It's the earning enough money part that's difficult. We're not getting paid commensurate to our value because what used to be skimmed off the top of the value we produce is now being gouged out in big, ragged chunks.
--Privileged bitching alert--
I have three science degrees, ending in MSc, and my wife has two business degrees ending in BBA. They're all functional, i.e., no one fucked up and went for a different field. We have over $100k in student debt between us. We're highly educated professionals in senior positions in our respective fields. We also live in a high cost of living area.
When my parents were our ages, neither had a degree and, accordingly, no student debt. My father neither graduated from high school nor had a GED. He actually worked in the same field as me, in a position several levels junior to where I'm at now. My mother worked in a field shockingly similar to my wife's, also junior to where my wife is now. They lived in an extremely low cost of living area. Adjusted for inflation, they made approximately $35k more a year than we do now and had vastly lower living expenses.
We can't keep up when wages are depressed and costs are inflated. If my wife and I had the same conditions as our parents, we'd be absolutely killing it financially. Instead, despite being financially responsible, we're currently debating retiring on time or having a kid. We can't have both. Yay.
The kicker is there's absolutely no good reason we shouldn't have economic conditions at least similar to my parent's generation at this stage in our lives. We just make less money, despite actually creating more value per hour, because business owners, shareholders, and the c suite are making more than ever and it's collectively bleeding us dry.
P.s. this comment helped me realize my wife and I have professionally turned into my parents. Gross!
Not at all! It drives me nuts. I've tried watching movies with Bluetooth headphones on, so as not to bug my wife at night, and it just feels off. Almost like watching old subtitled movies. I checked it out and my headphones have a ~250ms response time. My car's system literally has a nearly two second delay and I can't take it.