When I was 22 in 1992 (I am 52, Gen-X, born in 1970) I worked in fast food making about $6.50 as an asst mgr & there were signs on apartments for $199 move in special, $299 a month for 1 bdrm in a nice part of Ft Worth, TX. I had a 1 bdrm & was easily able to make it. When I was in my late 20's & had kids I actually bought a piece of land for $250 a month & brand new mobile home for $300 a month & was able to make it at $12 an hr job, even in my 30's in 2010 I could still get a 2 bdrm, 2 story townhouse with fireplace & all new upgraded appliances for under $500 a month, $299 move-in special. Life was pretty good.
Now my grown kids can't afford to move out of the house that I bought & left to their mother to raise them in. I moved to SoCal around 5 yrs ago to work in aerospace & had never heard of “renting a room” & at one point I stayed in a co-workers garage for $800 a month until I found a real room to rent for $750 a month.
I know it's wrong but I see it all the time here in CA & I ended up getting into a relationship with an older woman with a house near the beach that I wasn't really attracted to mostly because of financial reasons, because it's impossible to make it out here even when I was making about $30 an hr in aerospace. I was laid off due to covid & the woman I lived with started working remotely which eventually caused conflicts. I was on unemployment & left, lost almost everything I owned, had to stay in hotels until unemployment was cut off then I lived in a grocery store parking lot in my car for months. I was a tanker driver back in TX so I renewed my CDL here in CA & drove a truck for about 6 months & absolutely hated living in the sleeper of a truck, still only made about $1000 a wk but it's a horrible life & I became very depressed & I still am.
I met a woman online who decided to have mercy on me & has allowed me to stay with her in her condo. I had money saved up but it's dwindling & I've applied to lots of places around here, ( I have to work close by because my transmission went out on my car ) that say “now hiring” & so far haven't heard back from any of these places even though I have a pretty good resume. Has anyone else experienced this?
The wages have to go up & the rent & cost of living has to be brought down by some political means or social upheaval such as a general strike, which I see people talking about & that's all there is to it. It wasn't this way when I was younger. If you “work” & it doesn't matter where you work or live you have to be able to go home, shower, rest & be refreshed for the next workday. What is it that the boomer generation doesn't understand about this concept? I think we really need to organize a serious general strike or nothing is ever going to change except life getting worse.
No, raising wages does not raise the cost of things, I lived in TX for 47 yrs & wages there are far lower than they are here in CA, (jobs that pay $8-$10 an hour in TX pay $18-$20 here in CA) where I have lived going on 5 yrs now & food, including meat & beer is much cheaper, close to 1/2 price, here in CA & the cost to go out & eat at a restaurant is exactly the same as it in TX. Fuel is higher in CA but when I went back to TX for a visit I considered staying there but when I started looking at apmts they were $1200 & up for a 1 bdrm in Ft Worth, TX nowhere near a beach. A one bdrm here in CA starts at about $1500 & at least you're driving distance to a beach. I don't know what our generations are going to do about being able to simply live even with a job or even 2/3.
Some people think that wages are kept low because people want to use workers as their own personal get-rich-quick scheme but that is only partially true, these people are already so wealthy they could live several lifetimes without working & many who are rich have never actually “worked” a day in their lives but are trust fund/inheritance babies.
Wages are kept low so that people cant use their wages as seed capital to start new businesses & this keeps Wall St traded monopoly businesses, such as YUM Brands ( most fast food chains ), from having to face any real competition in the market which is good for consumers. When workers can use wages as seed capital to start businesses some do & they leave the workforce creating more jobs for new employees as well. Another reason wages are kept artificially low is because it keeps workers from engaging in politics directly. It costs thousands to millions to run in a state or national election & anytime someone who represents actual workers does get in the mainstream media they are dismissed as crazy socialists/communists or demonized somehow. Even if they just want to protect the value of labor by raising wages & lower the cost of living by spending our tax dollars on things that actually lower the cost of living rather than bloated military/police budgets or bailing out Wall St/banks with trillions of dollars which is crazy & hasn't fixed anything but has actually given them all this new capital to buy up homes & raise the rent & home prices.
Most people don't understand that it costs millions of dollars a day, billions per year, to operate every city across America to maintain the smooth & safe operation of commerce so capitalism stands on an infrastructural foundation of socialist infrastructure, roads/bridges, police, jail/prisons, courts, education, etc. Corporations that don't pay taxes are on mega welfare. Corporations need to be paying for that infrastructure while income tax from workers needs to be spent primarily on programs that lower the cost of living somehow, healthcare, housing, utilities, food, etc. Almost all of the costs of doing business are socialized with workers picking up the bill via income tax while the profits are all privatized to corporate & shareholders who are getting tax breaks that are really forms of tax evasion. I would submit that this is taxation without representation big time. We are living in the time of modern day robber barons & they are mostly boomers.