The SquEEEEze
Young people struggle to reach the standard of living of their parents.
For decades the United States was the land of opportunity. People could start their lives in poverty, work hard, and go on to live very comfortable middle class lives.
That’s not the general paradigm for young people anymore.
There are a few young people who hit the jackpot, but many youngsters, even people with fancy college degrees, struggle to reach the same standard of living as their parents.
Part of the problem is we have been through a period of rapid technological change so the rules have morphed, sometimes quickly. In the 50s, 60s, and 70s any college degree gave you a leg up. Then there was a period when engineering, law, and medical degrees assured financial success. Then computer science. Now many of those majors assure little other than a lot of time out of the work force (when you aren’t earning anything) and a lot of debt.
Then for a short period of time, the trades were a great way to make a living, but that has tightened with the influx of foreign workers (many on legal work visas) that are putting downward pressure on wages. Interestingly, this foreign worker wage pressure has hit professional fields like engineering, medicine, and nursing as well. And sadly, many foreign workers are not required to meet the same educational requirements and costs as U.S. born workers. As a result, the U.S. born workers have an additional financial burden foreigners do not have.
In addition, to the wage pressure from the foreign workers what else is impacting costs? Could there also be a problem with endless wars and out of control spending at all levels of government.
It’s hard to know the purpose of the wars other than that they cost a lot and cause inflation. Is it just a way to line the pockets of a few defense contractors, allow some countries to use our tax dollars to bomb neighboring countries, or for the U.S. to gain access to natural resources. For example, Somalia has been bombed over 70 times since the beginning of the year and $3.8 billion in U.S. tax dollars are flowing to Israel each year so they can bomb the Palestinians. Then we have spent $195 billion in Ukraine since 2022 and have about $1 trillion in long term obligations (about $113 billion to date) for the mess in Iran. Sadly, civilians including women and children are often casualties of all the “war spending”.
Then there are the social programs that we are forced to fund. A lot of this money goes to the children of the foreign workers that companies are bringing to the U.S. (South Dakota) to fill jobs with below market wages. So the citizens are getting a double whammy --lower wages and extra costs for the social programs.
If we keep on spending, one has to wonder if our kids will have anything or if they will all be living in homeless shelters.
What do you think will happen? Will the young people accept this drop in standard of living or will they demand changes?
I not responding to your govt spending portion of this article, rather to the wha wha sympathy for our young people of today. I was 1/2 of a young couple starting out in the mid to late 70’s. How about mortgage rates sky rocketing to 13%? My husband was in law enforcement at that time and I was a stay at home mom with 2 kids. Hamburger was a filet mignon night for us. Our first house had plumbing that consisted of a radiator hose under the bathroom sink for a drain and a 2x4 holding up the trap under the kitchen sink. Our little boy and girl shared a room.
Starting out was always tough. The difference was we didn’t expect it to be any different. We knew the struggle at the beginning would lead to better times. What we didn’t do, was BUY our coffee. We made it. We didn’t go to concerts. We listened to music on the radio. We didn’t eat out. Remember the hamburger? We didn’t expect to start in the penthouse, we lived in the basement apartment. Our expectations were realistic. Maybe theirs should be too.
South Dakota Voices Response: Mark, thank you for joining us. The problem has been occurring for decades (lots of Democrats and Republicans during that period). What specific policy changes would help solve the problem? Who could carry the legislation?
Email comment from MB: “Talk to Trump and the Republicans. There the ones that ran up the cost when Joe Biden was in office, because they didnt know what to do. Joe comes in stops the country from falling on its face and then Trump has us falling on our faces again”