I don't know if this is the right sub for this, but fuck it.
I was born in 2000, and I only vaguely remember the 2008 recession. Here in 2022, it feels like the fucking world is ending. I'm 22, in the prime of my life. Can I afford college? Fuck no, nor can I afford to work less than 40 hours a week to even have a chance at scraping by. I also can't afford to live on my own, not with housing being so expensive. If my car (2014 Ford Focus Titanium, well over 86,000 miles) goes belly up, I'll be lucky to find even a less than average-quality replacement.
The real kicker? For people like me with only high school experience and not many other available avenues of income, I'm lucky to find any company willing to pay more than $11. I'm making $13.50 right now, and it's insulting when you realize that I work recieving at a supermarket, unloading stock from a 99 degree trailer all by hand. Oh, did I mention we're understaffed? Five people on the regular, including me. We have to unload 2,500 pieces regularly, get it all seperated, pulled to the store floor and even mostly stocked by the end of the night. If we don't, we're considered lazy and incompetent by our managers, all who spend their shifts standing around, making conversation and joking like children while on big salary pay.
Gen Z will be the ones to suffer, now that millenials seem to have settled into the chaos. It will be worse, too. I can't leave the U.S., that also takes lots of money and lots of time/preparation. I feel hopeless. In a world on the brink of nuclear annihilation, environmental catastrophe and an America only a few years from a total economic and societal collapse, I can safely say that any big hopes/dreams I had for the future are dead and gone. Our parents lied to us. Not only that, their lack of care for the world they've left behind for their children doesn't seem to bother them. Our struggles are our own fault, in their eyes.
Really, I'm posting this because I needed to vent. I wish I knew a way out, or had something to look forward to, but I don't. At least I'm not alone, not here, anyways.