Young Adults Say Our System Has Completely Failed

[mike_c]

43. I was making $25,000 per year when I was 40....

That was 1995. It wasn't much to live on, even then. It was the highest wage I was paid up to that time. The point I'm trying to make is that it was ever so, at least in this country during my lifetime. Most young people struggle to make ends meet, often for many years. I left home and entered the workforce at 16. It was many years before I could afford to live without roommates, not until I got married in my mid-twenties, and only because we had two incomes. We still lived from paycheck to paycheck until almost 50, often relying on credit at the end of the month, going ever deeper into debt.

I think "kids these days" have not been given appropriate expectations about what awaits them in the work world. It has always been difficult for young people unless they come from generous, well-to-do families. It takes years, sometimes decades to establish one's self in most trades and professions. Our capitalist economic system operates on the principle that businesses prosper by paying their employees as little a possible. A four year college degree helps in some cases, but entering professional fields usually requires postgraduate degrees AND entry level employment.

Parents need to prepare their children better for the rigors of modern life in a capitalist country-- that, or wake up to the real problems with scramble capitalism. "Load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt." This is likely what awaits you for the first ten or twenty working years.