this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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256
‘It’s never enough’: young Americans struggle to build financial independence as cost of living spikes (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 day ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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A difficult job market and rising costs are making it harder for young adults to enter adulthood

Young people are already facing the worst entry-level job market since the start of the pandemic and significant economic instability.

But overall economic conditions are making it more challenging for those just entering adulthood. More than eight in 10 young adults rate the economy as “bad” or “terrible”, according to a recent survey conducted with more than 1,000 18- to 34-year-olds around the US by Generation Lab, a research firm studying young people. While young adulthood is known as a time for establishing independence and responsibility, many are attempting to do so amid cuts to social safety net programs and the ever-increasing costs of basic needs like gas and groceries.

“It’s been rough for a long time,” said Nia West-Bey, executive director of the National Collaborative for Transformative Youth Policy. “But I think we particularly have a confluence of long-term economic challenges on the income side and support side, now coupled with an increase in expenses on everything.”

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 7 hours ago

This is not just in the US.

In fact it's exactly the same in the very country where The Guardian is based, where the present day income supposedly equivalent to the wage of a factory worker in the 60s that was enough to pay for a house, a car and a family of 5, is now barelly enough for 1 person to rent a small place.

Ditto in at least the rest of Europe.

This is the end stage of Neoliberalism - a time of wealth concentration, maximized income from the pure ownership of Assets and no regulation, where life essentials that people have no choice but to pay for are provided by monopolies or cartels who aren't restricted from extracting outsides rents from such dominant positions: people are paying what are de facto "taxes paid to the private sector" at the same time as they keep getting fed the swindle that the State should be smaller so that we pay less taxes.

We live in Peak Fraud times.

[–] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

All part of the Republican plan. Keep younger workers in poverty and debt. Devalue health care so employers won't have to provide it. No expectation of retirement means Social Security can go.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 11 points 17 hours ago

As an older person looking at what should be retirement visible on the horizon…it’s still not enough at this end either.

And it’s not just inflation.

It’s capitalism extracting more and more at every opportunity. Fees, more fees, convenience fees, tips, unbundling, increasing subscriptions, tiered subscriptions, artificial scarcity, scalping, effective monopolies, private equity squatting on real estate, health care costs, energy costs…the list of expenses eating away at what should be retirement means you probably want to have a job of some kind just to have a health care plan or something. And for younger people it means never getting ahead at all.

Enshittification of capitalism means companies no longer come up with new products and technologies to drive business, it just means they figure out new ways to exploit customers and employees to drive profits.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 hours ago

Get your shit together over there. You're affecting us too.

[–] Switorik@sh.itjust.works 38 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I've done a bit of math for my area and the minimum you'd have to make to be independent is $25/hr. This includes no extra fun money, no medications, no kids. I don't live in an expensive area and all starting jobs around here pay $18-$20/hr.

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 day ago

in the small towns in states without their own higher minimum wage, it's worse. the starting wages are even lower, but you still need at least that much just to exist.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

I’ve done a bit of math for my area and the minimum you’d have to make to be independent is $25/hr.

Just want to make sure I understand your metrics. Is that "independent" meaning "outside your parents home" as in, "paying your own rent but have roommates"? Or is that "studio apartment living by yourself"? Neither definition is invalid, I'm just interested in the data.

[–] Switorik@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Studio apartment and no parent involvement. You're able to exist but that's about it.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Oh hey, that’s literally me. Just barely staying afloat, with my studio apartment. A good month is one where I don’t have to withdraw from my meager savings to pay for groceries.

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the cost of the average house was $11,000.00.

[–] ramble81@lemmy.zip 41 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

The better metric is number of hours to purchase a house. At that ratio it’d take 11,000 hours, or just over 5.2 years (2080 hours per year is full time).

Currently the average house price in the US is $368,198, and minimum wage is $7.25. At that ratio it’d take 50,785 hours or 24.5 years. That’s almost 5x more. Something is seriously broken, and it’s not just inflation.

Edit: to keep the same 5.2 year timeline, minimum wage would have to be $33/hr. Fairly certain I’ve seen $25-30/hr thrown out for what minimum wage should be, and that tracks with this.

[–] applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

yeah the problem is capitalism. line must go up, forever.

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 5 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Capitalism is a vehicle. It’s only really a problem when you have aggressive (or drunk) drivers. Would do us wonders if corporations were co’ops, even under capitalism. Because the people driving direction are the same people employed by the company — I.e., the only group that is de-facto simultaneously concerned with both the company’s success and the workers success.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Capitalism as a Political Ideology is the problem, because it sells the swindle and normalizes the sociopathic view that it's fine to do whatever it takes to improve your personal upsides even at the cost of others.

Capitalist as just a Trade/Resource allocation system under the oversight and control of other ideologies meant the maximize people's welbeing might be ok, but not as the guide for the highest powers in the land.

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Is it a political ideology of capitalism — which honestly sounds quite weird and interesting — or is it political romanticism of capitalistic economics?

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

"Romanticism by politicians of capitalism economics" is an ideological position.

More broadly, resource distribution is highly political - should everybody get the same (the basis of Communism), should one's betters control who gets what (Monarchy, Fascism) or should it be a distributed system were being good at acculating trade tokens and assets (or being a descendant from ancestors which were good at it) determines one's access to resources (Capitalism).

I suppose that one could say that Capitalism has a lot thinner layer of ideological justifications for why that's the best system for decision making in a country (originally it was pretty much just "trust me, doing what's better for yourself is better for all", but one could say that in the present day that more visibly political part is done by Neoliberalism) but in practice Capitalism is none the less how decisions are made in the very much politically important aspect of human society which is "who gets what".

I suppose we could put it this way: if politicians decided that coin flipping was the way to make politicials decisions, so all decisions were done by coin flipping, would the politicial ideology be just the part were politicians say "we should decide everything by coin flipping" but not the actual coin flipping itself, or is the political ideology the entire thing (so, both the mechanical mechanism for the decision making AND the justification for that being "the best to use").

I think it's both, especially because when it comes to Capitalism the "mechanical mechanism" is way more complex and far less mechanical than coin flipping, requiring to operate things like for example Judicial decisions (which in turn are shaped by Laws), Land ownership, Inheritance and so on, which are not the mechanics itself yet have a disproportionate impact in the outcomes of the whole system (for example, without Land Ownership or Inheritance, Capitalist societies would be VERY different).

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 hours ago

Interesting. See, I was thinking closer to the mechanistic function of capitalism wherein productive assets (“capital”) are primarily owned and controlled by private individuals/organizations. My brain was thinking, what would a political system look like if you replaced “productive assets” with, instead, “political assets.”

[–] Beth@piefed.social 9 points 1 day ago

I don’t think my kids will ever afford to move out. Well, one might. Depends on the field she chooses. Best I can do is leave them a home.

[–] rozodru@piefed.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

in like 2010-2012 I was making 68K a year and paying $700 in rent a month for a large 1 bedroom flat. I had more money and space than I knew what to do with. My only bills were rent, phone, and internet. that's it. no debt, no credit card, nothing. so all my monthly bills combined was like $800. Every Tuesday I'd buy pretty much every new game release. all of them. I'd eat out or order in daily, I didn't bother cooking or do grocery shopping. I'd buy dinner for friends, offer to pay the bill, etc. I was never broke. I had friggin 58k in disposable income!

Now if I was making 68k a year in the same city I'd be struggling. my rent for the same place would have more than tripled, probably way more. phone and internet would have gone way up. the fact that it's gotten so much worse so rapidly is incredibly scary. At one point in my life in my early 30s I REALLY wanted kids, I really wanted to get married. now? forget about it. I'm in my 40s now and while I'm comfortable there's no way in hell I'd ever want to expose children to this and the eventual future. I'm not bringing someone into this world to only say "welp, good luck!". So I don't even bother being in a relationship anymore, there's no point. I consciously made the decision a few years ago to stop dating. When I get asked out I politely decline. I've lived with two different women on two separate occasions in my life so I experienced it. I'm good. Now it's just making sure I earn enough to keep a roof over my head, my stomach fed, and my computer functioning until my body decides it's time to go. I don't care about eating healthy (i'm not over weight), I still smoke cigarettes, and I rarely go to the doctor even though I'm in Canada. I'm just making zero effort to prolong my life at this point because...again...what's the point? I've lived it, I'll slip out when the 'ol ticker decides its time. I don't want to keep living this bullshit economy and i'm tired of seeing the younger generations having no choice but to struggle. honestly if I croak before I hit 50 i'll be happy.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

This reminds me, I need to make a living will. “Do not take extraordinary efforts to prolong my life, unless either of two situations occur - 1) capitalism collapses during my infirmity, or 2) I somehow receive a windfall of wealth such that any accrued medical debts would be covered by said-wealth.”

In other words, just pull the plug. Even if I wake up from a coma, being forced to spend the rest of my life paying off the debt from however long my hospital stay was would be a fate worse than death. At that point, fuck it all. I’d be done playing this stupid game.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

It's not enough

Few solid wages left, but it's not enough

Few corpos that'll pay us more, but it's not enough

Say "you ain't worth all that much", but it's not enough

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I could not have gotten my own apartment years ago in todays conditions, I would be living with 2+ roomates forever. Only recently out of debt with a small surplus, it has got to be just brutal out there for actually real peoeple

That was at not much more than $17/hour. Times were always lean but its insane now.

Its basically jeunocide 💀