People are still buying that “working your ass off” means you’ll be able to live comfortably in America?

Ok cool

It’s the same lie that was told to them, back when it still had a modicum of truth in it. They’re just echoing the corporate propaganda that was fed to them.

No surprise the generation of participation trophies thinks they shouldn’t have to work for anything.

R3

It’s more that they’re sick of being treated like dog shit by their employers and making pennies, while they’re stacked with college and credit card debt.

[quote] No surprise the generation of participation trophies thinks they shouldn’t have to work for anything.

Who gave them those trophies? Do you think they gave them to themselves?

I have more work working remotely.

Maybe everything has changed since I retired last year, but I worked my ass off for 35 years and retired comfortably at the age of 59. If I didn't work my ass off for 35 years, I would still be working for another 25 years. Best of luck to you who don't think hard work matters.

Despite terrible inflation, workers aren’t getting decent wage gains. Young people are fucked if nothing changes.

Why bring your mom into this? Who cares? Tell her to go watch the endless tributes to that chick who FINALLY passed in the UK.....mmmkay?

R4, I had that student loan and credit card debt too, and I made no money in the early years of my career. But I worked my ass off and moved on and up and am making six figures now and feel secure about my retirement in the next 5-10 years. And should you think my family gave me a leg up, rest assured I was born to two hard-working factory workers who showed me that hard work was just what you did.

The younger generation seems to want to skip over a few steps. Work life balance wasn’t a thing back when I wanted to get where I got in life. Working harder than everyone else to reap the spoils was.

I’m quite sure assumptions will be made about the kind of person I am, but you’d probably be wrong. Although I might be the person deciding if I’m going to hire you.

R7

Things are drastically different since you began working. If you don’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you. Many older folks will never understand. People can’t even afford a shitty apartment these days. These aren’t livable wages.

That attitude will get you SO far R5.

R11, if their apartments are so shitty, why do they all want to work from home in their shitty environment? Also, do you think employers value and promote people who don't work hard? Maybe staying in entry level jobs is okay for people who don't want to work hard, but let's face it, the world hasn't changed that much where this doesn't matter.

Really r12?

It was the boomers who were so emotionally stunted that they couldn’t bear to see their children not get a trophy. The kids were embarrassed by them.

Yet they aren’t embarrassed to beg for loan forgiveness and free housing? K.

Okay, boomer

If you’re talking to me, R16, you’re dead wrong. More than one prior generation has had it with your drama.

Young people need to wake up from the "You must go to a college you can't afford" scam!

Young people need to wake up and get serious about VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS ONLY IN EVERY ELECTION.

Young people need to wake up to the fact that if they're not in a LABOR UNION they are nothing but SUCKERS!

Then they can go back to bitching about everything.

College is expensive everywhere, even community colleges. ^

The public schools in California are required to push “college for all” starting in kindergarten

The intentions were good, but it’s just making the problem worse.

[quote] I had that student loan and credit card debt too, and I made no money in the early years of my career. But I worked my ass off and moved on and up

Yeah, and husbands used to be able to support a wife, two kids, a nice house, and a nice car all on one income. But that's not the reality for most people anymore just like the reality for most people graduating now is that no amount of hard work will get them out of their insane amount of debt.

That’s how we got ahead.

You’re surprised that a millionaire is out of touch? lol

There’s actually an anti-work Reddit board where they find ways to survive by choosing not to work. They want work to be abolished.

[quote] Also, do you think employers value and promote people who don't work hard?

They don’t. They promote their friends and those who kiss their ass. I’ve seen this for decades.

So, what's the alternative OP?

You will never be able to convince some people that hard work can pay off. And you'll never be able to convince others that sometimes it doesn't.

OMG it's like sitting at a lunch counter at the roadside diner in Sandusky Ohio.

How many DL threads are more or less "KIDS TODAY!!! GRRRR!!!"

Sad.

From the Austin Monitor:

The city chose $22 as the base pay in part because it is close to what the federal minimum wage would be if it kept up with inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute. (It has been $7.25 for the past 13 years.) The wage comes out to about $45,000 a year. According to city staff, the average cost for a single person to live in Austin is about $42,000 a year.

To live in Austin on $42k a year these days, one would need to share a shitty house with three other people.

[quote] To live in Austin on $42k a year these days, one would need to share a shitty house with three other people.

And that doesn’t include the six figures of debt so many people have taken on because the necessity of a college degree has been showing down all of our throats for the last 70 years.

I have a friend who went to college and got a masters in social work. He’s worked in education and education related non profits. He currently has $70k in debt with another $80k in interest. But, sure, someone in 1975 took on a four figure debt and worked two jobs to pay it off and that’s totally comparable to the situation for most people today. Smh.

A friend of mine got a government job in 1986. She told me she's never worked more than 3 hours per day since. Makes a GS 15 step 10 salary and will retire next year with a six figure pension and full insurance. Those days are over.

R30 masters degree in social work? There is no money to be made in that field. It is just endless paperwork and government restrictive nonsense. Non profit is the worst sector to work for.

[quote] There is no money to be made in that field.

Agreed. But to get a job in that field he still needed a very costly degree. So what’s the solution? No one should be able to go into social work unless they’re already wealthy? Or people should only go to school to become investment bankers? The whole system is broken. And it’s broken in a way that is not at all comparable to the situation for anyone who graduated 20+ years ago—no matter how much they want to pat themselves on the back for having paid off their loans.

So what does not "working you ass off" lead to?

R33 non profit is corrupt to the core. The people at the top pay themselves a huge salary so the whole idea it isn't for profit is bullshit. At least with other for profit sectors you don't have to talk yourself into doing it for the greater good or making an impact bullshit. I used to work in non profit so I have seen the exploitative nature of the sector. Your friend should have saved his money and majored in a career with actual financial potential. In my opinion it was a wasted degree.

R35

So you’re a victim blamer, blaming the victims of a corrupt system but want no change because you benefit from said system.

R36 how do I benefit from said system when I no longer work in that sector. You can't be this dumb. Your friend bought into the whole bullshit of going into the field of social work for the greater impact because there ain't no green to be made.

I agree with R29’s post. Minimum wage should be at least $22, especially in expensive metropolitan areas.

[quote] You will never be able to convince some people that hard work can pay off. And you'll never be able to convince others that sometimes it doesn't.

Hard work is necessary but not sufficient - other factors go into it , but if you don’t work hard and aren’t a nepo baby you will absolutely get left behind - the economy and workforce are way too competitive with people who WILl work twice as hard as you. But absolutely it’s far from a guarantee, that’s the sucky part.

I’m glad Maher brought up customer service though, with the airlines being the worst offenders of all (why did we bail them out again?) you’ll be lucky to find a single person at the gates, or anywhere, who actually does their fucking job anymore. Flying is an absolute nightmare right now. And hotels cutting on maid service , etc etc the list goes on. Consumers are fed up and rightly so - especially since we’re being gouged to death at the same time.

My airport pays 11 an hour. No one wants to be abused for 11 an hour, while the CEO etc are making millions.

R40 well of course. We bail these fuckers out and it goes straight to their pockets while they make even more cuts. And like idiots we keep doing it.

[quote] masters degree in social work? There is no money to be made in that field. It is just endless paperwork and government restrictive nonsense. Non profit is the worst sector to work for.

There are plenty of fields that are necessary for society to function that also push for/require expensive advanced degrees.

[quote]working from home

Let's get this out of the way: working from home doesn't mean you're lazy. There are also plenty of companies who love the idea, not because it may benefit the employee, but because they can save money on rent. The one thing I don't think will go back to pre-pandemic levels are the amount of people who want to work from home and the number of companies pushing for it.

I feel like I work more working from home than I did in an office every day. There's no "off" switch. I can always log on and work on a project. I don't have to worry about traveling late at night back to my home because I'm already there so I work more on projects that take longer amounts of time. I'm sure my productivity is much higher now than it ever was before.

On the other hand I can easily avoid annoying office personalities because I'm not physically there with them. I save money on traveling expenses and food. I don't have to worry about getting sick from someone else or getting anyone else sick during flu season. (I already have had the flu, thank you.)

I feel bad for young people. There is not a clear career path for them unless they are motivated. Plus they grew up being on their phones all the time so they have ADHD and don’t have social skills. It’s also tough in the virtual world if you don’t have a good boss, especially if you are mentally adrift. I just wonder how much they are getting properly coached, when they really need it.

Just cuz.

$22 minimum wage = $25 Big Mac. Arbitrary increases in minimum wage will be passed on to consumers. Inflation will get even worse, and no one will ever be able to afford a house, a car, a vacation, etc. Suddenly 45% of your income will be used to buy food. You can't screw up an entire economy just because you're pissed that some (not all) CEOs make millions.

The Daily podcast today is about the cost of college. According to the description:

[quote] In the 1980s, the list price of undergraduate education at a private four-year institution could hit $20,000 a year. At some of these schools in the last couple of years, it has topped $80,000.

That’s why I get pissed off at all these “well, I worked hard to pay off my debt” people. Because their debt is a drop in the bucket compared to what most people owe now. And thanks to the glut of college grads, most fields require an advanced degree on top of the bachelors, leaving young people with even more debt.

Yet no one ever defines "work your ass off."

Poor people in the inner cities always complain that they have to work many jobs to make ends meet--but each job pays so poorly and has intermittent hours that even though they are "working their ass off," they will never be wealthy.

Typical Bill Maher show nowadays--white men talking about how life has been so hard for them but they persevered and made it.

In that show, the speakers were complaining about grievance culture and then proceed to discuss their own grievances.

Just lots of complaining, no solutions

In NYC, it takes 4 minimum wage jobs to afford rent on an average apartment. That would mean 4 minimum wage jobs SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Working hard gives you shit

[quote] Maybe everything has changed since I retired last year, but I worked my ass off for 35 years and retired comfortably at the age of 59.

Define "worked my ass off"

Did you take extra shifts in an already high paying job? Did you stand in the lottery-buying line alot?

I make a very comfortable living.

Sure, I worked hard, especially studying alot to make good grades, but the real reason I make alot is I chose a profession that gets paid well.

THAT"s the real key.

Salaries for C-suite execs for large companies have increased exponentially. To further this insanity, these execs frequently face no repercussions for the damage they in incur. They may be dismissed, but it is often with a golden package. Anyone who has worked for a large organization for a long enough time has been through this wringer. It is not uncommon for these types to ascend not because of their expertise but for their sociopathic tendencies. No exec is worth that amount of money.

My advice to kids is to choose a profession--doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect, etc.

Generally, those will guarantee at least an upper middle class life.

Otherwise, "work your ass off" tends to mean try to create business after business and hope one succeeds.

To all the people mocking the person who got a MSW degree - society actually needs social workers !

Ahh.. the quintessential thread old vs. young again. And of course both sides think they're absolutely right.

OP, what would improve your personal situation? What income do YOU need in your area to live comfortably? Is there anything you have already done to get to that income level? I understand that employers need to adjust to the changing needs of their workforce. But what have you already started to get you where you want to be. Don't know how old and how advanced you are in your career so far.

[quote]$22 minimum wage = $25 Big Mac

A Big Mac in 2000 - $4.25. Minimum wage = $7.25

A Big Mac in 2021 - $5.23. Minimum wage = $7.25.

Fuck off libertarian asshole.

It's so weird to watch people on the right boast about working 3 jobs through college knowing there's countries that put much more into national education.

I wonder why people are really defending such horrible wages.

8 cities where at least half of millennials can’t afford to rent a 1-bedroom!

Yeah, I was sold that shit when I was a kid in the 70s/80s. I've worked extremely hard, still haven't "made it". I also do not have the American fingergun, big primate smile, perfect hair qualities that are just as, if not more important.

[quote]People are still buying that “working your ass off” means you’ll be able to live comfortably in America?

If you want any kind of real career or own a business, of course you have to work your ass off.

Sure - like the Kardashians. Or Trump, Jr. Or Anderson Cooper. They work HARD!!!

R62 you're not the Kardashians. Or Trump, Jr. Or Anderson Cooper. So yes, If you want any kind of real career or own a business, of course you have to work your ass off.

R49 why not move? and what's the alternative?

It beats doing nothing and living in poverty or being dependent upon another person or the government.

Yes,, working hard (not an unreasonable amount of hours) in a needed professional field will usually result in a decent financial state.

Like teaching? Like delivering groceries? Like home health care? Those are all needed and they pay like shit.

Call me crazy, but I think "working your ass off" is like pulling a double as a waiter or hauling bricks or cleaning up construction site debris. A 12 hour day as a lawyer or doing a bunch of ZOOM calls might be annoying but isn't exactly hard work.

[quote]the economy and workforce are way too competitive with people who WILl work twice as hard as you

I started out with a Bachelors and taught for a few years, then got an advanced degree and went into insurance and finance. My experience in all of those fields was the same: most people were hired because of who they were, not what they could do. If some old coot wanted nothing but pretty girls in the office, he'd hire pretty girls. If some snooty upper-class bitch wanted only other upper-class bitches in her office, that's who she would hire. Once they had an office full of who they wanted, they would then hire a couple of people who did all the work for everyone else, who just goofed off because they could.

Talking with friends, relative and other co-workers, I can't think of a single example of someone who moved up in the world because of hard work. Not one. My aunt made a lot of money but she was the boss's side piece for 30 years. Maybe that was hard work.

[quote]Yes,, working hard (not an unreasonable amount of hours) in a needed professional field will usually result in a decent financial state.

I worked my ass off as a teacher and I didn't make jack shit doing it. I was a waiter for a while and couldn't afford rent. A roommate of mine worked construction through a placement service and barely afforded food, even when he was hired for every day, months on end. He finally got a job at a factory but it was a fluke, and if his Facebook is any indication, it's ruined his hearing and he's covered in burns and scars.

People who think that hard work and virtue get rewarded by money and promotion in America are fools who have never actually worked in the actual American economy.

Yes, waiters and home health aides are needed and don’t pay well. That’s why I said “”professional” field. I get it that teachers don’t get paid a lot unless they work in certain districts.

However, the other part of the equation is choosing a field that may not thrill you but pays well. I’m Gen X and we were sold the “be whatever you want!” And that’s fine IF you don’t put a premium on making a good salary. I don’t love what I do but I don’t hate it and it pays well. I can also work remotely.

My hours aren’t terrible and I have great benefits as well. Is it the job I dreamed of as a kid? No, but it does permit me to leave the kind of life I enjoy, which includes doing rescue work. So, it’s a trade off.

Bottom line, you sometimes have ti decide between a pleasurable job or one that supports your non-work related goals.

Home health aides aren't "professional"? Gosh you better watch your mom like a hawk.

Waiters aren't "professional"? You try and be one.

Basically, you mean people who work on a laptop and can sit down all day.

R45 $22 minimum wage would only be for Austin city employees - doubt that will increase inflation when the average home price here is $600k+.

R43 Phones don’t cause ADHD.

Americans have to work their asses off to make ends meet. The irony is that these same people reject European style social democracies that make life easier.

I've noticed that New York City residents love to complain about how they can barely make ends meet, how they have to work 7 jobs to afford rent, how it's so hard to have any discretionary income, blah, blah, blah. Try moving to another city where the cost of living is reasonable, like Cleveland or Detroit or Indianapolis. You'd live like a king compared to how you're barely eeking by just because of where you chose to live.

R71/R65 I’m Gen X too. If I knew what the shitty job market was going to be like in the early 90s when I graduated I would have chosen a different course of study than liberal arts. Nonetheless our generation, though we had financial struggles, didn’t have to deal with as much debt as millennials were saddled with (whether it was self inflicted debt - like grad degrees in esoteric fields or not). I do not begrudge them student loan forgiveness. It benefits many in society if the younger generations can buy homes etc.

When it was time to choose college/a major I told my kid pick something you can make a living at in the manner you wish to live. Sorry for my practicality but unfortunately that’s life. You can pursue your passions as a hobby. Wish my parents had been as straightforward as that with me.

There’s no faster path to seeming clueless and out of touch than comparing your experience to that of generation younger, as if it were apples versus apples.

I used to bicker with my father all the time because he persisted in comparing his first 20 years of work (early 1950s to early 1970s) to mine (late 1980s to late 2000s) with no thought given to social and economic changes. He was a white male in NYC. Not highly educated (high school grad) but extremely well spoken and living in NYC during the most profitable and abundant decade of the 20th century.

Women and black people were not in the corporate workforce at his level. He was competing with white, usually WASPy, college graduates for jobs in banking and was accepted to a diversity training program because he was—get this—Catholic. He did get ahead because he “worked his ass off,” but hard work is hard work whether you’re using an adding machine or bagging groceries, and…the world was different and the candidate pool was smaller.

He also worked for a bank that—like most of the era—hired from within, promoted, and rewarded lifers. People only got fired if they drank on the job or were late all the time.

His lower middle class parents both died when he was in his mid-30s and left him just enough to put a down payment on a house which he rolled over, so to speak, into a larger home, then that into his last home.

When I entered the workforce in a recession, I took jobs I was overqualified for, had various corporate jobs I was qualified for but got laid off from one after 4 years and one after 8, competed with MBAs for jobs, watched jobs move offshore, etc. Instability and job path insecurity is the name of the game unless you know out of the box you want to enter a very specific profession (medicine, law, finance, education, engineering, etc.—not that those are templates for consistency and guarantees…but they are templates for huge debt).

Any success I have had has been good timing, relationships/contacts, willingness to keep up with tactical changes in my industry (marketing and communications) and knowing when to start my own business when I did because I had heard horror stories and did not want to begin interviewing again at 47. I’m glad my father did well because his money (he is dead and it is mine now) is probably what my 401-K would have looked like had I been working consistently at good jobs for 30 years. . As far as today, I know it’s different and by all accounts worse. The Horatio Alger story is a myth…a pablum as soothing to rich white people as religion is to the poor.

This article about how screwed Millenials are sums it up nicely. Some highlights:

[quote] We’ve taken on at least 300% more student debt than our parents

[quote] those unlucky millennials who graduated at the wrong time have cascaded downward through the economy. Some estimates show that 48 percent of workers with bachelor’s degrees are employed in jobs for which they’re overqualified. A university diploma has practically become a prerequisite for even the lowest-paying positions, just another piece of paper to flash in front of the hiring manager at Quiznos.

[quote] Thirty years ago, she says, you could walk into any hotel in America and everyone in the building, from the cleaners to the security guards to the bartenders, was a direct hire, each worker on the same pay scale and enjoying the same benefits as everyone else. Today, they’re almost all indirect hires, employees of random, anonymous contracting companies... One of Batt’s papers found that employees lose up to 40 percent of their salary when they’re “re-classified” as contractors. In 2013, the city of Memphis reportedly cut wages from $15 an hour to $10 after it fired its school bus drivers and forced them to reapply through a staffing agency. Some Walmart “lumpers,” the warehouse workers who carry boxes from trucks to shelves, have to show up every morning but only get paid if there’s enough work for them that day.

[quote] Trade groups have responded to the dwindling number of secure jobs by digging a moat around the few that are left. Over the last 30 years, they’ve successfully lobbied state governments to require occupational licenses for dozens of jobs that never used to need them. It makes sense: The harder it is to become a plumber, the fewer plumbers there will be and the more each of them can charge. Nearly a third of American workers now need some kind of state license to do their jobs, compared to less than 5 percent in 1950. In most other developed countries, you don’t need official permission to cut hair or pour drinks. Here, those jobs can require up to $20,000 in schooling and 2,100 hours of instruction and unpaid practice.

[quote] In the coming decades, the returns on 401(k) plans are expected to fall by half. According to an analysis by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a drop in stock market returns of just 2 percentage points means a 25-year-old would have to contribute more than double the amount to her retirement savings that a boomer did. Oh, and she'll have to do it on lower wages. This scenario gets even more dire when you consider what's going to happen to Social Security by the time we make it to 65. There, too, it seems inevitable that we’re going to get screwed by demography: In 1950, there were 17 American workers to support each retiree. When millennials retire, there will be just two.

Part of the problem is that people need to redefine what living comfortably means. Someone just starting out shouldn't expect to be able to afford what people who've been working a long time can afford.

Starting salary in NYC for a recent college graduate with a business degree is $54,429, which comes out to $26.17 per hour. Instead of taking out 30 years worth of debt, more people in NYC should go to CUNY schools part time while working retail/fast food at places that are starting workers off at $20 an hour.

[quote] Starting salary in NYC for a recent college graduate with a business degree is $54,429, which comes out to $26.17 per hour. Instead of taking out 30 years worth of debt, more people in NYC should go to CUNY schools part time while working retail/fast food at places that are starting workers off at $20 an hour.

Do you think CUNY grads are competitive against kids who took on tons of debt to go to NYU or Columbia? Or that employers will want to hire former fast food workers? Unfortunately, I don't think most large company's hiring practices are that egalitarian. Also, which retail/fast food places are paying $20/hr? Even if they are paying that, I still don't think it's a livable wage for someone to live in NYC and pay back their $25k in loans, which is the average for most public schools these days. And that doesn't include interest.

Anyone in NY who doesn't take advantage of the Excelsior program for SUNY and CUNY schools if they qualify (free tuition if your household income is under $125,000/year) is an idiot if they go into debt instead. Unless you are getting a free ride from a private college or enough financial aid that won't have you struggling to ever get out of debt, there is no reason not to go to a public school. As millions and millions of indebted college graduates are finding out, wherever you went for undergrad does not matter unless the alumni network helped you land a job. You can't teach common sense.

That scholarship isn't really what it was sold as and has a lot of drawbacks and strings attached.

You just know these kids were taught that if they work a little harder they'll one day live in the lap of luxury.

No they weren’T^.

If you work hard in school, you’ll get a high paying job where you don’t actually have to work that much

Never in the history of civilization has hard work alone been enough to get a person ahead! Hard work never got most humans anything but more hard work, getting ahead has always required the right education, being in a field where upward mobility is possible, impressing the right people, being lucky, etc. And, of course, not giving up when your entry-level job sucks and your dreams aren't coming true immediately, which is how most middle-class young people seem to react to the realities of working for a living.

Sure, they quit easily and why shouldn't they, because if they don't live with their parents, their parents will support them until they find another job. They haven't been adequately prepared for the realities of dealing with all the crap in the work for and as long as their parents will catch them if they fall, they have no reason to knuckle down and try to make the best of the bad situations most of us faced when we were young. Which makes them lucky in the short term, but the fact is, many are just going to bounce from job to job and never develop a real career, because they don't have to. Enabling may be nice in the short term, but anyone who's enabled loses over time.

what are you selling OP?

I think most of the bitches on DL are all for making young people make it on their own because it increases the supply of call boys.

The world needs actors, artists, thinkers/creatives, etc. It shouldn't be something reserved for the rich with parents that will gladly support their flouncing.

The problem is the amount of luck involved in making it in any of those fields.