This is our reality
Posted on January 11, 2008 5 Comments
From MSNBC today:
“Talk of recession, a weak dollar, and rising unemployment all animate Millennials’ economic angst. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Young people may not know that the inflation-adjusted earnings of new college grads have fallen 8.5 percent since 2000. But they can feel it in the deflated salaries and shriveled benefits they command, even in white-collar jobs. They don’t need an economics degree to understand that the middle class is squeezed. This generation has grown up watching parents struggle to stretch a buck. They lived through the mass layoffs during the corporate scandals earlier this century.”
Technically, I’m a Gen X-er (born in 1979), but this paragraph describes my economic concerns precisely. Can we please talk more about how much education in this country costs and how little you can actually do with most of it? Graduates spend 10 years or more paying off an education that sometimes barely covers living expenses and eats away at our ability to make long-term investments, while on the other end of the working spectrum, we know with certainty we won’t be able to retire comfortably when it’s time.
The question now is, what will our generation do about it?
Damn it, it’s Friday; I’m supposed to be thinking about my weekend plans and what drama Britney’s going to stir up tonight. Now my panties are all in a bunch over the economy. I think I need a cup of herbal tea before I head into my next meeting.
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5 Responses to “This is our reality”
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January 11th, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
I feel your pain here. I really thought that college was the key to ascending the social ladder, but now I’m feelin lower than before. The big money I thought I’d be making barely covers the bills…
January 12th, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
My roommate, who is from China, graduated in December with a Ph.D. in computer science, and even she is having problems getting a job — and she’s definitely not one bit lazy.
I studied to become a teacher, but when I graduated a year ago I decided not to even bother going into teaching, in part because the pay is awful. I’m making peanuts right now blogging, but between that and some other projects I’m working on, I think there are more and better opportunities.
January 13th, 2008 @ 6:59 am
I hear ya, girl! When I started to really get serious about my finances, I was overwhelmed. I thought, I’m supposed to be paying all my bills, my crushing student loans AND be thinking about my future retirement, let alone unborn children? Wasn’t I supposed to be set for life after college graduation? It is frustrating. So for now, I’m trying to focus on the present and cleaning up the past (loans and cc debt.) Maybe this time next year I’ll be able to face the future business..
January 13th, 2008 @ 10:48 am
There is a lot of BS in this article that contradicts what corporate America sees in the Gen Y generation. You can read a million articles about this, just do a Google search, or just talk to corporate managers themselves and you’ll hear the same story over and over. This is the worst generation in terms of work ethic. They’ve been coddled more than any other generation. And the fact is they DIDN’T see any massive layoffs effect their parents with the exception of a few major companies. The Clinton years were the longest period of uninterrupted growth in this country’s history! The dot-com crash hurt people but in terms of job loss it mostly just effected the young Gen X population that were the engine of job growth in 1998-2001. I’m a few years older than you, I work in investment banking in NYC. In our industry we bring in the “best and brightest” from the top schools. Its competitive because we pay a lot, a first year analyst out of college will make around $150,000 and it grows quickly from there each year. But now we’re finding it impossible to get any really good people, and this never used to be an issue. The kids nowadays expect everything to be handed to them and they need constant feedback, its what they were used to growing up. Even though they are as useless as a bag of bricks they expect to come in and have lofty roles. It’s pathetic. A lot of people are starting to worry about how these kids are going to adapt and if they will ever become useful.
January 14th, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Anon, I have also encountered some of the “entitlement” generation at my work. Interesting to note, though, that the driving force behind the entitleds is typically a boomer parent (X-ers with kids in the millenials don’t seem old enough to have working children…is that right?). All kinds of implications there…I could probably go on for hours about Boomers vs. X-ers vs. Millenials in the workplace…