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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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I had dinner with my mom last night. She told me she made $2.20/hr as a waitress in 1972. Not including tips.
That's the equivalent of over $16/hr now.
The boomers have no idea how lucky they were. And they fucking wasted it.
They weren't lucky. They voted for people that removed all the guardrails that enabled their success.
I agree. I still think they were lucky insofar as they were born in the right place at the right time to benefit massively over future generations.
This is the important detail. Europe was destroyed and the USA was able to flourish. Opportunities existed that will likely never exist again. Capitalism has never been as great as it was in the USA post-WWII.
America was basically the only industrialized country that hadn't been bombed to fuck. You had to be a clown to not succeed in that environment (or systemically oppressed, since opportunity in the US is always only for white people). Boomers took quality jobs making reliable products and moved those to low wage jobs making disposable products in China.
Ah, but the USA post-WWIII will be even better! Or at least growth capitalism suggests it will.
Boomers Now: "hey if we blow up half the world again maybe it will help the economy, also I'm way too old to be drafted"
They had too. They couldn't get rich if they had to pay workers what they were paid when they were starting out.
Not mutually exclusive.
Waiters today make $2.13 an hour in my state.
Few people in that period had the information you have now. People were presented with this economic miracle in the 50s and there was little to no components other than conformity.
As more time has passed and I continually re-assess my Boomer parents, I am struck more and more that they truly were a propagandized generation who was never given the tools to properly think through what they were seeing. It was always just "here, more, buy this, this technology is new and amazing". Everything was new year after year until the late 80s/early 90s, when technology evened out. Even then people had cell phones and such. Once met with the Internet, especially through Facebook, we could see all of their problems flourish.
Not to say that any generation is better than any other or not, but I do believe that each generation after Boomers is actually much better than the previous one at critical thinking--probably because society had no choice but to and the fact that more people have at least a bachelors degree now.
Bachelor's degrees and unleaded fuel make a hell of a difference.
Median waiter salary in USA seems to be $15/hr currently. Did you think it was significantly less? There are large differences in the median between states. Where did she work?
Reminder that 15/hr was the goal about ten years ago and inflation spiked hard between 2020-2023. 15/hr is no longer a "generous" wage.
$15/hr with tips included, maybe. That's why I specified that the $16/hr equivalent from 1972 did not include tips.
Couple of my friends were servers at their family's resturaunt growing up (early 2000s) and I think they only made about 2 and some change before tips. 30 year difference from your example and their wages were roughly the same amount. It's ridiculous.
I don't think tips are included in official salary figures? Are they?
Depends. Provide a link to your source and someone might be able to tell you.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm
https://www.talent.com/salary?job=waiter
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/waiter-and-waitress/salary
https://www.indeed.com/career/server/salaries
All talk about roughly $14-16 range. But then there are sources like https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Waiter%2FWaitress/Hourly_Rate that say it's $8/hr.
Not even close. Server wage is like $3 in some states. Stop lyin
You may need to look up the meaning of the word "median".
You might need to look up some actual data instead of making things up.
Actual data is exactly what I was basing this on.
Another comment by the same person:
Assume good faith.
Servers in most of America make $2.13 an hour plus tips. Id say depending on COL, anywhere from $12/hr at shitholes to $30+/hr at nice spots or high COL
$15/hr seems like a decent number, considering most servers will not claim cash tips. considering lack of cash these days compared to credit usage, id say $20-25/hr is a decent average.
But again, the other commenter said that $2.20 was WITHOUT tips, so certainly the 1972 waittress made more still
I'm seeing multiple numbers
$10 here https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/waiter-hourly-wages
$14 here, but also some are paid just $2/h and are expected to make the rest they need from tips: https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-does-a-waiter-in-the-us-earn-per-hour-what-is-the-average-salary-n/
Yeah, I agree. There are no clear figures on this.
Livable wage is now more like $30.
Sure. But was ~$3/hr a livable wage in 1976?
Definitely was. Inflation has been ridiculous over the years. My father pumped gas part time at Sears and was able to have an apartment with roommates as well as pay all of his tuition for college.
As much as you complain about the boomers, the current generation(s) are the ones you need to pay attention when it comes to who’s caused the house shortage because of unchecked capitalism. There’s more than enough houses that should house everyone for cheap.
You cannot blame boomers for the smouldering wreck that Airbnb left behind. That was the work of a millennial. Take some responsibility for yourselves and your own actions that have attributed to the current state of society that you live in.
My guy, air bnb didn't cause the shortage or even significantly make it worse. It's the mega corps that literally own hundreds of thousands of homes across the US and just rent them out. I'm not even upset at boomers who own 3 or 4 rental properties and I work with a lot of them. It's always mega corps fucking it up for the rest of us.
Megacorps aren’t in general ‘boomers’
mega corps span all the recent generations.
And fuck off with this ‘my guy’ bullshit you sexist, condescending git.
Housing was wildly expensive and rising incredibly fast before Airbnb was invented (company started in 2008, which you might recognize as an important year for the real estate market). After 2008, tons of investors came in to buy up the depressed value properties to either flip or rent out or just hold onto until the value returned. People buying houses with cash isn't something Airbnb caused. Corporations buying up houses to rent isn't something Airbnb caused. Foreign investors buying up houses to get their money out of their country isn't something Airbnb caused.
Airbnb invented a way to make money off of housing by taking houses away from people. Entire blocks will be bought by a company just to use as an Airbnb hence why a lot of stipulations have been recently coming in to prevent a ‘housing shortage’ while there’s enough housing.
So yes, Airbnb did a lot of damage there when it comes to ‘who can we pin ideas on’ blame which we love to do so much to boomers.
LOL you really believe that "a millenial" created AirBNB and not some conglomerate of venture capitalists funneling billions at a team made up of people of all ages?
No shit. So you agree It’s not just boomers. Now go get mad at the OP for spawning this stupid nonsense argument in the first place. Go on and grow that attention span.
Seems you think that I am responsible for your anger. Weird.
Seems you think everyone is responsible for you aside from you
Ow, burn!
Wtf even does "the current generations" mean? Whenever people say "the newer generation" or "the young generation" or something they just sound so fucking incompetent.
And worse: the home buying age isn't 19, it's more like 30 - 40.
Being over 40 doesn’t make you a boomer.
As is blaming boomers when the world is not run by just that one generation. The most successful billionaires today are made up from genx and millennials.
So making it a generation war just when it’s pointed at boomers is just stupid and incompetent for an argument.