the 30-40% increases I used to get smacked with renting over the same timeframe.
It’s like 1.5-2x as expensive as it was to rent in this (already expensive) area 3 years ago.
I’m determined to never rent again. Landlords are unbelievably greedy.
My father is in real estate and recently had a “talk” with me about how putting 15% into retirement won’t help me and that the only way to secure my future is through real estate. I didn’t have the reverse “talk” with him where I would have pointed out how he’s completely underestimating how much money it’s going to cost to change his diapers in a couple years and how that house will only offset the costs rather than repair them.
Square Deal (1908)
New Deal (1933)
I Have Altered The Deal (2024)
This isn’t new. I’m 43 so call me whatever you want, Gen X, Millenial, somewhere in between. I didn’t live on my own (meaning without roommates) until about 10 years ago. And even then, I bought a house with my wife. so still kinda roommates.
didn’t this happen a long time ago to an earlier generation
We need a new new deal
Completely off topic, but in the article they say some apartment complexes are offering “private liquor lockups.” Wtf?
Anecdotal, but when I was looking for my first apartment about ten years ago I toured a building that didn’t allow residents to keep alcohol. Unsure if it’s even legal (or enforced), but the landlord and property manager were a local pastor and his wife.
I see. religious scumbags. fuck them
I first read this as ‘religiois scumbrage’ as if you misspelt umbrage. Not only was I wrong once, but twice as well.
But goddamn, scumbrage feels like a word I can get behind.
Yes, that’s illegal. I would have been kegging in everyday the first week of my residency just to fuck with them.
I could possibly see it being a legal grey area in a dry county, but that’s just bonkers to me.
Dry countries are a weird concept to me already
Edit: I meant counties, but I’ll leave it.
No one bats an eye at this but if it was a Muslim family who prevented people from having pork in their homes people would be losing their minds
I bet that it had a free pedo-cell in the basement, thou.
Gen Z AND millenials
Would it surprise you to learn that the demographic most likely to be rendered homeless is Boomers because life got expensive around them? As best I can tell, they are also among the worst generations for having prepared for their retirement.
You’re not wrong, but at least they got a chance to prepare.
I asked my boomer mother why her generation wasn’t leading the revolt. I took the first job I remember her having when I was just a wee one, asked her that pay, extrapolated inflation on it and showed her that she’s making the same amount of money today as she was then. Inflation, as a tool to control the masses, has robbed her of every “pay raise” or advancement of her entire life.
Her story is not unique.
That doesn’t let them off the hook for the housing market tho, that shit, intentional or not, is literally just robbing their kids and grandkids futures for themselves.
I judge them based on their voting record.
Neither can Gen-X.
Gen X still had a chance
I got evicted this year so I feel it
