Millennials: Uhm, we've been living that dream for over twenty years now.
I'm over 40 (one of the ancient Millennials) and literally I have only been able to live alone for exactly four years out of the twenty-three years since I moved out of my parents. I currently live with a partner, because, you guessed it, it's about the only way we can afford things now.
Yeah let's not pretend it isn't so much worse now though.
Yes, but it's worse for everybody. Millennials that have been renting for decades... How the hell are they going to get ahead enough to save up for a down payment!? Meanwhile, housing prices keep rising, outpacing even combined incomes. I realize some people are able to make it work, but I don't think it's the majority...
Oh absolutely, didn't mean for that to be a takeaway. These kids have got it way worse than we do, they were fucked right out of the gate even harder than we did. Just had my Gen X "they forgot about us" moment.
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.
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.
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
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.
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. 🥲
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
Gen Z are what... 26 at most?
Yeah, not many millennials or gen X were able to afford to live alone before their 30s, stop thinking you're the only ones who had it hard for years after being done with school.
Heck, my parents came out of university with unemployment at 12+% and interest rates at 18+%, sounds like fun, right? Good climate to think about owning a first house! I wonder what they did... Oh, that's right, they rented an apartment from my great grandmother and lived right above her and my grandparents! A fucking dream, right?
They purchased their first house when they were in their early/mid thirties.
Wanna know how I managed to do better than them? I got 10k from my father's life insurance after he hung himself when I was 26 and let me tell you, I would rather have continued renting.
I truly thought shittymorph had come to lemmy.
You are angry and you deserve to be, and you should talk to somebody about it, but not like this.
Completely off topic, but in the article they say some apartment complexes are offering "private liquor lockups." Wtf?
20-somethings have always had roommates.
But now thirty, forty, and fifty-somethings get to have them, too!
"anymore" implies that until recently that wasn't the case
I got evicted this year so I feel it
Yes, the rent is too damn high, but living in an apartment alone has been a luxury for young people as long as I can remember. I sure as hell couldn't afford it when I was in my twenties. I lived in a pantry for a couple years and didn't complain. This is a weird measuring stick.
I mean, people are reportedly lonely as fuck these days too, so maybe there is a silver lining to this terrible situation?
Edit: Thanks for the downvotes y’all. Rage and negativity are apparently the only appreciated responses here. Lol
There is a massive difference between alone and lonely.
And conversely:
Just because you are forced to share a living space does not mean you have a connection with those people.
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