Time for a little rant. Let’s talk about Millenials.

Millennials are generally defined as people born between 1981 and 1996, I happen to fall right into that time, hence I am a millennial. 

All over social media, people are negatively commenting, and blaming millennials for many of the world problems. How on earth could that be true. All the plastic problems started in the 1960’s, climate change became evident because of the industrial era which was in the 1830’s-40’s. There are a million more topics on that line, but those are the two biggest that bother me. 

On another note, life is harder for millennials than it was for our parents generation or even more so than their parents generation.
Millennials are saddled with student debt — but a college education is more necessary than ever. How the fuck are we supposed to get a good paying job if we don’t have a degree. How the fuck are you supposed to pay for those degrees when college tuition increases by 1.3 – 1.9% EVERY YEAR. Why do jobs ask for 5+ years of experience and then expect to pay at an entry level?! 

I have been paying my student loans for 7 years now, and I am ONLY 30% of the way through. I pay 60% over the required amount each month and I still have not even dented that loan. 

With these whopping loans looming over millennials heads, how the fuck are we supposed to afford a house. The average cost of a house in Colorado is $429,800, yet the average amount of money someone my age makes is $42,000. That means it would take 10.25 years to pay off your house and that is ALL the income BEFORE taxes. Then we have other expenses, like car payments, mandatory insurance, bills, student loans, some people already have kids. How do we have extra money to travel and see the world? How do we have extra money to SAVE?

The Post’s Jonnelle Marte reported that in 2013, childcare and pre-college education made up 18% of the total cost of raising a kid, compared with just 2% in 1960, and that was in 2013!

Today, roughly one in five women in the U.S. won’t have kids. Thanks in part to this decline in birthrate, for the first time in U.S. history, there may soon be more elderly people than children.

Based on trends in costs, it’s evident why many families are choosing to have fewer children — or in some cases, no children at all.

The cost of having children in the U.S. has grown exponentially since the 1960s, when the government first started collecting data on childhood expenditures. Between 2000 and 2010, the cost shot up by 40%.

The fact that millennials are, on average earning less and more burdened by student debt only makes the situation more untenable.

There was an article once that said, our grandparents’ generation could afford to buy a house working for just one summer. ONE SUMMER. Now it takes us, what, 12+ years to be able to afford a house.  

Here’s how much the median home value in the U.S. has changed between 1940 and 2000:

• 1940: $2,938
• 1950: $7,354
• 1960: $11,900
• 1970: $17,000
• 1980: $47,200
• 1990: $79,100
• 2000: $119,600

Here are those values again, adjusted for 2000 dollars:

• 1940: $30,600
• 1950: $44,600
• 1960: $58,600
• 1970: $65,600
• 1980: $93,400
• 1990: $101,100
• 2000: $119,600

It’s natural for prices to rise over time, but the issue here is that home values are outpacing inflation, making it nearly impossible for new and young buyers to enter the market.

Compared with previous generations, Millennials are delaying or foregoing marriage and have been somewhat slower in forming their own households. They are also more likely to be living at home with their parents, and for longer stretches.

I know I personally don’t feel comfortable getting married until I am financially stable, and I know that is a mutual feeling for many of my friends. 

In 1966, when Silent Generation women were ages 22 through 37, a majority (58%) were not participating in the labor force while 40% were employed. For Millennial women today, 72% are employed while just a quarter are not in the labor force. Part of me is proud of these facts, as women are becoming more heard and more powerful, but the other part of me is thinking, yeah that percent because we don’t have an option NOT to work.

“Millennials are more risk averse than earlier generations at the same age. People 50 or even 25 years ago didn’t wait to be ‘financially well established’ before starting a family. Now it’s considered irresponsible not to,” Richard Jackson the president of the Global Aging Institute, told Axios.

With incomes flatlining while debt and education costs grow, more and more families need two incomes to make ends meet, YET somehow women make 23% less than their male partners. 23 fucking percent and that statistic is solely for WHITE women. It is even worst for other races, but that is a whole other topic. That not only hurts women, it is hurting the men too. They have to work harder to be able to keep a family afloat. 

Gosh, I could rant for hours, but feel I have made enough points today. I personally am feeling the burden of not making enough money to support my lifestyle. Our rent is $1420 a month (which is somehow considered cheap), I have a car payment, student loans, credit card debt, all the insurances. I want to go out and hang with friends, go out to dinner, get drinks, go travel, but everything has to be questioned. Do I have enough budget this month?  I have worked for my company for 2 months shy of 2 years and they have given me one “pay increase” when in reality it all went to taxes, but our rent has gone up twice, our auto insurance has gone up twice, and my loans have gone no-where! WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?! Older generations call us lazy, well I say politely fuck off.

Cheers to other struggling millennials out there, let’s think about getting drinks when really we should be looking for a second job.

Comment if you have the same opinions, if you’re against what I have to say, then I repeat, kindly f-off, or give me money.

Here is another good article on the average salary of a millennial.

And another on 5 Shocking Statistics about Real Millennial Problems.

*The cover photo used is not mine, I got it from here, which is another article on statistics of millennials in debt.*