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Comment by jfruh | Hacker News Reader

As a Gen-Xer, I have a certain sympathy for this, but objectively there's no comparing the early '90s recession with the economic situation today -- we're well into the third year of the crisis, the job situation is much worse today, and there's no end in sight. By the equivalent time in the '90s the economy was well on its way back.

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When he says "we graduated during a recession" I think he means the early 80s recession (Gen X includes those born from around 61-81 so the first batch graduated in the early 80s). That recession actually was comparable. In fact peak unemployment was worse (10.8% vs 10.1%). Many split the early 80s recession into 2 recessions(Early 80 and then mid 81 to late 82) but if you look at that period as a whole the GDP drop exceeds the 2008 recession as well.

That being said we aren't done yet either. Just as there was a temporary recovery between mid-1980 and mid-1981 we've technically been out of recession for 16 months and things aren't look great for the future.

That's interesting. I was born in '74 and think of myself as being just past the "core" of Gen X (I voted for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as my prom theme!); my older step-siblings all were in their early to mid '20s in the early '90s recession. How much do people now in their late 40s (or just starting to turn 50, I guess) really identify w/Gen X? I know it's just a dumb construct, I've always associated it with people a bit closer in age to myself (no doubt because of my own biases).

I remember the early 90's recession as being a much bigger shock psychologically. In those days, there were still plenty of people who had planned on finding a big company and staying there for life and retiring on a pension. These days more or less everyone has figured out not to count on that.

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