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Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

I'm Gen X. I did a ton of pretty crappy jobs in my early 20's while I worked out what I wanted. Building site labouring, warehouse picking, farm work, retail work, you name it I did it. During that time, on the wages I earned from those jobs, I could afford to rent a (small and pretty crappy) place to live, eat 3 meals a day, maintain a car (though I ended up ditching it in favour of public transport) and have some money left over for entertainment.

I never needed to work multiple jobs, and while I was never able to take holidays or be extravagant, it was an OK life.

I was in the UK rather than the US, but I'm not sure that makes any difference.

When did we accept that life in your early 20's needed to be so hard?

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"When did we accept that life in your early 20's needed to be so hard?"

When was it ever otherwise? Sounds like you had it pretty good compared to the previous generation at the same age. Better still than the generation before that. How "easy" does it have to get before the perception will become that it's not hard?

I see the problem as one of perspective. Unless we've actually been through tough times, we feel we're having a tough time.

Well, there certainly used to be less economic inequality, and wages have not risen in real terms for a long time in the US. So I would not be so sure that everything is steadily getting better in this area.

Things have changed. In the 70s and 80s there was a spirit that things should become better for everybody. Then things changed and the motto was that the top people should take as much as they could get.

Even during the dotcom bubble there was a sense that this would be good for everybody. Obviously that was nonsense in hindsight. But now people have totally given up on the idea that things should improve for all of us. If you somehow didn't luck into the right job it's your problem that you don't make money.

Programmers watch out: Right now we are riding high but our day will come too when people will tell you "Who could be so stupid to learn coding.".

Actually my parents' generation had it even easier. For example, baby boomer university students in the UK paid no tuition fees and were paid a grant by the government to go to University. When I went to uni that grant was changed to a loan. Now there's tuition fees on top.

Same for unemployment benefits. Stories from the 60's and 70's show British counterculture surviving pretty well on benefits. When I did a 6-month stint of unemployment in 1990 it was still possible - the state paid my rent and enough money to feed myself and buy cigarettes and a few beers. Now it's a brutally harsh life on benefits.

I know that's only examples of state handouts, but it's an indication of attitudes. Again, when did we get so convinced that life had to be so tough?

When the middle class has it hard, they become less sympathetic. I think Thalia made a series of poor financial decisions, but there still needs to be some kind of safety net.

Middle class? That actually still exists in the US?

I'm pretty sure the divide is now razor thin: either you're pretty rich, or poor...

I'm in the US, as were my parents, and theirs. Perhaps we're also talking about two different things: me about work; you about education.

To my recollection, it's always been the case that the first few years of employment after education come with harshness due to lack of experience. Maybe you had to live with parents for a couple of years. Maybe you had to use a friend's couch for awhile. Maybe you had to work a menial job for a bit. Just because one has graduated with a degree doesn't automatically entitle them to the nice apartment overlooking the beach and a sip of a expensive bourbon every night.

I suppose in my corner of society, things are indeed better with each generation. (I'm nearly certain we've never had a safety net quite like you describe in the UK in the 60s and 70s.) It's not that "it has to be tough" it's just that "it's never going to be easy." And without some perspective, "easy" is not so objective.

I agree, I look back on what I did as a couple of years of harshness, character-building stuff that made me the man I am today, etc, etc.

That's not the same as what we're hearing from the millenials. We can choose to write that off as the whinging of an "entitled" generation. Or we can choose to listen to them and compare their stories to ours.

Talia made some mistakes. That's what your 20's are all about. But she's working a full-time job and is unable to eat properly. I don't think that's acceptable.

By writing her off as an entitled whinger I think we're putting our hands over our ears, going "lalalalalala" and ignoring a real problem in our society.

"I was in the UK rather than the US, but I'm not sure that makes any difference."

Not really. In contrast to Talia, I'll wager you weren't trying to live in Kensington or Knightsbridge while making those wages, correct?

Talia lived 30 miles from the center of San Francisco, which is more like Woking or Guildford.

In your experience, are people who work unskilled entry-level jobs able to afford their own private apartments in Woking or Guildford?

No, but I'd bet they used to be able to before it turned into a nice commuter suburb for lawyers. Which was the point of the post you responded to - that this used to be possible and isn't now, and you attempted to say that something completely different was actually never possible.

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