Your parents almost certainly voted to restrict the supply of housing so they could artificially inflate their houses value and retire off of their house.
The causes of the housing shortage are known. We can change it.
Son, one of these days, this will all be yours!
< gestures at crumbling 1985 tract home in car-dependent community >
Luxury. Some day, you’ll have 13 zoomers living in a shoebox in the middle of the road…
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t’ mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi’ his belt.
We were evicted from our paper bag in a septic tank. We had to go live in a lake!
Sounds like it could be a Dylan Moran bit.
A bit older - it’s from the Monty Python “4 Yorkshiremen” sketch.
Ahhh. Thanks. I love Monty Python but haven’t seen all their work.
1985
Check out the guy with the brand new house!
It a little hard to blame them since they were sold the end of pensions and rise of the 401k. Which the bottom 60% of the country has close to zero of and then they can’t make a living wage because the shareholders demand a greater return every year.
You’re right. It’s basically every Americans dream to buy a house, and sell it for a massive profit.
This hurts almost as much as my teeth.
I had to get a root canal the other day. The dentist had to wait to see if my insurance would cover it because I had recently had a different root canal and “they sometimes don’t pay for more than one.”
They had to clamp down, since so many people were getting root canals for shits and giggles. /s
You ain’t need but the one toof ya fancy sum bitch.
I remember going to the dentist in my 20s, he said that a root was inflamed and needed treatment immediatly, otherwise the root could die and so on and so on. Then he told me how much it would cost, since the insurance doesn’t cover that treatment, it was about 1800 euros. I asked him in all seriousness if my insurance would pay if I just would let things happen and get my tooth pulled out afterwards one day, since 1800 Euro was waaay to much for me to pay those days - and still is.
I know this isn’t dental related, but I couldn’t see a therapist and a psychiatrist in the same day (virtually) because insurance wouldn’t cover that.
I’ve been putting off having two root canals/fillings/caps for years because I don’t feel like spending thousands on it, in case they don’t cover it. I know I should get this done before people tell me horror stories…again.
My grandparents ordered their house from Sears and grandpa and my great uncles built it over a summer weekend.
Damn thing still standing and is now I think on a historical register.
But today… we can do the same thing. You want a single or double wide?
Ooh until you check the prices of a manufactured home (trailer / caravan) and find out how unaffordable they are. Bonus you can’t get a traditional mortgage for one.
Also only a few companies will insure them. I think Foremost and State Farm were my only two choices. It wasn’t something I considered when I bought my run down double wide manufactured home.
I always wondered how they made the chimneys. Wood construction is fairly straightforward. But masonry seems like another beast.
The house I grew up in was a Sears house. Chimneys were stacked stones from where they dug the basement, put together with simple mortar. Concrete was used inside to create the fireplace beds (basement and main floor). Not very complicated to do really.
There is some science and math to ensuring a good draw so the smoke goes up and out and doesn’t get stuck inside. I imagine the instructions from Sears provided some relatively safe rules of thumb to achieve this
It’s hard to overstate how different the standards were back then. Much of the housing that was built pre-1940 has been demolished, but if you find an average neighborhood still around from that era, you’ll find tiny 2 bedroom houses in which parents raised often 3 or more kids, and this was the middle class norm. In the US, the average person has way more living space today than back then
I’m 37, say that to my 1 BR apartment me and my fiance live with. I don’t m kw the square footage but maybe 800-900?
I was about 10 when my mom was this age, my middle class parents owned a veritable mansion by today’s standards in a suburban CO town. I think it was 4 bedrooms - one for mom and dad, one for me, one for my brother, and an office/den.
I can’t afford a small 2 bedroom in my city. Hell I can barely afford 1. I wish two bedrooms now were the price they were back then (inflation adjusted of course).
Check out some small towns if you want to see pre war homes. I almost bought a craftsman but ended up with a house built sometime around 1900 (the documents I’ve seen list varying dates) it got an expansion in the 40s and a detached garage in the early 50s, and at some point someone enclosed the porches creating some nice mud rooms and the main floor bathroom appears to have been redone around the 80s or 90s.
My in-laws lived in a 19th century log cabin which had seen several expansions and renovations over the many decades it stood. Ultimately that was it’s downfall though as some old electrical wire caught fire and as it burned the fire just got stuck deep in the layers of wall and ultimately had to be knocked down in order to put out the fire
Most prewar homes that are still standing have seen many expansions and updates and as such are just teaming with character and charm
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Compared to North America, including Canada it’s s whole lot better. Even the expensive city’s are more “affordable” than anything I’ve ever seen from the posts about new York.
But never the less it is still expensive.
I just moved out of NYC after 5 years because it was just getting even more expensive than it was pre-pandemic. I was paying $2500/month for a 500 sq ft, 1 BR with a dishwasher and 2 passthrough (in wall) AC units with paid laundry in the basement, and that was pretty cheap. This was in a small residential neighborhood in Brooklyn, about 11 miles (45 minutes) from Midtown Manhattan. There was nothing around me, you had to drive, walk 20-25 minutes or take the subway to pretty much everything.
In Ventura, near Los Angeles, a house that was $600k is currently $1.2m. The whole housing market’s near bursting soon.
Love the fact that 100km is “near”. You would be nearly in an other country in Europe.
But that’s just insane for a 110k city. I mean I get it, it’s Cali and has a coast. But 1.2m for a normal home is just borderline undoable.
Are prices in small towns also exploding?
Yeah, unfortunately most the western US was built on the asinine belief everyone should/does have a car and everyone convinced themselves they enjoyed the idea. But with gas at the price it’s at, along with regularly congested freeways, only now is it being noticed we should’ve planned ahead. To make it worse, there’s so much red tape when dealing with politicians that a projects budget can easily cost 3 times more and take 4 times longer and risk not even getting completed. There’s space and money here, but it’s basically being managed by red assed baboons looking for campaign donations or how their donors can buy up homes and turn them into a block of AirBNB’s lol.
But enough of my ranting, I agree it’s not sustainable and that’s why you’ll see people living in motor homes at night. I know a friends house in LA County has gone from 270k before and is now 500k. No one can afford to purchase, anyone who does is looking at the collapse we saw around 2009, but now it’s houses and car loans. 🙄 It’s like watching people dry hump door knobs lol.
/sleepy rant
No it’s very expensive here, but funding is quite different.
FYI this post is mostly BS.
70 percent of people in the EU own homes. In the US it’s 65 percent.
While it is lower among millennials, especially compared to Boomers at their age, the majority of them still own homes. While I don’t have stats on Gen Z, the oldest among them is 25.
Almost all dental issues can be avoided with preventative measures. Virtually every single white collar job offers dental. Some blue collar jobs do. If your job does not offer dental, it’s available on the ACA exchange for like $20/month.
Again, despite what reddit would have you believe about us all being paid poverty wages, the vast majority of Americans can afford dental.
Finally, I don’t understand why reddit sees the fact that Boomers got married and had kids at like 21 on the late end a good thing. Basically everyone acknowledges marrying young is absolutely idiotic most of the time. Even more people acknowledge that having kids is a dumb idea. Boomers were forced into that. There’s a huge reason a ton of Boomer Humor is about hating your spouse.
Also at this point someone with Boomer parents is in their thirties or forties. Someone with Boomer parents who came of age when the economy was amazing and houses were dirt cheap is 50+. If you can’t afford dental at that age, you’ve fucked up big-time somewhere along the way.
Almost all dental issues can be avoided with preventative measures. Virtually every single white collar job offers dental. Some blue collar jobs do. If your job does not offer dental, it’s available on the ACA exchange for like $20/month.
The problem is is that insurance is a scam, you pay out the ass monthly for something you may need to use at some point in the future, and even then they’re like “we may cover the cost of this later on, but first you have to pay $500 (the deductible) until it comes to the point…”
Exactly! I take fastidious care of my teeth - I’ve only ever had 1 cavity 10 years ago - but recently I broke the filling and the dentist said it has to be a crown. I have dental insurance that covers two cleanings per year and just like u said, I still had to pay $500 for the crown. That was a big setback.
You know I’m starting to realize why so many people in this thread have dental issues.
Go to the dentist, even if your teeth are currently fine.
Yeah, just to sit there in the waiting room for 2 hours, have them brush your teeth for you, and be like “yeah, everything looks good. come back in six months!”. I can brush my own teeth, thanks.
“Everything looks good, come back in 6 months.”
(6 months later)
“Looks like you need 2 root canals and a crown.”
The point of insurance is supposed to be cover surprises because everyone eventually has a few. Typical dental coverage nowadays isn’t really insurance at all, it’s a payment plan. I literally opted out of insurance in a year where I expected I needed dental work and it saved me money.
…how old are you?
37
You know dental has limits right? You’ll typically run up or blow by them after your first filling.
Yes. However, the vast majority of dental issues can be solved by regular dentist appointments.
In addition, I’m pretty sure people are straight up making up stuff. Spending $700 before you break even on dental insurance is straight up fiction.
I openly question how many people in their 30s (or late 20s) are in this thread. A lot of this narrative simply isn’t true for most people that age.
Also OPs parents were boomers who had children in their 30s they were most likely more affluent than average boomers
In addition, I’m pretty sure people are straight up making up stuff. Spending $700 before you break even on dental insurance is straight up fiction.
My last two companies, the dental plan was $50/mo (or a total of $600/yr). Other than having only a $25 copay for cleaning, it was between 10% and 20% coinsure with a $1000 limit.
That means optimistically, I needed to spend about $2500 to break even on the most optimistic coinsure, and my benefits disappeared after I spent $5000 (and only would cost the insurance company $400 if I spent every penny).
I literally mathed it out in a year I needed 2 root canals and it would have been cheaper to NOT have the plan. And that was before I discovered the fact my office had special “uninsured assistance” that wasn’t driven by income.
Many Dental plans are an absolute scam. Part of the problem on them is that most people in some areas ONLY get dental insurance if they know they’re going to need it. Makes it hard to have a price that works. It’s part of why I have always supported government-paid insurance for medical and dental issues.
Okay so if you’re actually not lying, then opt out of your insurance plan and buy a delta dental plan via their exchange or the website. It’s quite literally half the cost and comes with free preventative services.
I kinda thought I’d stop hearing the constant bad-faith accusations when I left reddit. I suppose not.
Just went to the Delta site and checked my state. The ONLY plan in my state they have that covers non-trivial work is $60/mo with a maximum coverage of $1000. The 80% (I know Delta employees… no dentist I would use is in their network) coverage after copay is nice, but you’re still paying $700+ out of pocket for a potential $1000 total coverage. And unless you think I’m lying about the “Uninsured discount”, it means if my dentist gives me a $300 discount on work for being uninsured (they do), I still end up ahead.
So thank you for implying I’m lying and then giving me the directions to prove my point.
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Especially since most of those people are older people.
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Yes it is? It’s a measure of how many people were able to purchase a home.
This is directly relevant to this post, which say that modern day Americans can’t dental insurance, much less homes.
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The above meme:
My parents in their thirties: Let’s buy this house.
Me in my thirties: I can’t afford teeth.
As I said, that is BS.
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Have you read any of the top comment threads? People are 100 percent taking this at face value.
Yo, it’s not Reddit
A majority definitely don’t. The stats I’m seeing put it at around 45% for millennials, and under 35 it’s just under 40%
Okay, the fact that Lemmy (which owes it’s popularity to the fact that reddit killed third party apps) thinks this is ridiculous.
I can’t wait for Lemmy apps to come out that let me ban keywords. I swear you people invent scenarios to rage over.
Take it up with the US Government.
Thanks for the citation - 52% is just barely a majority, but technically correct!
So uh, the rest of the article vibes pretty strongly with the OP. Millennials are worse off than their parents
The meme said that their parents in their thirties were buying homes, and they can’t even afford dental.
The majority of millennials have bought homes.
More importantly, the overwhelming people in the US can afford dental.
You guys make up scenarios to push BS narratives. Then spam the word “capitalism” ignoring the fact that the majority of the world runs under capitalism.
If OP can’t afford a house or dental then the meme is accurate to them and millions like them. Dental insurance isn’t guaranteed, after all. Capitalism requires winners and losers, and losers don’t get houses or dental insurance.
Like, my dude, there are Americans that can’t afford to take $20 off every paycheck (and that shit only covers cleanings, hope you don’t get a chipped tooth!)
Seriously, it’s just a big strawman argument. The idea that a certain percentage of people own homes says nothing about the affordability of said homes. The percentage of millenials that own homes are consistently using drastically higher percentages of their income than previous generations. And the Healthcare crisis in the US speaks for itself. People arguing against this just want to dance around the topic and not actually argue the real point.
Okay, first you need a civics lessons. Capitalism isn’t a governmental system, it’s an economic system.
This economic system is widely used across the world. This includes most of Europe. Acting like this is just an invitable part of capitalism ignores the fact that the government can pass laws to create a social safety net.
They did. People living at or slightly above the poverty line have dental coverage through Medicaid. People with income above that threshold and no not have dental offered by their job have access to subsidies through the ACA.
Are there people who can’t afford dental? Sure. America is a massive country. However acting like it’s in any way common is insane.
How good is this $20 dental insurance? I work for a place with decent benefits and with coinsurance, co-pays and the cost we would have to have $700 worth of dental work a year just to break even. $1,000 worth of work would save us $180 vs out of pocket… and it’s capped at $1k.
Dental insurance usually comes with 2 teeth cleanings a year, and one set of xrays. These are 100 percent covered.
This layout is the more or less standard delta dental PPO. It’s used by the vast majority of employers across the country.
Employers also get group discounts, so it’s usually something like $10. The total cost is $120 a year if you don’t need dental work.
You have one of the worst dental plans possible.
I keep on having this debate with my dad. He’s 73 and I’m 37. One night he was like “people from your generation want to buy a ‘starter home’ and a vacation home, and then a few years later buy a bigger home!” and I was like “no one in my generation is even thinking about buying a vacation home when they can barely make a livable wage in a lot of fields.” Teachers make about $25/hour (about 35-40k/year) and they deal with tons of shit from the faculty, state, and students themselves. I was making $112k/year working in IT and could barely afford to live by myself in or close to Manhattan.
Edit: just for context, my rent was $2500/month for a 500 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment about 30-45 minutes from Manhattan. The sales tax rate in NYC is 10%. A burger and a beer can easily cost you $20.
The (boomer) generation holds bizarrely strong biases, it could be they subconsciously they do it to avoid admitting they’ve screwed their kids with their political votes, or more likely they simply only care about getting their own and aren’t thinking far enough ahead to realize their being snookered and driving the bus off a cliff.
$112k/yr is a crazy amount of money; I also work in IT in a pretty high up position, I wish I even made half that…
Depends where you live too
Yeah, in Manhattan that’s like middle class. Making that in a rural or suburban area and you’d be considered wealthy.
I worked for Disney+ (got laid off about a month ago) as a Linux Systems Engineer, so it’s not like I worked for a small company doing Windows desktop support (I was making 50k/year doing that in NYC, $30k/year doing the same thing about 3 hours south in NJ). It is a significant amount of money, but the taxes screwed me, I’d only see about 85k of it, couple that with 10% tax on everything and the increased prices of living in the most expensive city in the US and it’s not as much as you think it is. About 60% of my monthly income went to rent and bills.
Fair enough! I got offered a job at Nintendo once, probably should’ve taken it in retrospect :(
Yeah, big companies are good but also kinda suck because they lay you off at the drop of a hat as soon as they don’t make as much as they expect.
Same.
Solution: enlist in the military! /s
Then you can be poor with ✨HEALTHCARE✨
Don’t forget PTSD and other depressive disorders.
At least until you get out.
Or climb the cuttthroat bureaucratic ladder until you can retire at 20 years for healthcare and half pay!
Don’t sleep on the VA home loan. Lots of Americans are in the position to afford the month-to-month costs of a house, just can’t afford the down payment get approved on the mortgage. VA home loan is means you only have to put like… $2-4k down, instead of $30k.
“Kids these days are all gum, no gumption”
Thank you for bringing humor to an otherwise bleak post!
“I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.”
-Abraham Lincoln (for real)
John Wilkes Booth was a real dick. I’m glad he enjoyed some absurdist escape during his life.
Luxury bones
That’s what they’ll be called in insurance plans.
Basically happens now.
Implants–which actually function exactly like real teeth–are considered optional, cosmetic luxuries. They’re almost never covered by dental plans and cost thousands of dollars. Per tooth.
Dentures–which suck and are mainly cosmetic and don’t allow you to eat the same foods you always had when you had real teeth–are considered necessary and practical. You can get free dentures from government/welfare insurance. But even out of pocket are are only a couple hundred.
I remember my grandpa’s dentures, it’s why I brush regularly and don’t have cavities lol. Scary stuff when you’re in kindergarten.
Mmm, $500 complete upper or lower but it cost me 3.5k out of pocket to go to a dental school and have the broken or useless shit out so I could get dentures and that’s ignoring the fact my loss of teeth is a genetic issue not lack of care.
Feels like we’re already nearing Mad Max with a dash of Blade Runner for an appetizer.
So untrue, just put it downpayment on a 30 yr fixed loan for some dentures.
Damn. You got me there. :D
This cuts too deep
What stings is realizing one of the few hopes for a home these days is the passing of a parent.
Even worse, realizing that still isn’t enough
So nice of insurance companies to decide that our teeth, eyes, and minds aren’t part of our bodies.
They have to keep profits up and shareholders happy, so they have to see how much more blood they can get from us turnips.
I want to laugh but man this hits close to home.
Pretty damn far from a home as well
I know what you mean, these days all we can do is try to laugh everything off.
I know. I wish we lived in a communist dystopia.
I lived in USSR. No you do not.
I was being sarcastic. I don’t want to live in ANY dystopian system.
Could you please elaborate what was so bad back then?
Good luck. The USSR collapsed 30+ years ago and was in decline since 50+ years ago. The odds of that person having actually lived through anything other than shock therapy or revisionism are small.
Gulag
The US have Guantanamo, you don’t see them shitting on ther country for it.
Anyone with half a brain shits on Guantanamo
And what exactly have you done about that?
What exactly do you expect us to do? Storm Cuba ourselves? The US government doesn’t have a habit of doing what I tell it to.
What does that have to do with what you originally said?
The US has a massive racialized prison industrial complex. 25% of the world’s prison population. It’s The New Jim Crow. And that’s all before Guantanamo.
EVERYONE shits on them for it, including US citizens.
And shitting about it didn’t actually close it down, did it 😒.
Are you from the former ussr? Straight talk for a second.
How many US citizens who simply orally disagreed with US policy are jailed in Guantanamo?
Oh please, you had to shit left and right about Stalin or Lenin or communism in general, for months at a time, to be even sent to prison, let alone the Gulag. Gulag was for political prisoners, not some shmuk with a bottle of vodka shouting that Stalin is a pussy.
On the other hand, if you so much as whispered that you’re a US communist during the cold war, you’re on the CIA watch list, that’s for sure.
You could be a communist in US (and in many other parties). You could not be in any party other than communist in USSR and be free.
And under Stalin, if you shout that Stalin is a pussy, yes you were going to be arrested.
It’s ok. You didn’t. You lived in red fascism.
That would be the “dystopia” part.
Wow that must have been so cool, everyone working together for the common good, no more greed or selfishness.
I like Communism, but stalinist communism isn’t a utopia just because it’s communism
I do wish people would respect the ideals of communism more however, it’s ridiculous to think that letting the people with all the money, land, and resources (i.e capital) should also have all the power
If only there exist a country that could balance the incentives of capitalism and the socialist good of communism hmm.
Or just a classic socialist democracy would do fine. Doesn’t even need to be dystopian just you know like what they have in Norway and shit.
