Vox Day: OK Boomer.
As I wrote before:
I was chatting with an older gentleman last month who was very surprised to find out that I don't own any real estate. He said that owning a house is one of the best financial decisions he made. I asked him, "How much did you pay for your house?"
"$54,000."
"Do you remember your annual income at that time?"
"Hmm, about $20,000."
"Did you have a mortgage?"
"No, I borrowed from family and paid them back in a few years."
So, at the time, the price of his house was 2.7 times his salary. Today, for a guy in the Greater Toronto Area, the average price of a house is over 20 times his salary! (Annual income = $40,000. Average selling price of a house = $807,000.)
Another anecdote: I knew a guy who worked as a part-time English tutor at a private school in my area. This was around 2006. He, and other tutors, made $15/hr. The minimum wage at the time was $8/hr. Note, that this job required a degree.
Fast forward to 2013. I found out that a woman who had just graduated from university with a degree in mathematics was working at this school as a part-time math tutor.
Her wage? $12/hr. Minimum hourly wage at the time was almost $11. Tuition, rent, housing prices, electricity, and other costs had significantly increased in those 7 years but the tutoring work was paying just $1 more than a job where one flips fries. She quit after one month.
Boomers really don't have a fucking clue how the economic and financial situation for the younger generations has severely deteriorated. Worse, they're responsible for it.