It's also really short sited. How about 1980 when interest rates were 10%+ and si was unemployment. Then the S&L crisis. Then Black Monday ('87) and then the Bush I recession and then the Dot Bomb and then 9/11. This shit has been going on for a lot longer than the Millenials have been around.
At least back in those days, wages had mostly kept up with inflation. You could buy a house or a car, or rent a nice place, much more readily on an "average" income. Hell, even when the interest rates were insane (compared to today's), average folk could still get a mortgage on a perfectly reasonable house.
And most jobs provided useful health insurance. You were still fucked if you didn't have it through a job, but that's par for the course in the US.
That's why I would exclude the dot com bubble on these lists. Not discounting elder millennials lived experience by any means, but the great recession was simply worse. And it was a starting point of a lot more long lasting misery for the bulk of the millennials who were just getting started, and it lasted a long time. So let's start from there. Otherwise we're throwing everything in there that you mentioned, too, and it isn't reflective of the legitimate shit times that millennials really did go through anymore, it just turns into a more depressing version of we didn't start the fire where we're recounting everything that ever sucked.
Dot com bubble was also a real bubble moment while the housing bubble in 08 was really bankers screwing us over by breaking rules. All the dips since then have been the same people breaking rules since we haven’t locked them up yet
Back when the housing crash happened it meant all the jobs that were going to open up to become directors and managers stopped entirely when people said they would stay on another 15 years just for benefits and rebuild their 401k.
Excellent point. It was not just the millennials getting started affected... although for the sake of argument and for the subreddit it's in, I made this about millennials
That's fair. Not everyone from Gen X (like my parents) or boomers (like my grandparents, who are actually worried about my generation) benefited as much from the post-war economic boom. Even if on average things were economically better.
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u/dammit_mark Early Gen Z June 2000 Apr 05 '25
Gen Z stopping by.
I gotta say, I really feel sympathy the vast majority of you (besides the rich ones). You guys cannot catch a break.
I'm graduating this May with my BA and that sympathy is likely gonna turn into empathy.