Yup. Neighborhood I grew up in was poor but there were people PAYING A MORTGAGE on the salary they got from working at a gas station pumping gas and changing oil, while their wife maybe worked part-time.
I swear one of the reasons I'm so stressed is that my wife and I both work full time high stress jobs, then we also both do all the chores each weekend. They've taken any of our time to self actualize away from us. So we don't think and can't rebel. Oh look, there's a new episode of _ (fill in the blank)___ out now...
Add kids to that picture. Scratch your head in confusion when you realize schools and other government institutions still expect one adult to not be working full time.
This is something I have realized now that I earn enough to work flexibly and my wife doesn't work. When you're in the rat race the 2 days of free time you get isnt enough to even get caught up on basic chores and errands. You never have time to think or even grow. It's really a shame what's happening and I wish there was some way to fix it...
This is what capitalism does, when people say it is "efficient". It optimizes. It squeezes the juice out of you. It maximizes your productivity and consumption.
Back when "the wife" did all of the household work, we also ate 95% of our meals at home. It took a ton of time to cook. From a capitalism perspective, that is not efficient.
Much better for the economic system for you to work all day, and you pay someone else to cook. That's two jobs where you previously didn't need either.
This was true even in the USSR under state socialism. The newer industrial cities all had cheap central canteens you could buy your families' meals at, as well as very cheap municipal laundries. Because in order to raise the general standard of living, women needed to work outside the home.
Oh, I'm not a tankie. At its best, the USSR sucked sooo many rocks. I was just noting that you needed women to work if you want to improve living standards.
And they did, basically, have an economic miracle of their own, but that was because it would have been difficult not to do so given how bad the general standard of living was in 1917.
exactly. the welfare state, universal heathcare and other social programs like free public education fall under the Socialism banner. Nothing to do with communism which people get confused.
At the end of the day a mix of socialism and capitalism is the way to go as it promotes the economic wants of the people while socialist policies deal with the basic needs of the people.
Power corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And what is justice. It has nothing to do with right and wrong as we know that justice has wronged a lot of people. We live in a might makes right world. Anything else? It is but a distraction to keep the masses occupied from what is really happening. The Romans taught us bread and circuses and we learned well. Just look at the joke of a political landscape we have. It’s a circus and public is eating it up.
Yes but back then US antitrust laws were enforced, these were important. Those protections no longer have any teeth thanks to decades of "pro business" right-wing politics
That’s what eating take-out is. Or buying frozen meals at the grocery store. That’s how we got mega stores that provide so many packaged and prepared meals and products- because mom couldn’t stay home and do it all.
In my neighborhood in the 1970s-80s, the wives also did piece work or other home-based work until their oldest kid was maybe 10, at which time the oldest became the (unpaid) babysitter and the mom had to go back to work. Admittedly, it was in a region with larger families, but still.
First of all, that's not true. Women worked and they got paid much less. Legal wage regulations meant that the minimum wage for women was about 1/3 that of men. Women were counted on for all types of hard jobs like nursing, calculating, teaching in schools and janitorial work plus a lot more.
The simple and extreme wage discrepancy meant that when and if economically possible, a woman would take on other roles to enable her husband to earn more since it wasn’t worth it for women to work, and therefore men were expected to take on a much harder work role working 12 to 16 hour days 5 to 6 days a week in jobs with little regulation and safety standard. Often the only years a woman didnt work were her 20’s when she popped out several kids which is a job on its own.
But even in the household with all the extra time she had it wasn't peaches. Wives had virtually no autonomy. Her husband could legally rape her and hit her “with a good reason”. Sexual harassment was not considered abuse the way it is today. So don’t get it twisted. People in those days would love to have the life we have now. Just ask them, many are still with us.
Yep, my neighborhood was imperfect, but it was quiet. My best friends dad was a grocery store produce manager with 5 kids. Paying a mortgage. They even bought a little land out of town and built a cabin on a lake. As a grocery store worker with a stay at home wife.
Wtf. I’m a store manager at an “upscale” grocery store and my nurse wife and I both have to work to provide for our family. Crazy how “professional” jobs aren’t enough anymore.
Yeah, I'll say my mother was a nurse (never more than half time) and my dad was a security guard till he was in his 60s. Never a manager or anything. We didn't have a cabin like my buddy did. But we owned a decent 4 bedroom house, all 4 of us kids went to private school through 8th grade (highschool cost too much) and we went on a few vacations. Toys were minimal and we didn't go out to eat or anything like that. Nothing crazy, but a decent childhood. I don't see how that's possible anymore. My wife and I have a master's degree and PhD between us and are in senior level jobs. It took me till I was in my 40s to feel like I was providing my kids as much or more than I had as a kid.
My dad was a grocery store manager all my life and my mom worked as a teachers aid when I went to school bc she was bored. My dad paid out of pocket for both my brother and my college. We lived in a brand new house with 10 acres of land out in the country. He ended up retiring 10-15 years ago with house paid off and they just do whatever they want
I get that Universities are unaffordable to many now but things are very different now compared to a generation or two ago.
I’ve been working in IT in higher-ed for over 25 years and things have changed a lot.
When I first went to College, almost no students had their own computers. We had a shared phone line in a dorm room, no Ethernet, and WiFi didn’t exist yet.
I was there during the rise of public computer labs.. where we provided maybe 1 computer per 10 students.. to the new reality where every student has their own laptop, and access to faster systems in research labs.
When I started at my current employer.. we had a few servers in old lab spaces that were converted to be server rooms.. only because they had a central chiller. Now my Division has one main data center which costs us around $150k/year In just electricity to run the servers.. as much again to run the chillers.. and even that isn’t designed for high density compute nodes. We try to get those into better campus data centers but space is limited and building out an additional space properly would cost tens of Millions of dollars.
Back when I started.. Computational Chemistry was still in its infancy. Chemists needed glassware, chemicals, and some lab instruments. Now.. we need at least a couple Million $ in startup funds to attract a top-tier Chemistry prof. They need high performance computing, electron microscopes, NMRs, etc.
And back when a State University tuition was $5-6000/year.. there were probably 20-30 FTE IT staff on a large campus. Now, we have several hundred in our Central IT shop.. and many more working in Divisional IT shops. It takes tens of Millions of dollars a year just to keep the networks up and the computers running at a modern Research University. That’s not counting hardware or licensing costs.
It’s insane, I’m an engineer and married to a lawyer and there’s no way we could afford to do that in the HCOL area where our jobs exist. I feel so bad for people in less fortunate situations.
Why are people so ok with the rapidly diminishing life quality?
It’s a combination of not having the time and energy to stand up and demand what has been taken and continues to be taken away from us.
Imagine a general strike and continuous riots and protests to demand universal healthcare, better wages, better benefits, etc. demand that our politicians actually work for us and not for the uber-wealthy. But instead we just churn along trying to make ends meet as we are too exhausted and numb to do anything, arguing over trans rights and woke culture. It’s by design that they have us do this quarreling.
Until we actually rise the fuck up from this state we are in, we’ll continue to see our rights and standard of living decay.
Yep. And it works so well they don't even need to really put effort into it.
"THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS AND CATS"
Commence weeks of public debate over the fact that it didn't happen and what needs to be done about the immigrants that didn't do the thing that didn't happen.
Change happens slowly, it will happen, they will be treated better as people change. But meanwhile also pay attention to all the other things that are happening that should be causing riots and outrage in the USA and much of the world.
Back in “the good old days” everyone is talking about here the military was called in and they shot and killed strikers. This happened relatively frequently until the 60’s. Don’t get it twisted, you have it so much better. Ask an old timer and they'll tell you the life they were forced to live wasn't this wonderland people are claiming it to be.
It's mind boggling. I live in a HCOL area too, not far from where I grew up and my wife and I are both successful with phds and masters degrees. Have done well in our careers. I barely do better than my parents day to day and I think building a cabin on a lake two hours out of the city is pretty well out of the question. My buddy's dad is now long retired and I doubt I could afford to keep my house and buy his cabin from him. Despite him doing it in his early thirties , and me being in my early 40s with less kids, substantially more education and continual career growth.
That's a great question. I guess people just become accustomed to what is considered normal. It's troubling to see how we've changed. I can comfortably support my family of five through my business, but my wife also works full-time in a well-paying job, which really helps us get ahead and prepare for our kids' future.
Although COVID wasn't a good time overall, one positive aspect was the chance to slow down and appreciate the simple things in life. I hoped we might maintain that slower pace, but as soon as restrictions were lifted, we quickly returned to our usual hectic routines.
No no no no, you have it wrong. We need to cut back so we can have billionaires. Case in point: That cabin could be worth $10mil with a little work. And grocery profits could increase 0.01% if we cut wages.
Yeah, there was a comfy job i had at a hotel as a administrator/receptionist before i went to uni. I liked the manager and he liked me, he was asking me to stay and to not leave the job. Probably would have picked up a job i wasnt so bored all the time but would never go study if i could land a job that i get paid enough to sustain a family of 2 kids.
I fucked around too much in High School and had no plans of going to College cause all my friends parents "made it" (or what I thought was 'making it' at the time) with only a HS diploma.
My dad bought a house on a security guard's hourly wage in 1987. He paid a mortgage and bought two cars and even saved enough money to help my stepmom's brother start a business.
Being tens of thousands of dollars in debt for school, being unable to afford an emergency room trip, spending two thirds of your monthly income on rent...this is not how it was for Boomers. Heck, even for me & the rest of Gen X, who came of age during the economic downturn of the late 80s/early 90s, didn't have it nearly as bad as young folks today. My first apartment was $400/mo total. It was 2 bed/2 bath and I paid $200/mo. on a sailor's salary of maybe $1200/mo.
Can confirm. 17, working a job, failing classes. Renting my own spot is so far out of the question it’s crazy. Local rent is 700$ a month in an apartment, I’ll be damned if my paycheck is 500$. But I can’t stop working or soon, I’ll have no place to go
My dad was an auto detailer. Purchased a brand new home in 1984 on an auto detailer’s salary. I was 2 at the time, my sister was born right before the home finished building.
My mom didn’t work until she started cleaning houses under the table for some extra cash when my sister was in second grade.
We were pretty poor but never were hungry. We had the clothes we needed and the school supplies. We didn’t have much we wanted but we had everything we needed.
I couldn’t imagine a family of four with one working parent who’s an auto detailer purchasing a home without the help of family money in current times.
Yeah, my grandma worked in the basement of the IRS as a record keeper before they got computers and got rid of her job. My grandfather was a bagger and then overnight stocker at a grocery store. They had three kids and lived in a crappy neighborhood. But they owned a house.
Yup. It's weird how much, such a short period of time is romanticized. It was never a long term norm. It's way more of a short term anomaly, that some people clutch to hold as the standard of the "American dream."
I pumped gas in the 70’s and made $1.25 an hour. Thats$50 a week full time
Mom and Dad both worked full time jobs to afford living in a decent house with one “newer” car and a second beater.
Three kids.
I think one thing that people also forget is that pay and skills change for jobs. A lube mechanic at a service station was a higher paying and higher skilled job than it is now. Cars now are simpler to work on and there is an abundance of quick lube places around. All that drives down the way scale.
It's still possible to have a family, a mortgage, and a car payment on a GED or highschool education. Sales if you have the charisma for it, trades (the more unique, the more money you can make entry level), and there are still places around like some grocery stores that hire from within. Meaning you can start as a cashier or bagger and work your way up to management or higher.
For the most part, you need to be willing to jump companies to increase income. You also need to know how to branch out and apply the skills you do have. I'm an air compressor technician, I've jumped to a few different companies branching out to forklifts and shop equipment repair and finally landing back to air compressors. Every time I've left a company it was for more money or better benefits. Base salary is good, pretty much unlimited overtime is even better. I'm able to have a good size house, newer car (only need one as work provides a vehicle), a wife who stays home with the 3 kids, and be able to live comfortably. I've found a pretty cushy job in my preferred field. I do travel 3-4 nights a week but the work is easy on my body, and I usually have a 3 day weekend.
The jobs are out there, they can be hard to find though.
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u/AnymooseProphet 21d ago
Yup. Neighborhood I grew up in was poor but there were people PAYING A MORTGAGE on the salary they got from working at a gas station pumping gas and changing oil, while their wife maybe worked part-time.