90% of my friends who graduated in STEM like fields are now doing fine. 50% of everybody else is having problems
I agree. I mean not to pile on but seriously most of the country does not live in areas where rent is $3000 a month. Idk what hobs is doing, that's his business, but I think his situation is less reflective of the rest of america than the norm.
My sub division is new, all houses under 3 years old. There's a wide array of people living there, everyone's payments ranged between 1400-2000 a month for 2000-3000 square feet. We're in a suburb ~20 minutes from a major city, ~10 minutes from a major metropolitan area with schools ranked in the top 10 in the state. So it's a pretty good place to live and affordable.
I personally know on my street a high school teacher, an elementary school teacher, an education admin, a nurse, a real estate agent, a supply chain account manager for an automotive company, an electrician, a shift manager for a construction company, an accountant, an IT auditor, an electrical engineer in automotive, an hr rep and a small engineering business owner just to name a few. Half of these do not have college degrees, just some kind of certification like the electrician and real estate agent. The construction manager guy is a high school drop out makes more than all of us cus he works like 80 hours a week out of town. Some of these people are married but many have stay at home wives who don't work. We're all between 25-45, so some maybe pushing the edge of millennials.
I'm just saying it really doesn't seem that dire out here. My company alone is hiring like crazy for tech workers. Any 4 year degree from anywhere will get you in as long as you can interview ok. Starting pay varies with experience but at least 60k salary. YMMV, I just read all the negativity out there and don't get it.
More anecdotes, my brother graduated in 2008. Terrible time to get a job. Degree in computer engineering and couldn't find a job. So he joined the air force as an officer. Now they're paying him a salary and full tuition while he gets his phd. He already got the same deal for his masters. He'll do his 20 years and get 50% of his pay as pension and be free to get a teaching job or whatever he wants to do. Really good gig.
Maybe I have that condition where I assume everything is easy for everyone else cus it's easy for me, like reverse dunning kruger effect. My whole family is very smart, all got academic scholarships to colleges at least in part. And I don't mean we went to like ivy league or even big conference schools like Michigan. We instead choose smaller colleges willing to give out those awards. We sacrificed the name recognition on the degree for a better financial position.
The kind of people I see getting left behind are one of two types: 1, those who expected to get some sort of union/factory job with just a high school degree. This all went away in the past 25 years but yes, you used to be able to work at a ford plant and make $20 an hour starting pay plus tons of overtime. Some people are still in that demo of worker but the gravy train jobs aren't there cus we dismantled unions and have global competition. You don't have to go to college but you need to go into a high paying service industry then like plumbing or maintenance. You can't just expect to be handing high paying jobs with no experience or education.
2, those who go into a ton of debt for college and either can't decide what they want to pursue so they float around doing nothing of value, or they pick a field that realistically cannot pay the bills, aka teaching, art, philosophy. One of my friends same year as me has a degree in criminal justice cus he wanted to be a detective or something but he never was willing to get an entry level job as a cop or guard or equivalent. So he spent all this money on a degree that's worthless. My cousin has an art degree and is a great illustrator but never took steps to go into that niche field. Now he works at some factory assembly job. He doesn't use his degree.
As far as kids I'm torn on how expensive they are.
Obviously child care is an expensive part. You either pay a ton for it or you forgo an income. So I get that. But outside of that most of the costs can be controlled, assuming your kids don't have expensive medical conditions or something. They go to the dr a lot but all the primary care is covered, shots and visits. They don't eat much initially. We buy a lot of used clothes because infants and even toddlers out grow stuff so fast it doesn't wear out and there's tons of brand new stuff at resale shops. They really don't take up that much space, nor do they need a ton of toys.
Where people get into saying my kids are so expensive is because they are keeping up with the Jones'. We're guilty of it too. We bought a bigger suv brand new when we had my second. We didn't really need it, we wanted it to haul stuff around, go on vacations and stuff but realistically you could just pack lighter or buy a used car. Both my kids have their own rooms in a big house but we could make it work with half the space. Both my kids have more toys than they could ever play with and my wife still comes home with crap almost every week. It's just how she shows affection I guess. We stopped going out to eat cus we couldn't afford it anymore, plus kids can be stressful at restaurants. But if they fit in your existing house you can feed and clothe them pretty inexpensively. The biggest cost is time.
