Generational standards of living

[Sliver]

Holy crap, it's - 31 right now. Low of - 34 tonight. Brrrr!

[Locke]

Look...I grew up playing 'The Oregon Trail.'

To date I know of nobody who has actually died of Dysentery and furthermore, I've never been placed in a 'Donner Party' situation.

So I think we're doing pretty well. All things considered.

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I wouldn’t trade places with my parents, grandparents or older. Not even close.

Jeez, I don't know...Having a secretary bring me a bourbon at 9 a.m. while I light up a cigarette and give dictation sounds pretty nice. Mad Men showed me what I missed. I might trade places.

[gallione11]

Housing prices/rent massively skew my opinion to earlier generations having it better. Divorced parents both bought houses in the late 90s after they remarried. Both not starter homes - 4 bd/2400 sq ft. Both were right about $200k. These houses, now on Zillow, are both valued at $600k.



My current 1bd rent (including parking and trash/sewer/water) is up to $1700 / month and that's with a fairly grandfathered base rent since we've lived here so long and there are rent increase caps. Base is going to $1400 on renew, yet some of the same type units are on the market for over $2k.



I can remember back in 2004, moving into a 2bd apt for $650/month with 2 months free and in a nicer area.



I won't deny, we have it better in a lot of other areas, but a living space is a basic need and I hate to think how much money I've literally thrown away in rent since the barrier to get into the housing market is so high.

[Finger Cookin]

Let's just make this about blowing on Nintendo cartridges to get them to work vs today where you're unable to play a game you bought because the host servers were shut down.

[timun]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

men can argue this, for women it's miles better with each additional generation, no debate

Eh, I think for Gen Z women—and to the surprise of many, I'm sure: yes, there are Gen Zers who are in their mid-20s and are thus women, not little girls anymore—it's worse than the Millennial women before them.

Certainly they have a lot of things better than Baby Boomer women, particularly with respect to gender discrimination law. My Baby Boomer mother would regale us with the tale of how in the 1970s, working for the Royal Bank, she didn't have permission to open up her own account at the very institution she worked for. Her father had to be a named on her account, and when she married—and it was absolutely expected she would get married before she was 30—her husband's name would replace her father's on the account.

[Regorium]

What's the context for this thread? Who could possibly argue older generations had it better than today?

[btimbit]

CP also skews older so not surprised to see some of the responses here.

I'm glad I'm not 10 years younger or I'd never own a home

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I wouldn’t trade places with my parents, grandparents or older. Not even close.

We wouldn’t trade places with you either, so there.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Regorium

What's the context for this thread?

Started here: https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...39#post8947339

The gist:

Originally Posted by Sainters7

Stupid districts for not closing the schools when they have an elective policy to do so when windchill under -40, I'm sure teachers would've loved a closure today. That's what happens when they have to be glorified babysitters, parents would complain if schools were closed sadly.

Originally Posted by kevman

Yeah stupid parents complaining that they need to scramble to find child care last minute or take the day off work when they thought their kids would be in school.

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Don't blame the parents, blame the society that demands having both parents working full time just to survive

Originally Posted by Sliver

Just spit balling, but I have wondered if a lot of us families could go down to one three-year old Corolla, go tent camping for our summer vacations and live in a two-bedroom town house with the kids sharing a room and a bunkbed, and survive on one income and enjoy life more.

We do have pretty high standards of living here, but I don't know that we've found the perfect balance between material possessions and expectations for travel and the amount of work it requires to sustain all of our wants.

Originally Posted by GirlySports

We have very high standards. You've heard the phrase "This is the first generation that has it worse than it's predecessor." But is that really true? Yes, houses are sky rocketing but people can't afford the house they want, not necessarily any house. But they have every other technological advancement there is. Heck, I've been online shopping most of the morning while it's -40 outside and some poor driver is going to deliver it to me.

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I’m really curious as to how many lower income people you both interact with and discuss financial situations with on a regular basis. Your life being good doesn’t mean everybody’s life is going just as good.

Also girly sports, no it’s not true that this is the first generation to have it worse than its predecessor. It’s the second or 3rd in a row now.

[Azure]

Housing is obviously an issue, as is purchasing land.

100 years ago the government was literally begging people to go settle the prairies, and even though it was brutally hard work, and initial people that made the trek likely didn't have a very good life, their persistence setup generational wealth in their families assuming of course that the land has stayed in the family.

Now nobody outside of the super rich are buying land.

Same thing with housing.

Both are amazing assets that setup someone well down the road, and in both cases that ability has been removed for most people.

On the other hand I think if someone is ambitious and willing to work hard, say as comparably hard as their parents / grandparents did, they will be a LOT more successful and have a much better life.

The problem I see is maybe entitlement? Hard to say.

Quality of life is better.
Standard of living is better.
Ability to be successful still requires hard work.
The level of how hard you have to work to be successful is less than what our parents / grandparents had to do.
Level of entitlement is higher.
Hard to get ahead with assets compared to past years.

[CliffFletcher]

One of the reasons it’s difficult to compare generations is that life arcs have changed so much.

My parent’s generation (Silent Generation) grew up poor by our standards. Each in a family of five in a small house with 1 and 1/2 bathrooms and siblings sharing bedrooms. Hand me down clothes. Meat and potatoes meals. Vacation was camping. Jobs by 14 if you wanted to have any spending money. While housing was cheap, one salary from the mill/railroad didn’t pay enough to keep five people in anything close to the material standards we consider middle-class today.

Then out of the house at 18 and working full-time. Married at 20-21. First kid at 23-24, and two more in succession after that. Sure, the economy is growing but if you’re 26 or 28 years old and new in your field, you’re not making much. Those are lean years. The living standards of a typical middle-class family in 1975 would look pretty dire from our vantage.

So it’s not hard to see why older generations look at the childhood and early adulthood of younger generations and regard them as privileged. Boomers and the Silent Generation had much poorer childhoods and youths than Millennials and Gen-Z (as in most things, Gen X are in the middle).

For the last 30 or 40 years, kids and young adults have had way more space, way better clothes, way better food, more stuff. They travel more, dine out more, and have big money lavished on their sports and activities. And the mains reasons are that couples today have children later in life when they’re earning more money, and two working parents provides a huge boost to household income. Especially in the new and unprecedented category of family - two professional parents.

The Silent Generation and Boomers were able to generate more wealth in their working lives than younger generations, and have been able to retire young and well. Younger generations aren’t wrong to envy them paying off mortgages by 50 and retiring to fully-funded pensions at 62.

Tldr: Ages 0-30 have been way better for younger generations than in previous generations. Ages 30-? are shaping up to be worse going forward.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Jeez, I don't know...Having a secretary bring me a bourbon at 9 a.m. while I light up a cigarette and give dictation sounds pretty nice. Mad Men showed me what I missed. I might trade places.

If you have a job with a personal secretary you can still have a bourbon at 9am

[timun]

Continued from here:

Originally Posted by Slava

Great, so what’s worse today than the 1940’s or the 60’s or 70’s for that matter. And yeah for me, my grandparents were born in the 1910’s and 1920’s, so that is three generations, but thanks for your perspective.

Originally Posted by timun

Spoiler!

When people say "three generations ago" they mean relative to NOW, not relative to YOU, you goof!

Originally Posted by Sliver

Isn't that the same thing, though? Three generations ago my wife's dad's dad was born in the 1800s. My dad's mom was born in 1927. How is that not three generations ago? Or maybe even two generations ago if I don't include myself.

Harrison Tyler's dad's dad was John Tyler, tenth president of the United States from 1841 to 1845 after the death of William Henry Harrison. John Tyler was born in 1790 and died in 1862. Should we go by his definition of what "three generations ago" was?

C'mon dude, we're talking relative to "social generations", not how old your (great-)grandparents are in particular.

[Finger Cookin]

Judging by that handy chart, most of the userbase is from 3 or more generations ago. From today.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Judging by that handy chart, most of the userbase is from 3 or more generations ago. From today.

From that handy chart it appears that 'Generations' by definition are entirely arbitrary and why are we arguing about it?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

One of the reasons it’s difficult to compare generations is that life arcs have changed so much.

My parent’s generation (Silent Generation) grew up poor by our standards. Each in a family of five in a small house with 1 and 1/2 bathrooms and siblings sharing bedrooms. Hand me down clothes. Meat and potatoes meals. Vacation was camping. Jobs by 14 if you wanted to have any spending money. While housing was cheap, one salary from the mill/railroad didn’t pay enough to keep five people in anything close to the material standards we consider middle-class today.

Then out of the house at 18 and working full-time. Married at 20-21. First kid at 23-24, and two more in succession after that. Again, raising five people on a single salary. Sure, the economy is growing but if you’re 26 or 28 years old and new in your field, you’re not making much. Those are lean years. The living standards of a typical middle-class family in 1975 would look pretty dire from our vantage.

So it’s not hard to see why older generations look at the childhood and early adulthood of younger generations and regard them as privileged. Boomers and the Silent Generation had much poorer childhoods and youths than Millennials and Gen-Z (as in most things, Gen X are in the middle).

For the last 30 or 40 years, kids and young adults have had way more space, way better clothes, way better food, more stuff. They travel more, dine out more, and have big money lavished on their sports and activities. And the mains reasons are that couples today have children later in life when they’re earning more money, and two working parents provides a huge boost to household income. Especially in the new and unprecedented category of family - two professional parents.

The Silent Generation and Boomers were able to generate much more wealth in their working lives than younger generations, and have been able to retire young and well. Younger generations aren’t wrong to envy them paying off mortgages by 50 and retiring to fully-funded pensions at 62.

Tldr: Ages 0-30 have been way better for younger generations than in previous generations. Ages 30-? are shaping up to be worse going forward.

A lot of those things became cheaper and more accessible though. Some of them were outright not available for our parents / grandparents.

However to a certain degree it might be fair to say that a lot of people value entertainment and pleasure more than they do housing or long-term tangible assets.

I have tons of friends that blow hundreds or thousands per month on things purely for entertainment. Most of them struggle with housing.

[Brendone]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Holy crap, it's - 31 right now. Low of - 34 tonight. Brrrr!

Better throw another Canada Goose jacket on the fire

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Replacement of enough children to replace dying population will be a massive issue; already is in some Asian countries.

Possibly exacerbated by AI and other technology reducing the number of jobs required, though historically I believe technological advancement has increased employment overall. Reduction in workers would also tend to reduce consumption and impact the economy.

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I wouldn’t trade places with my parents, grandparents or older. Not even close.

Not sure I'd want to dump my ancestors into this timeframe, but sometimes wish I was born about 1100 or so years ago where they hailed from.