I keep on having this debate with my dad. He’s 73 and I’m 37. One night he was like “people from your generation want to buy a ‘starter home’ and a vacation home, and then a few years later buy a bigger home!” and I was like “no one in my generation is even thinking about buying a vacation home when they can barely make a livable wage in a lot of fields.” Teachers make about $25/hour (about 35-40k/year) and they deal with tons of shit from the faculty, state, and students themselves. I was making $112k/year working in IT and could barely afford to live by myself in or close to Manhattan.
Edit: just for context, my rent was $2500/month for a 500 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment about 30-45 minutes from Manhattan. The sales tax rate in NYC is 10%. A burger and a beer can easily cost you $20.
The (boomer) generation holds bizarrely strong biases, it could be they subconsciously they do it to avoid admitting they’ve screwed their kids with their political votes, or more likely they simply only care about getting their own and aren’t thinking far enough ahead to realize their being snookered and driving the bus off a cliff.
$112k/yr is a crazy amount of money; I also work in IT in a pretty high up position, I wish I even made half that…
Depends where you live too
So nice of insurance companies to decide that our teeth, eyes, and minds aren’t part of our bodies.
Your parents almost certainly voted to restrict the supply of housing so they could artificially inflate their houses value and retire off of their house.
The causes of the housing shortage are known. We can change it.
Son, one of these days, this will all be yours!
< gestures at crumbling 1985 tract home in car-dependent community >
Luxury. Some day, you’ll have 13 zoomers living in a shoebox in the middle of the road…
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t’ mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi’ his belt.
We were evicted from our paper bag in a septic tank. We had to go live in a lake!
Sounds like it could be a Dylan Moran bit.
A bit older - it’s from the Monty Python “4 Yorkshiremen” sketch.
It a little hard to blame them since they were sold the end of pensions and rise of the 401k. Which the bottom 60% of the country has close to zero of and then they can’t make a living wage because the shareholders demand a greater return every year.
My grandparents ordered their house from Sears and grandpa and my great uncles built it over a summer weekend.
Damn thing still standing and is now I think on a historical register.
But today… we can do the same thing. You want a single or double wide?
I had to get a root canal the other day. The dentist had to wait to see if my insurance would cover it because I had recently had a different root canal and “they sometimes don’t pay for more than one.”
i feel so bad for my US brothers i cant even crack a joke about being too european or something
Although housing isn’t that cheap in the EU, or am I wrong?
Compared to North America, including Canada it’s s whole lot better. Even the expensive city’s are more “affordable” than anything I’ve ever seen from the posts about new York.
But never the less it is still expensive.
In Ventura, near Los Angeles, a house that was $600k is currently $1.2m. The whole housing market’s near bursting soon.
FYI this post is mostly BS.
70 percent of people in the EU own homes. In the US it’s 65 percent.
While it is lower among millennials, especially compared to Boomers at their age, the majority of them still own homes. While I don’t have stats on Gen Z, the oldest among them is 25.
Almost all dental issues can be avoided with preventative measures. Virtually every single white collar job offers dental. Some blue collar jobs do. If your job does not offer dental, it’s available on the ACA exchange for like $20/month.
Again, despite what reddit would have you believe about us all being paid poverty wages, the vast majority of Americans can afford dental.
Finally, I don’t understand why reddit sees the fact that Boomers got married and had kids at like 21 on the late end a good thing. Basically everyone acknowledges marrying young is absolutely idiotic most of the time. Even more people acknowledge that having kids is a dumb idea. Boomers were forced into that. There’s a huge reason a ton of Boomer Humor is about hating your spouse.
Also at this point someone with Boomer parents is in their thirties or forties. Someone with Boomer parents who came of age when the economy was amazing and houses were dirt cheap is 50+. If you can’t afford dental at that age, you’ve fucked up big-time somewhere along the way.
You know dental has limits right? You’ll typically run up or blow by them after your first filling.
Yes. However, the vast majority of dental issues can be solved by regular dentist appointments.
In addition, I’m pretty sure people are straight up making up stuff. Spending $700 before you break even on dental insurance is straight up fiction.
I openly question how many people in their 30s (or late 20s) are in this thread. A lot of this narrative simply isn’t true for most people that age.
Also OPs parents were boomers who had children in their 30s they were most likely more affluent than average boomers
In addition, I’m pretty sure people are straight up making up stuff. Spending $700 before you break even on dental insurance is straight up fiction.
My last two companies, the dental plan was $50/mo (or a total of $600/yr). Other than having only a $25 copay for cleaning, it was between 10% and 20% coinsure with a $1000 limit.
That means optimistically, I needed to spend about $2500 to break even on the most optimistic coinsure, and my benefits disappeared after I spent $5000 (and only would cost the insurance company $400 if I spent every penny).
I literally mathed it out in a year I needed 2 root canals and it would have been cheaper to NOT have the plan. And that was before I discovered the fact my office had special “uninsured assistance” that wasn’t driven by income.
Many Dental plans are an absolute scam. Part of the problem on them is that most people in some areas ONLY get dental insurance if they know they’re going to need it. Makes it hard to have a price that works. It’s part of why I have always supported government-paid insurance for medical and dental issues.
Okay so if you’re actually not lying, then opt out of your insurance plan and buy a delta dental plan via their exchange or the website. It’s quite literally half the cost and comes with free preventative services.
I kinda thought I’d stop hearing the constant bad-faith accusations when I left reddit. I suppose not.
Just went to the Delta site and checked my state. The ONLY plan in my state they have that covers non-trivial work is $60/mo with a maximum coverage of $1000. The 80% (I know Delta employees… no dentist I would use is in their network) coverage after copay is nice, but you’re still paying $700+ out of pocket for a potential $1000 total coverage. And unless you think I’m lying about the “Uninsured discount”, it means if my dentist gives me a $300 discount on work for being uninsured (they do), I still end up ahead.
So thank you for implying I’m lying and then giving me the directions to prove my point.
Almost all dental issues can be avoided with preventative measures. Virtually every single white collar job offers dental. Some blue collar jobs do. If your job does not offer dental, it’s available on the ACA exchange for like $20/month.
The problem is is that insurance is a scam, you pay out the ass monthly for something you may need to use at some point in the future, and even then they’re like “we may cover the cost of this later on, but first you have to pay $500 (the deductible) until it comes to the point…”
You know I’m starting to realize why so many people in this thread have dental issues.
Go to the dentist, even if your teeth are currently fine.
Yeah, just to sit there in the waiting room for 2 hours, have them brush your teeth for you, and be like “yeah, everything looks good. come back in six months!”. I can brush my own teeth, thanks.
“Everything looks good, come back in 6 months.”
(6 months later)
“Looks like you need 2 root canals and a crown.”
The point of insurance is supposed to be cover surprises because everyone eventually has a few. Typical dental coverage nowadays isn’t really insurance at all, it’s a payment plan. I literally opted out of insurance in a year where I expected I needed dental work and it saved me money.
Yo, it’s not Reddit
70 percent of people in the EU own homes. In the US it’s 65 percent.
how many people own a home is not a measure of anything…
Especially since most of those people are older people.
seriously, if you follow that as economic indicator italy is better off than germany XD
Yes it is? It’s a measure of how many people were able to purchase a home.
This is directly relevant to this post, which say that modern day Americans can’t dental insurance, much less homes.
Yes it is? It’s a measure of how many people were able to purchase a home.
which doesnt say anything about the economic conditions of a country.
The above meme:
My parents in their thirties: Let’s buy this house.
Me in my thirties: I can’t afford teeth.
As I said, that is BS.
my man its clearly made more absurd for comedic purposes this community is called Memes not “100% realistic comic depictions of economic conditions”, you cant deny health insurance is a big problem for many people in US.
Have you read any of the top comment threads? People are 100 percent taking this at face value.
A majority definitely don’t. The stats I’m seeing put it at around 45% for millennials, and under 35 it’s just under 40%
Okay, the fact that Lemmy (which owes it’s popularity to the fact that reddit killed third party apps) thinks this is ridiculous.
I can’t wait for Lemmy apps to come out that let me ban keywords. I swear you people invent scenarios to rage over.
Take it up with the US Government.
Thanks for the citation - 52% is just barely a majority, but technically correct!
So uh, the rest of the article vibes pretty strongly with the OP. Millennials are worse off than their parents
The meme said that their parents in their thirties were buying homes, and they can’t even afford dental.
The majority of millennials have bought homes.
More importantly, the overwhelming people in the US can afford dental.
You guys make up scenarios to push BS narratives. Then spam the word “capitalism” ignoring the fact that the majority of the world runs under capitalism.
If OP can’t afford a house or dental then the meme is accurate to them and millions like them. Dental insurance isn’t guaranteed, after all. Capitalism requires winners and losers, and losers don’t get houses or dental insurance.
Like, my dude, there are Americans that can’t afford to take $20 off every paycheck (and that shit only covers cleanings, hope you don’t get a chipped tooth!)
Seriously, it’s just a big strawman argument. The idea that a certain percentage of people own homes says nothing about the affordability of said homes. The percentage of millenials that own homes are consistently using drastically higher percentages of their income than previous generations. And the Healthcare crisis in the US speaks for itself. People arguing against this just want to dance around the topic and not actually argue the real point.
Okay, first you need a civics lessons. Capitalism isn’t a governmental system, it’s an economic system.
This economic system is widely used across the world. This includes most of Europe. Acting like this is just an invitable part of capitalism ignores the fact that the government can pass laws to create a social safety net.
They did. People living at or slightly above the poverty line have dental coverage through Medicaid. People with income above that threshold and no not have dental offered by their job have access to subsidies through the ACA.
Are there people who can’t afford dental? Sure. America is a massive country. However acting like it’s in any way common is insane.
So untrue, just put it downpayment on a 30 yr fixed loan for some dentures.
Don’t forget trying to figure out how much you can eat daily! A second meal is a treat!
I’ve noticed I’m eating cheap ramen again, feels like a step backwards and doesn’t sit as easily.
It’s less satisfying now that I’m in my 40s than it was when I was in college.
Definitely feels that way.
I know. I wish we lived in a communist dystopia.
I lived in USSR. No you do not.
Could you please elaborate what was so bad back then?
Gulag
The US have Guantanamo, you don’t see them shitting on ther country for it.
How many US citizens who simply orally disagreed with US policy are jailed in Guantanamo?
Oh please, you had to shit left and right about Stalin or Lenin or communism in general, for months at a time, to be even sent to prison, let alone the Gulag. Gulag was for political prisoners, not some shmuk with a bottle of vodka shouting that Stalin is a pussy.
On the other hand, if you so much as whispered that you’re a US communist during the cold war, you’re on the CIA watch list, that’s for sure.
You could be a communist in US (and in many other parties). You could not be in any party other than communist in USSR and be free.
And under Stalin, if you shout that Stalin is a pussy, yes you were going to be arrested.
