How bad is the Economy in the U.S.? Look to the struggling youth.

It comes down to, what are YOUR skills. There are plenty of ways to make money, you just need to FIND OUT HOW TO MAKE IT WITH THE SKILLS YOU HAVE. Manual labor isn't that bad

reply to post by thoughtfuldeliquent


Don't like having bosses and being under pressure. The everybody wins generation seems a little lacking when it comes to the real world. And you are complaining about making 1000 a week.


The cold hard truth is everyone making under 12 bucks a hour is going to be put out in the cold because of inflation in the next few years. You will not be able to afford food and rent. The government will not have enough money to bail them out and anarchy will take over when people finally wake up.

reply to post by darkbake


This is to blame on the education system. Kids are spoon-fed, praised for failure, and forced to do nothing. The system do not allowed for kids to think for themselves and learn to do things for themselves. The schools should have taught youth how to start small business work with their hands. You can not teach a whole generation to do office work and not how to do anything constructive

Originally posted by kdyam

Originally posted by unb3k44n7


A $23K annual salary will only allow you to roughly afford $575 a month for rent and utilities, that is if you are lucky enough to even be making that much in your 20s, or be employed at all for that matter. You should just be lucky you have a job if you have one. So, will you choose live in a shed or with your parents? Do you choose to get married at such a young age in hopes of some financial stability and comfort, or a false sense of it thereof? Do you jump around from apartment to apartment with various roommates and in tern find yourself with zero stability?



"Employers (the controllers) don't care if you're a genius with a high school diploma, or an idiot with a master's degree, just as long as you have some form of higher education."

edit on 23-7-2013 by unb3k44n7 because: eta quote

You might want to do the math again on this one.... $23K a year is a monthly salary of roughly $1916, that low of an annual salary and claiming 1 on your W2 would bring in roughly $1500 a month... more than enough to survive on if your single it will pay rent and utilities and food and still have some spending money left over for entertainment. Too bad that a lot of younger people have no idea of how to budget or live somewhat frugally, since a lot of them seem to believe that the internet and a cell phone is a need rather than a want.

Where do you live where that is the case? Where I live rent for a single apartment is $900. I also happen to have a $300 car payment. Without even paying for any additional services, I've already spent $1200 of this $1500 a month that I'm supposed to be able to live on. So this leaves me with $300 for car insurance, utilities, groceries, gas, and other stuff before getting to spending money.

Now you could argue, "get a roommate." Ok I see this point and rent for a two bedroom here is about $1000 a month so divide that in two and you get $500 a month. You can also divide all living expenses by 2 as well (except maybe groceries unless you two share them). I still have a $300 car payment and say $40 a week for gas (10 gallon tank), I've used up 2/3rds of that $1500.

Oh also I don't know where you get your figures but I make $36,000 a year and get about $900 every two weeks which works out to about $1950 a month (after taxes and deductions). Someone making $13,000 less a year probably wouldn't be making $1500 a month like you claim.

Some of the posts in this thread are so cute it's giving me fits. Especially the posts painting millennials as an “entitled generation”.

It's actually so irritating to read I signed up for an account just so I could rebuff that entire retarded viewpoint.

I'm twenty-five, and guess what? I didn't go to college. I didn't go to college because I had a plan, and I had bought the whole “if you work hard enough, you can be anything” propaganda hook line and sinker. Instead, I worked all through high school, maintaining a 3.0 GPA while I bussed tables at a local restaurant. I eventually moved into a dishwasher slot, before I became a cook...and this entire time I squirreled my money away, all of it, saving it and choosing to go “without” things like a car, a cell phone, and a social life, things that most, if not all, my peers had at the time.

My father was the GM of a restaurant, and, having had decades of experience running restaurants, managed to write up an SBA plan and get it approved for a loan. We needed twenty thousand dollars down to get the loan. I provided thirteen-THOUSAND dollars of my own, that I'd worked extremely hard for, and my father maxed out his credit cards to get the rest. I was 18-years-old at the time mind you. We went into business in 2007, without so much of an inkling that the economy was going to crash.

The first year I worked eighty hours a week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no days off, for free. The rationale was that I would live at home and work for free until we got busy enough for me to draw a paycheck. After a year of what I can only describe as slave conditions, he was able to make enough money to pay me $150 a week. That's roughly $600 a month. The second year I was also finally afforded a day off.

I worked like this for close to THREE YEARS before I personally called it quits. Once it became apparent I wasn't going to get my initial investment back, I jumped off the ship and got a cook's job elsewhere for nine bucks an hour. I rode a bicycle about eight miles to work every day and eight miles back until I could afford a car. Gradually over the years I've worked my way up to $13.50. I'm currently a line chef at a country club.

My sister went to FSU and majored in biology. She has her doctorate now, though after about ten years of schooling guess what? There were no jobs for her when she graduated. Nor were there any jobs for her husband, who's also a scientist. They elected to move out of the country...she's thirty-one and living in Switzerland right now, not because they want to, but because it was really one of the only options they had.

My sister and I worked excruciatingly hard to get where we're at now, and we're millennials. Everything I own, I paid for myself. All the cars I owned, I paid for. My insurance, my cell phone, my apartment, my furniture...I did it all by myself. So when I see somebody sh*t on my generation like a couple have done in this thread, it gets me very, very heated.

The bottom line is, the same opportunities that were there for folks thirty years ago? Are GONE. You can point the finger at us, call us a bunch of lazy kids, tell us we're entitled and that we never had to work hard for anything, but here are the facts. Prices keep going up, up, up....and wages keep going down. And you can keep telling yourselves Millennials just don't work hard enough, but the truth is, we're the ones faced with this new reality...we came right out of high school and into a recession. All we've ever known is adversity...there has been no “golden era” for us. The system is broken, and as long as we keep perpetuating stupid generational myths, nothing's going to get fixed. This economy is f*cked and my generation is feeling it the hardest. Stop pretending otherwise.

Well, I've posted my story on ATS before. I'm young enough to be a millennial but old enough to have avoided the pitfalls of things like No Child Left Behind. I graduated high school in 2000 and went to college, it took me a bit longer to complete due to medical conditions and I finally finished my original dual major in 2008, right in time for the economy to collapse. Since then I've found the only real option I have is to be a professional student I've completed a third degree and due to lack of options am back and working on a fourth since the scholarship money covers living expenses. I have degrees in computer science, computer programming, digital media design, and in a year games and animation. In addition to this I've completed numerous certificates. The sad truth of things though, is that I'm stuck living in the area I currently live and there are no jobs for my skills. The only job I've been able to get in the last couple years of looking has been working under the table as a tutor for a college at $3/hour, but atleast I get a lot of hours.

The jobs simply aren't there for college graduates, my area actually hates education and will refuse to hire people that have gone to college. We have a local community college, it has a graduation rate of 12% of the people that do graduate, over 75% are unable to find employment in any field. Fortunately for me, I don't have student loans to repay but even that doesn't change my viewpoint, college just isn't worth it. If I didn't have a college degree I could make minimum wage at McDonalds, thanks to having an education though I'm overqualified for the only jobs that are available.

I work for a fortune 500 company(UPS). Been part time for 7 years. Busting hump in extreme heat and cold. Most people quit the first week. They can't keep anyone the pay is too low for the extreme physical work. The company has not increased pt wages since 70's. We get raises yearly but it would take you 25 years to make a decent wage. Yet there making record profits. Corporate greed. Got laid off my second job that was full time. Went from 70 hours a week to 20. This is the problem in America, stagnate wages on those that do work and all our jobs lost to foreign country's. Thanks to NAFTA . I have to live at home with parents or be homeless. Its a new America not the same our parents lived in. Im not a doom and gloomer but I only see dark days ahead.

I see a whole lot a waa, waa waa on this thread. Oh Poor Me!

There are more jobs out there then you could shake a stick at. They may require you to move though, if that's the case...then move! They may require you to start at the bottom...so be it. You'll eventually get ahead doing such. If you've actually got the smarts for it that is.

A degree is not the end all be all that many think it is. I've met plenty of people with degrees that are dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to life and reality.

If your resume oversells you, maybe you need to dumb it down some. Maybe your resume doesn't highlight your skillset. Maybe you need to polish up on your interviewing skills...you know, that little thing called having a conversation?

Maybe you need to start your own business if you're that smart.

Originally posted by Cancerwarrior
reply to post by Brotherman

 

Are you a certified welder and you are having trouble finding work? Really?

Hell man, come to TX, or LA. I know lots of welders who work on pipelines or offshore and they make bank. Always in demand too. Start looking them up and calling them and send them resumes and I'm sure you will get hired in no time.

He probably doesn't want to leave his hometown. I've seen it stagnate plenty of people. I have no symapthy.

The jobs ARE out there, you just have to be willing to move.

reply to post by DYepes


There you go again. Talking sense. ARE YOU CRAZY!

Most kids nowadays, especially the entitled class of the supposedly educated feel that they are above the laborious work that earning a paystub requires.

Oh, I know that all aren't like that and those are in the minority. They're usually successful as well.

Originally posted by Krazysh0t

Originally posted by kdyam

Originally posted by unb3k44n7


A $23K annual salary will only allow you to roughly afford $575 a month for rent and utilities, that is if you are lucky enough to even be making that much in your 20s, or be employed at all for that matter. You should just be lucky you have a job if you have one. So, will you choose live in a shed or with your parents? Do you choose to get married at such a young age in hopes of some financial stability and comfort, or a false sense of it thereof? Do you jump around from apartment to apartment with various roommates and in tern find yourself with zero stability?



"Employers (the controllers) don't care if you're a genius with a high school diploma, or an idiot with a master's degree, just as long as you have some form of higher education."

edit on 23-7-2013 by unb3k44n7 because: eta quote

You might want to do the math again on this one.... $23K a year is a monthly salary of roughly $1916, that low of an annual salary and claiming 1 on your W2 would bring in roughly $1500 a month... more than enough to survive on if your single it will pay rent and utilities and food and still have some spending money left over for entertainment. Too bad that a lot of younger people have no idea of how to budget or live somewhat frugally, since a lot of them seem to believe that the internet and a cell phone is a need rather than a want.

Where do you live where that is the case? Where I live rent for a single apartment is $900. I also happen to have a $300 car payment. Without even paying for any additional services, I've already spent $1200 of this $1500 a month that I'm supposed to be able to live on. So this leaves me with $300 for car insurance, utilities, groceries, gas, and other stuff before getting to spending money.

Now you could argue, "get a roommate." Ok I see this point and rent for a two bedroom here is about $1000 a month so divide that in two and you get $500 a month. You can also divide all living expenses by 2 as well (except maybe groceries unless you two share them). I still have a $300 car payment and say $40 a week for gas (10 gallon tank), I've used up 2/3rds of that $1500.

Oh also I don't know where you get your figures but I make $36,000 a year and get about $900 every two weeks which works out to about $1950 a month (after taxes and deductions). Someone making $13,000 less a year probably wouldn't be making $1500 a month like you claim.

I lived like this for about 3 years in the early 2000's. I lived in a Suburb of Portland, Or and paid $550 a month for rent, paid cash for an older volvo so I didnt have a car payment, no cell phone , no internet but I did have cable. My auto insurance was $58/mo since I only needed liability coverage. My tax with holdings came out to roughly 26% since I was in a lower tax bracket than you are at $36,000. It worked for me. Granted things have changed a little but not too much. The thing about it was that I searched for the cheapest apartment I could find in the best neighborhood, I paid cash for an older dependable car so I would have no car payment and be able to get cheap insurance and went without internet, a cell phone and some of the other things my friends thought were a necessity. In the end I was lucky, I got my producers license for insurance and found a job where I was able to make a bunch of money and havent had to worry much about money and can buy what I want now... but I did have to scratch and scrape to get buy and didn't complain to much about it because I wasn't living in my parents house. If I had students loans at the time I would have had to get a second job to pay for them.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
I see a whole lot a waa, waa waa on this thread. Oh Poor Me!

There are more jobs out there then you could shake a stick at. They may require you to move though, if that's the case...then move! They may require you to start at the bottom...so be it. You'll eventually get ahead doing such. If you've actually got the smarts for it that is.

A degree is not the end all be all that many think it is. I've met plenty of people with degrees that are dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to life and reality.

If your resume oversells you, maybe you need to dumb it down some. Maybe your resume doesn't highlight your skillset. Maybe you need to polish up on your interviewing skills...you know, that little thing called having a conversation?

Maybe you need to start your own business if you're that smart.

Actually, I agree with you that degrees are worthless. They've never gotten me a job, though they have prevented me from getting a few. I use one to stabilize a dresser that's a little wobbly and I use another for a coaster, the other is still waiting to find a use.

However, moving isn't a solution, it does nothing to fix a broken system. Not only is there the issue that many people cannot move for various reasons (I'm one of them, and would like nothing more than to move from my town), but in the end moving doesn't create jobs, it lets someone have a chance at getting one of the few jobs that exist (at the cost of someone else being unemployed), the problem however is one of total job availability, and things on this front are only going to get worse. For example, the college I work at put in a new policy going into effect at the start of the next school year, all full time employees are reduced to 29 hours, all part timers goto 14 hours. They're still expected to manage the same workload if they want to keep their job, they just have to do the rest of it off the clock or somehow work faster since the school isn't hiring anyone new. Actually, my towns elected officials have gone around encouraging businesses to drop all full time employees to 29 hours to protest Obamacare... quite a few are doing it. That just makes the employment problem even worse.

We just don't have enough employment opportunities out there, and the jobs we do have are almost always low skilled service sector jobs replacing higher paid skilled labor positions. The sad truth is that unless something changes the vast majority of people in my generation will never own their own home or be able to retire. And that includes the people like me that went to college specifically to be able to have those types of things one day in the future. The jobs aren't there.

reply to post by Aazadan


If illegal immigrants can make ends meet and still send money back home to their families...hmmm, maybe we can too? It's nothing nice and it's hard living.

It's the hard living that many today cannot deal with.

Then again, you have people who have gotten degrees in fields that pay little. What we're they thinking? Medical? I can see. Law? I can see.

Most people I know who have a community college degree in the basic trades live better than those who don't.

My last neighbor (who thought I liked him) always belittled the blue collar workers. He was a IT geek. But when his tiolet stopped up, he came running to me for help. I told him to go to Home Depot and rent a snake. He looked at me as if I was stoned. He hasn't talked to me since...thank god.

I graduate in 2 years. This Electrical Engineering degree should come on handy.

It is sad that a lot of people graduate and can't find work, but some can't use that excuse because they major in a hobby and not a career-field.

Medieval literature and art history aren't exactly booming businesses right now.

reply to post by ArnoldNonymous


My friend has those exact same degrees and has a job.

Another friend of mine is working as an astrophysicist.

The rest of us are unemployed or underemployed though.

The ones who ARE employed had wealthy parents who supported their higher education and paid for them to go to college/move around to areas with better opportunities.

Those of us who AREN'T employed were expected to follow the "American Dream,":

We got no help from our parents for college (not because they couldn't afford it, but because we were supposed to be "self sufficient",)

Were expected to get a job at McDonalds (according to them it "builds character",)

Were discouraged to take better jobs (what? You aren't satisfied?! Don't be competitive! It isn't Godly!)

And received 0 assistance with relocating to other areas once the jobs dried up (that isn't my responsibility to help you!)

As I said before, the issue is with brainwashing.

Right now, most Americans (at least the ones I'm around,) follow a model that isn't very successful AND IGNORE THE COURSE OF ACTION THAT IS SUCCESSFUL.

That leads us with the current issue:

Why don't you have a job?! Don't make up excuses and cite statistics!

What do you mean you need a car?! You can't afford a car for years from now! Just walk! Stop trying to compete with the other people getting jobs! It isn't Christian!

What do you mean you have no credit score? Who needs credit! It is your own fault for taking my advice about debit cards anyway! I'm not a banker. Credit is evil anyway.

etc.etc.etc.

I'm about ready to enlist if I can't find a job soon. The only thing is that the last time I tried to my parents when grade A ape#! Gaslighting, threats, you name it.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
reply to post by Aazadan

 

If illegal immigrants can make ends meet and still send money back home to their families...hmmm, maybe we can too? It's nothing nice and it's hard living.

It's the hard living that many today cannot deal with.

I live on roughly $700/month (this comes out to working about 60 hours/week at $3/hour), don't have a vehicle (in a town without public transportation), don't have a tv or even electrical appliances (though I do have a computer I salvaged old thrown out parts for and the skills to pirate wifi), and have a 100 sqft apartment, that's about as hard living as it gets in America. When immigrants send money back to their families, they have about the same quality of life as I have now, except they're paid more.

Then again, you have people who have gotten degrees in fields that pay little. What we're they thinking? Medical? I can see. Law? I can see.

Just because a field doesn't pay a lot doesn't mean that it's not important, believe it or not art and literature degrees do have a purpose. We can't have an educated society full of nothing but nurses, doctors, and lawyers. The problem here isn't that they're going into bad fields but that college tuition has increased so much that going into them is a very poor choice. 30 years ago a full time summer job could pay your entire years college tuition, room, and board. Both because people were paid relatively more money, and because tuition was much less expensive. Those low paying jobs still need doing though. If you look you'll see that most college graduates aren't complaining about the amount of money they're making right out of college. Instead they're complaining about massive loan repayments and an inability to find work in the first place.

My last neighbor (who thought I liked him) always belittled the blue collar workers. He was a IT geek. But when his tiolet stopped up, he came running to me for help. I told him to go to Home Depot and rent a snake. He looked at me as if I was stoned. He hasn't talked to me since...thank god.

There's nothing wrong with blue collar work, but a lot of people learn the skills to not need to do it for various reasons.

Originally posted by ArnoldNonymous
I graduate in 2 years. This Electrical Engineering degree should come on handy.

It is sad that a lot of people graduate and can't find work, but some can't use that excuse because they major in a hobby and not a career-field.

Medieval literature and art history aren't exactly booming businesses right now.

One of my friends holds multiple engineering degrees, Electrical Engineering being one of them. Like me, he can't find work. Regardless of the degree, in many areas of the country jobs simply don't exist.

reply to post by Aazadan


Relocate?

Relocate?

Relocate?

The jobs are out there, having a degree is EXTREMELY important so you can remain competitive with the rest of the work force.

reply to post by Aazadan


Maybe I was stupid, or maybe I was smart. That is still up for debate within my family.

I was a high school dropout who still managed to be the first in my class to retire at 48. Needless to say, that pissed a lot of people off. But the one thing they don’t realize is that I live on a set income. I have to budget.

People are all worried about finding a job without looking at the bigger picture. Nowadays, it seems that many want it all and want it now. It just doesn’t work like that.

Many fields are costing way more than they should. For example; here in my county in Ohio, you have to have a Masters degree to be a librarian. WTF! But people still do it and the pay ain’t all that great either.

Here’s my conspiracy angle since it’s that kind of site. It’s the HR weenies that are driving this. They are not really looking for the best qualified, but rather those who have spent the most. Kind of makes sense don’t it? Keep hiring those that owe the most, and even with a high turn around, it’ll keep them employed as well.

I knew this topic would become a DOOM and gloom thread, and when anyone comes around offering hope they are slammed dunked by the depressed folks

No but really to a point the err Millennial's are screwed no other generation has been so dependent on technology, yet there will still be those that can do anything, and those who will continue to point and blame..

If you looked at where I came from and where I am now, and I told you I did not goto college, and hated high school I would prob. just piss you off...

The Youth can and will be able to do anything they want to, they just have to have the will and the drive, America, is home of the innovated, not to mention this is a world economy, if you have a master's and cannot find a job, you have no business with a master's that says your smart...

That is my opinion, and its a pretty down to Earth one..

Anyhow back to working on your depressions folks...

This is completely rich people's fault and nobody but.
Freakin' hoarding all of the money while the rest are fighting the pittance left over.

Then they collaborate endlessly with other rich people to continue their crap.

Seriously it has nothing to do with this generation or the last but the global oligarchies that maintain their monopoly and abilities to generate wealth over most people in the lower income bracket who simply can't compete.

And generalizing all millenials as people who have cellphones and watch glee is just utterly repulsive.