I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
The increasing inability for what was once considered “high earners” in the six figure range to even have enough to have a family or hobbies. Less than a decade ago, 100k was seen as upper class and now its becoming closer to middle class for a generation of professionals as rent and food costs increase. It’s certainly not as bad as anyone trying to make less than 50k in this day and age, but I feel like everyone in the working classes blue and white are being squeezed. If we can’t afford enough for our creature comforts and the things we like to do, what does that mean for personal growth at all income levels?
You are being proletarianized. No remaining vectors for new growth, means corporations are now also cannibalizing white collar workers.
The welfare states in northern Europe were created as a bulwark against the threat of unions “going Bolshevik,” that threat has been gone since 1991 so those concessions are being revoked. Elevated wages are also being revoked. Very explicitly in the case of France and Germany.
Americans are buying up EU assets for cheap, the USA is cashing out on their investments during the marshall plan. Either workers (through their unions) regain enough leverage through strikes or capitalists take everything since workers have no leverage.
Crazy rent price increases in metropolitan centers are also really just clawbacks on white collar wages.
I know accountant/lawyer/engineer types who have to live with room mates and are struggling to save up deposits for buying housing even though they make good money.
Even in these previously prestigious positions junior employees get paid shit and get worked to the bone in exchange for the promise of big (like $10k+ a year) raises. Over recent years the starting salaries have not kept up with inflation and even the raises are getting smaller and smaller. In theory you’re supposed to be financially comfortable “mid career” but that used to be 5 years in and now appears more like 10 or even 15 years in.
Doctors, bankers, top tier lawyers and consultants may be exceptions to this trend, but then again those are jobs where people literally drop dead from overwork so that’s a different type of hell.
Yeah I know a guy irl who’s training to be a lawyer and he says that in companies he’s been at its apparently the norm to work roughly 300 hours or so a month
12 hours a day, 6 days a week, 4 weeks a month works out to 288 hours, so yeah that sounds about right for some of these places.
Not uncommon for a first year associate to bill out enough to cover their entire yearly salary in the first quarter and the rest of the year is just profit for the firm.
There’s an income level that only worries about not getting more and larger glass-bottomed yachts than last year.
This is very true. I have always dreamed to have a job like I have now, my wife and I make nearly 250k EUR together. Of course taxes take a large part of it, but what is left still doesn’t feel as much as I thought it would. We can live a comfortable life, but if we start thinking about buying a house or having children, the math gets difficult.
It’s hard to complain about this, as I know the realities of most people are vastly different. The key thing is, I feel like we’ve been fed a lie, as we worked crazy hard and progressed well in our careers, yet we still can’t seem to reach the lifestyle that came easy to many a few decades ago (e.g. owning your own house with a garden).
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Inflation, yes, but you’re missing the spirit of the complaint.
I make 100k total comp (90 salary, 10 bonus) and I’ve found myself having to deliver for DoorDash to have some breathing room as my salary is just making ends meet and nothing more. This is primarily down to the cost of my mortgage (no advice needed, bought the house when married and dual income and I’m aware of my situation and have ultimately chosen to stay in it for a number of reasons), which eats about 60% of my take home pay.
I should be rolling in it and being able to really dive into a hobby or two. Instead I have a side hustle 2-3 days, 8-12 hours a week.
Earning 104k as a single person or 150k as a family of four is officially considered “low income” in several counties in the San Francisco Bay Area.
that’s just inflation
Death to America
America is not homogeneous. I live in a low cost of living area and make 100k. I have very few real issues. I can easily afford my home. It’s not that everyone has it bad, it’s that most people want to live in the same handful of areas and there is not enough housing in those areas to meet the demand. So the price goes up. Many people are choosing to be squeezed and they do not like this being pointed out.
“Want” is a weird way of phraising “all the jobs worth working are in the big cities, never mind the LGBT internally displaced refugee crisis”