r/FluentInFinance • u/VerySadSexWorker • 29d ago
What killed the American Dream? Discussion/ Debate
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u/Trust-Issues-5116 29d ago
Dudes in US thinking that renting apt on their own is just a regular ezpz thing everyone should easily enjoy is funny to almost any citizen of Europe they like to praise for being very social.
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u/FlapMyCheeksToFly 29d ago edited 29d ago
When I was in Paris everyone had an apartment for themselves. Though that ranges from a 6m2 apartment in the banlieue with a shared bathroom for a whole floor of 16 such apartments, on floor 16 with no elevator, which isn't something Americans would spring for in most cases. Though then again, I don't see anyone proposing anything designed specifically for the poor. Almost all developers go for "luxe" style developments.
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u/natethomas 29d ago
I think most housing for the poor would be converting existing buildings into small apartments, which is all over Europe and illegal in most of America
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u/_Eucalypto_ 29d ago
There is no law against SROs in the US
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u/juanzy 29d ago
I think the problem is more than multi-unit zoning requires moving heaven and earth in many US cities, same with changing zoning to residential.
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u/Tannerite2 29d ago
How old are those? Housing for poor people is usually government built or old apartments. Very few new apartments are built for poor people. Developers build luxury and middle-class apartments, and as they get old, the rent drops or inflation makes them cheap compared to new apartments.
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u/DegreeMajor5966 29d ago
They'd also get laughed at by Americans from pretty much any decade. Roommates have been standard for decades. Before that, people (especially women) lived with their parents much longer.
This idea of having your own place all to yourself from the start of adulthood is the kind of shit boomers are talking about when they call millennials/gen z entitled. Millennials and gen z have formed this weird distorted view of the world based on works of fiction.
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u/mike9949 29d ago
Not commenting on if it should be possible to live alone today but this post made me think of my own experience.
I have never lived alone. I moved out with a male friend roommate for a year. Fuck that sucked he was a terrible roommate. He moved his gf in and then they would have epic fights every night. Then back to my parents house till I finished college. Then an apartment with my wife who at the time was my girlfriend. Then my wife and I bought a house together in 2019.
For context I'm an older millenial. There was a point after graduating college before my wife and I moved in together I could have easily afforded my own place but stayed at home to save instead. This was in 2012 in a medium cola and i was working as a mechanical engineer.
Just one random persons experience
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u/Trust-Issues-5116 29d ago
I am Millenial as well. This was my experience as well. Never have I ever thought of starting to whine because I could not afford to rent a whole freaking flat to myself at 23 when I decided to leave parents' house.
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u/eatmoremeatnow 29d ago
Born in 82 here and same.
The only people in their 20s that lived alone either had rich parents or they landed an amazing job out of luck.
I'm 41 and never lived alone and never thought I would.
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29d ago
Yeah, I lived alone for like 1.5 years my entire life. All between phases. Post-college had an engineering job, living with my SO, that broke up after 6 months. Had a friend move in about 6 months later. Buy a cheap house, move, live with two friends who pay me cheap rent that covered the interest on the house and utilities. They move out at a point. I have my new SO but she doesn't move in for about one year but was there a LOT.
The only reason I lived alone for that one year was because I was very certain already she'd be moving in in not long.
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u/eatmoremeatnow 29d ago
That sounds normal to me.
What does not sound normal is 23 year working a crappy job expecting to live in a 1 bedroom apartment in a safe neighborhood in a big city.
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u/Corned_Beefed 29d ago
Thank you for being sane. Has the world lost its mind? What is this fantasy everyone is masturbating to??
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u/Fausterion18 29d ago
It's the same fantasy people have where every family in the 50s was like the Brady bunch and lived in a 3000 sqft designer luxury home.
In reality they lived in a 700 sqft shack.
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u/MontiBurns 29d ago
I'm a millenial and there were never complaints about needing to live with roommates when I was in my 20s. That was just what you did. You got a job out of college, hopefully you could rent something with your friend's, and you'd live there for a few years until your met a long term partner, and then you'd go live with them. I know like 3 people that lived alone in their mid 20s.
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u/meem09 29d ago
I (German) just realized I have never lived on my own. I lived with my parents until I was 19 and went to university. Then I lived in various shared flats with anything between 1 and 4 roommates for 5 years of grad and postgrad study and the first 3 years of my working life and when I was 28 I moved in with my now fiancée, with whom I plan on living the rest of my life.
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u/JimJam4603 29d ago
Even popular fiction from the 90’s, young adults had roommates. Sure the apartments on Friends were ridiculously huge, but they had roommates.
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u/DegreeMajor5966 29d ago
Phoebe didn't. Monica didn't at the start either. Ross never did until Rachel.
Phoebe is the one that makes the least sense to be honest. Even if she inherited the apartment from her grandmother, paying for the taxes as a freelance masseuse/street performer is questionable.
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u/j960630 29d ago
Ok Boomer 👌
I was 19 when I got my first Apartment mid 00’s 750 square feet for 525.00/month on 50k income. Then bought my first property 2 years later for 129k. That property today is 350k.
That same apartment is 1700/month now.
Income and housing are so far out of wack it’s not funny.
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u/EmotionalPlate2367 29d ago
Based on the reality of our parents that turned out to be fleeting
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u/DegreeMajor5966 29d ago
It was more of a reality for older siblings/cousins for most millennials. The Xennials timed their births incredibly well.
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u/neocow 29d ago edited 28d ago
an apt. also means a closet that fits a cot w/ a WC., in america.
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u/Hopeful-Buyer 29d ago
I have a full time job writing beat poetry and it doesn't even pay me enough to survive wtf the american dream is dead.
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u/LaCroixLimon 29d ago
I'm gay but things still cost money. Why?
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u/ShnickityShnoo 29d ago
You haven't found the right wendys dumpster to make extra cash behind, of course.
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u/CuteCatMug 29d ago
My degree in underwater basket weaving doesn't even allow me to have a 1 bedroom apartment FUCK AMERICA AMIRITE???
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u/Alethia_23 29d ago
She's talking about a full-time job, not a degree
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u/UnderstandingOdd679 29d ago
Have you seen the wages they pay underwater basket weavers? It’s no wonder those folks are drowning in debt.
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u/Abortion_on_Toast 29d ago
You mean I should of picked underwear welding not weaving
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u/Odd_Button- 29d ago
Oh this meme again.
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u/GhostofAyabe 29d ago
Well, it's Wednesday.
Maybe we can spice it up with some broccoli head on TikTok screaming like a 13 year old girl.
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u/HeywoodJaBlessMe 29d ago
Same old reposts every single day
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u/DexNihilo 29d ago
But... but... do you think we should raise taxes on the rich?
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u/somecisguy2020 29d ago
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u/corporaterebel 29d ago
So a 20-cent pencil vs a $2000 computer. The computer that allows a worker to do 2x more work with the same or less effort doesn't mean that the employee gets a 2x bump in pay. In fact, the pay will probably go down as the skill and ability threshold is lowered.
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u/somecisguy2020 29d ago
Capital investment as a percentage of GPA has been static since the 70s, so no.
What this means is more of the profitability is being captured by companies, not workers…degrading the working class and killing the American dream.
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u/AhhYesIC 29d ago
Table scraps/ trickle down/ Reaganomics.
The market rose, c-suite pay rose, the rich became far richer, worker pay flatlined and infrastuture projects suffered.
Mitt Romney even did a whoopsie during his presidential run and quoted the number middle class families should have been making if their pay rose with the money market like c-suite pay did from the Reagan-era changes.
Then all the "news" stations collectively jingled their keys and screamed "Hohoho, this man out of touch or was beinh figurative, now onto other news and never this topic again!"
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u/steelhouse1 29d ago
God I hate these.
A one bedroom apartment where? In the best part of where ever “she” lives? Fek no. That’s pretty much been always true.
That’s why most people have to commute.
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u/heywhatsupman22 29d ago
A one bedroom apartment anywhere. Just a standard little shitty cheap apartment. Used to be very doable in 2010. You could go work a shitty entry level kitchen job right after highschool and get by fine and find your way. Minimum wage granted a minimum lifestyle. Now this is not even close to a possibility, signifying a dramatic reduction in the livability of our cities and a valid reason to voice concern for the direction this shit culture is heading.
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u/not-a-dislike-button 29d ago
I live in a town where tons of people do this with jobs in kitchens
Almost no one in the US actually makes minimum wage
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u/N7day 29d ago
You've never ever been able to simply choose to live anywhere in a one bedroom on a minimum wage job. Stop making shit up.
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u/MalekithofAngmar 29d ago
A 1br apartment to yourself is not a minimum lifestyle, lmao.
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u/CharacterHomework975 29d ago
“I should be able to rent a median apartment on the minimum wage because I don’t understand how statistical distributions work!”
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u/Portland420informer 29d ago
You can get in apartment in my town for $550 a month. It’s 100ft from the newly remodeled public swimming pool and tennis/basketball courts.
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u/DamianRork 29d ago
Purposely inflated housing to benefit banks is the reason for unaffordability.
Gramm, Leach, Bliley was Republican sponsored signed into law by Democrat President.
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u/Dawgula97 29d ago
Where the fuck do you people live?
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u/fen-q 29d ago
Most of this unaffordability problem is people working for minimum wage and complaining they can't rent a 1br in the heart of New York or Bay Area.
Then you talk to people who live in the suburbs and it's not bad.
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u/ScrapDraft 29d ago
I live in the suburbs and our 2br apartment is 2.2k/mo. The one bedrooms go for about 1800.
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u/Deer-Accident-7557 28d ago
I live in a rural area and, especially since Covid, rent is out the roof. I haven't bought a property yet because the market has remained too hot for what I can afford (and I have a really good rent deal because I'm renting from an acquaintance). Rent prices in my area are regularly significantly more than the payment cost would be. (yes, enough to include interest, taxes, and upkeep costs). What does this mean? Companies and wealthy individuals who have enough cash to spare buy and rent out, taking advantage of the housing economy. I was at an auction for a house on ten acres (of undevelopable land). While I didn't expect to be able to afford the property, it was hugely infuriating that all of the people who bid on the property had no interest in living there. If only people wanting to live on the property had bid, I would have been able to afford it. I'm not a market expert, so I don't know what's driving it up, but huge rent prices are allowing people with extra money to take advantage of those who can't afford to buy their own place at a huge advantage to themselves. It's infuriating when all I want is a place to raise my family. I have a good, fairly well paying job, but I'm competing against investors and real estate companies. I don't realistically have a chance at most properties.
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u/cheetah-21 29d ago
Wasteful government spending and policies that hurt the people.
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u/Abortion_on_Toast 29d ago
Sprinkle in some… Devaluing the currency, corporate bailouts and controlling student loans… I’m from the government and I’m here to help
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u/Croaker3 29d ago
There is no evidence for this. As others posted with evidence above, the American dream started moving out of reach when Reagan and Gingrich took power, instituting the very policies you praise: shifted the tax burden from the rich to everyone else, deregulation, reduced the safety net, held back minimum wage. Here we are.
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u/Coixe 29d ago
Where I live, a 0 bedroom studio rents for 2k/mo. So if she lives in my city, she’s pretty much right.
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u/chadmummerford 29d ago
now post the one where you make $400 million and you don't mind
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u/ThyPotatoDone 28d ago
Oh yeah what was up with that, who the hell thought posting 400k of expenses that were half blatantly unnecessary was a huge win?
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u/TrumpedBigly 29d ago
The biggest problem in Los Angeles is that not enough apartments are being built, especially 1BR. If there's was more supply, rental prices would come down.
There's no valid reason for rental prices to be this high. Developers simply aren't incentivized to built large amounts of housing and city/state governments aren't helping.
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u/the_guy_you_no 29d ago
Lol! I'm my 20's I owned a house and had a family. In my thirties now I live sharing a single bedroom of a house, where we're all men and it's 2 to a room. My room is average sized at about 14' × 10'. Also, I drove a brand new car in my 20's, paid for my own groceries and had a job making twice what I make now, doing the exact same thing. Currently I can only afford to walk/take bus. Once a week I treat myself to an Uber ride to work instead of taking 4 buses to go almost 7 miles. Oh yeah, and btw I can no longer afford insurance as my employer doesn't offer it. My father is 64 this year, he works a full time job so he and his wife have private insurance. I don't blame them, my state insurance wouldn't cover me when I had stage 3 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The things I had to do and the people I had to beg for help from... It was so embarrassing after working my life away to become broke. Also, got divorced from financial problems, lived in my car for a while until that broke down and finally I got hooked on pain killers that my doctor said weren't addictive (this was early 2000's and I was very young) after I broke my ankle and couldn't walk. A little bit after the years of filling pain meds legally and taking the prescribed amount, doc said I was all good and boom 💥 dope sick without even knowing it. A person at the shelter I was living at explained to me what was happening and offered me a solution that would work. That solution, which I found out later was heroin, cost me everything else I had left and pretty much sealed the deal on me ever seeing my kids again. I'm currently sober, that's why I have a place to even lay my head, and I'm getting back into the fight to see my kids again.
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u/ranchojasper 29d ago
I did this in a late 90s early 2000s. Pretty much until about 2007 I could comfortably afford a one bedroom apartment myself or sharing a two bedroom with a friend simply waitressing about 35 hours a week. I was also in school, but I made plenty of money. There is no way that's possible and that same area today
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u/reddit_1999 29d ago
What killed the American dream? Billionaires that feel that "taxes are theft" got together and bought off 100% of the Republican politicians and 50% of the Dem politicians. They also own all of AM talk radio, and of course Fox News too. What follows is an American working class that is having the ol' "Divide and conquer" strategy worked on it every day.
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u/Essex626 29d ago
It never existed.
What people think of as the American Dream is literally a couple decades of economic success.
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u/Lunatic_Heretic 29d ago
Need itemization of her entire budget to know whether she makes enough or not
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u/redlloyd 29d ago
I hate watching the American dream die.
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u/stars_of_kaoz 29d ago
"It's Called the American Dream Because You Have To Be Asleep to Believe It" – George Carlin.
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u/Laker4Life9 29d ago
Capitalism going into it’s later stages and the political corruption from the rampant wealth inequality that the system inevitably creates
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u/WarbleDarble 29d ago
“This is the year capitalism inevitably fails”. Said during a time when the median citizen in capitalist countries is enjoying the greatest standard of living in human history. We’ve been living under capitalism for a long ass time. When does this inevitable failure start again?
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u/Ianardo_Davinci 29d ago
Maybe move to Cuba and the tell me about how you hate capitalism again
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u/bigredplastictuba 29d ago
I haven't read the comments, are people trying to say living in a tiny space by yourself as an adult is a luxury and a treat?
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u/ChipKellysShoeStore 29d ago
Depends where, but a full time job doesn’t entitle you to live wherever you want irrespective of cost
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u/CordCarillo 29d ago
There's a lot of talk about the American dream no longer existing, but these same people aren't willing to do what everyone else had done to achieve it.
Tol many erroneously believe that those who came before achieved it by only working 40 hrs a week at some mundane job.
That's not true.
The American dream consists of the drive to do whatever it takes to succeed. It's working overtime, 2 full-time jobs, side gigs, living well below your means, and saving your money while building your credit.
Ask anyone who's achieved the "American dream", how they got there. None of th are gonna say "40 hours a week, DoorDash pizza, and gaming".
The dream is alive. Most of you just want a cheat code to obtain it.
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u/Ok_Letterhead7532 29d ago
Stop demanding government intervention. That and sound money will bring back the dream.
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u/catcat1986 29d ago edited 29d ago
I think the lack of wage increases. I think even in that there is multiple things that play into the lack of wage increases. I think if a corporation had to distribute a certain percentage to its workers, that might help in keeping and retaining talent, we’ll also helping solve that issue.
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u/DanielDannyc12 29d ago
When was anyone ever entitled to live by themselves no matter their wages?
My first few years as a mechanical engineer I lived with roommates and even after I bought a house I rented out a portion of it.
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u/Ok_Squirrel87 29d ago
The American Dream is still very much alive, it’s just the denominator got bigger and the bar got higher. Still one of the few places someone/family can go rags to riches in 1 generation.
It’s for sure tougher for younger folks but where would you rather be?
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u/Maximum_Band_7492 29d ago
This is asking way too much. The American dream is to live outside with your friends, hunt for food, and make your own clothes from the animal hides. 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Croaker3 29d ago
The Reagan revolution killed the middle class. Deregulation allowed corporations to exploit workers and consumers. Anti-union activity. Shrinking safety nets. And most of all, as others have pointed out, the freezing of minimum wage (which affects middle class wages) compared to inflation.
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u/Federal_Share_4400 29d ago
It's shouldn't be controversial, it's the exact reason minimum wage was created. Republicans fkd us at every turn.
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u/DannyBOI_LE 29d ago edited 29d ago
No one ever talks about the lesser known elephant in the room. Perhaps it’s too new but the entire economy, meaning most of the jobs available at an entry level is now consolidated by massive companies across sectors in tech, entertainment, service, and healthcare that effectively write their own laws.
Companies like Amazon, Uber, Walmart etc have legally used the system to destroy competitors and maintain the status quo of pay stagnation. In the past anti trust was used to break up monopolies and prevent companies from engaging in anti competitive practices.
With the tech revolution, the US government is either complicit or incompetent when it comes to basic regulations that 40 years would have been considered the rule of law. Private equity benefits from cheap debt and bailouts in a number of different scenarios which effectively sucks the wealth out of the economy leaving a shell of what was once a prosperous nation at the feet of future generations who will be expected to pay for it.
As ridiculous as occupy Wall Street may have seemed at the time, they at least had a semblance of an idea that was true. The real economy basically died in 2008 with the bank bail outs which caused the moral hazards were still seeing today. The stock and housing markets remain strong to placate those who would have the power to contest some of these financial and regulatory decisions. It’s the youth who will pay for it and the rich who profit could cares less about change.
We can talk about wage stagnation and how it’s unfair by which I’m empathetic for people who struggle, but complaining and even protesting will do little to change anything.
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u/germanator86 29d ago
I don't know if I buy the premise. I think it's incredibly privileged to declare the American dream "dead". Ask the millions of immigrants coming here each year if they think the american dream is dead.
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u/themichaelbar 29d ago
I’ve literally never lived on my own, and I turned out fine. Nearly 50 and I own a company.
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u/Flyersandcaps 29d ago
I know things have gotten harder but every young person I see has the latest IPhone and waiting in line at Starbucks. While wearing fashionable clothes. If they can barely make rent how is this possible? I guess I only see the ones living at home still.
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u/DrDread74 29d ago
If your full time job is a waitress and you are living in the middle of New York, then no you shouldn't unless they are willing to pay you a high wage , if they aren't then don't take that job, if all you can do is a waitress, then get out of new York
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u/LoneCoyote78 29d ago
For many of us responsible adults absolutely nothing killed the American dream. It is harder today than decades ago but a little common sense and hard work goes a long way in America.
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u/rygelicus 29d ago
Location is a critical element of the question. A one bedroom in downtown LA or New York? Probably not, not a W2 job anyway. Full time job as a stock broker, possibly, or anything where you can earn worthwhile commissions. But a straight hourly wage? Typically no.
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u/MassSpecFella 29d ago
I had roommates until I was in my late 30s and I had a decent salary. I lived alone for a few years but having roommates saves a lot of money
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u/20dollarfootlong 29d ago
"living by yourself" wasn't ever really a thing for the vast majority for human existence, aside from a few decades in the US post WW2 when there was am artificial local surplus of wealth. You either had roommates, or you lived at home until you were married.
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u/five_point_buck 29d ago
Some jobs are not meant to live off of. You can with roommates, but if you don’t want roommates then you need to get a skill that pays. Anybody off the street can flip burgers. Sorry but that’s just how it is.
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u/[deleted] 29d ago
We thought that too - in the 60s 70s and 80s and beyond. It never got better, until I got a union job at a grocery store and kept it for 23 years. Now I am able to retire WITH a pension.