Baby boomers Ruined America: Why Blaming Millennials is Misguided — and Annoying

[LiberalEsto]

112. I am a baby boomer, but not prosperous in the slightest

Blaming other generations for the dirty work of the Republican Party, the corporations and the 1% is crazy. That is exactly what they want - generations blaming each other so we don't finger the real culprits who trashed the economy and destroyed the middle class.

I grew up wearing hand-me-down clothes and sitting on furniture from the Salvation Army. We had one used car. Kids made fun of me in school at least in part because of my awful clothes and the cheap, ugly eyeglasses that were all my father could afford.

In college I had to work 2 or 3 jobs in order to be able to afford my textbooks, which I often couldn't buy until mid-semester because that's how long it took for the dining hall to process the first paycheck. My dad borrowed the tuition money from a relative for the first couple of years. Then I attended college part time for 4 years while working part-time or full-time to pay for it.

My first newspaper jobs paid miserably, even for the early 1970s -- $80 a week at one, $125 a week at another. I could never afford an apartment on my own. Even my later newspaper jobs did not pay that well. I graduated from college in the middle of a recession and it took a couple of years to find a job at a small daily newspaper.

I don't have a pension, just a small Social Security check that couldn't possibly cover rent if I were alone. I decided to go on early retirement after not being able to find work for more than 5 years after being laid off from a part time job. Fortunately my husband has a decent, if extremely stressful job.

Nearly all our furniture is from garage sales and thrift shops. So are most of my clothes - the rest are from clearance racks. I haven't gone to a movie, play or concert for many, many years. Our one car is 9 years old. We rarely eat out. Our house is almost 50 years old and needs a lot of repairs that we can't afford.

WE HAVE TO SHELL OUT ALMOST $600 a month on our kids' student loans because they dropped out of college after college and can't find decent jobs. We also pay $560 a month for one daughter's health insurance. She is 28 and has psychological problems and we've been struggling for years to get her into treatment, with little success. I think the older one, 31, has psychological issues too, but she refuses to discuss it. At least she's out of the house and getting married, but the younger one lives with us. She had a temporary job for 4 months and is waiting to hear about another job with the federal agency in 2015.

As a result, we have no savings. We will have to try to sell this house and move someplace much cheaper when my husband retires (he's a bit younger, a late baby boomer) because we will no longer be able to afford the mortgage payments.

How's that boomer prosperity working for us? Ha.