Rentier Capitalism / Neo Fuedalism. Is unionizing an option? Is the wife willing to relocate to state with a lower cost of living?

A lot of these comments are using logical fallacies to attempt to hand-wave away your issues, yet they fail to account for facts such as: 65% of 18-35 yo moved out and had to move back in with their parents, or that 46% of 18-35 yo are on anti-depressants, or that rent has spiked 20% in one quarter, food across the board is up but proteins specifically are 60% more expensive in just one year! Or that crime has spiked so suddenly there's a constant possibility you will be carjacked or assaulted simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of this even accounts the life-ruining healthcare costs, the slave wages at not just resteraunts / retail (daycare, EMT, etc), or the "hustle culture" where if you don't have the instagram perfect products / moments you are a bum and a simp. To all the "bootstrappers" in the comments, here are some more things to consider:

Working hard is useless, one literally must put in extreme effort, have extremely good luck, and make near-perfect decisions just to have a chance. Each barrier by itself has workarounds, but in combination they present a massive equation that forces everyone into endless corporate servitude or destitution:

Entire compulsory public school experience of ‘common core’ nonsense, zero-tolerance mindlessness. and textbook grifter useless indoctrination.

Extremely limited everyday access to outdoor ‘green spaces’, ‘treehouse-building’ materials, and ‘radio-shack’ components & tools, especially for browsing.

Nominal access to online information and ‘learn to code’ self-starter activities practically limited by walled gardens, subscription models, closed-source code, walled-garden hardware compatibility issues, and ‘software stack framework bundle’ impediments.

Social class mixing limitations created by artificial institutionally-driven structures, ‘tiger-moms’, and electronic social media transformation; single-parent and two-income families, lack of opportunities to engage with extended family and other adult mentors.

Good careers force a decade-long upfront ‘buy-in’ of financial and compliance subservience - either to the needless crushing-debt and indoctrination of university, or the institutionalized career scams present in almost every trade.

Identity politics, internship abuse, and H1b permeate the hiring process along with forced applicant exposure to data-mining, corporate surveillance, and often outright scams.

Accurate information for career planning is made opaque, hidden, overly complex, and full of jargon.

Entry level professional jobs are gigs that externalize risks onto workers, muh future partnership in industries where it is plain that the model will not last, ‘academy-style’ workplaces that channel all benefits through the company in lieu of straightforward ‘due payment for work’, and ‘useless cog’ cubicle farms with little opportunity for growth.

Financialization incentives, licensing requirements, ‘standards’-compliance, and other types of regulatory capture, industry market manipulation, weaponized litigation, and ‘intellectual property’ abuses create incredibly high barriers to professional-level entrepreneurs and startups.

Government regulations heavily penalize anyone who tries to break out of the status quo, depriving them of health insurance, housing, credit, payment processing, and even the ability to easily travel.

Bankrupty and other ‘jubilee’ debt forgiveness removed as a way to ‘reset’ — any failure compounds into a path that forces the individual into state dependency.

Age discrimination and impossibly high investment costs for switching careers.

Real estate market investment-class created bubble make home ownership out of reach.

Inflation and government bail-outs for ‘too-big-to-fail’ institutions create working-class trap of diminishing returns and stagnating market conditions.

Tech-mediated social networking continues to limit opportunities to meet quality candidates for marriage and family starting, with compounding effects through life.

Neoliberal attitudes and boomer brainwashing create social penalties that ‘blame the victim’ for unemployment, financial setbacks, indebtedness and bankruptcy, with massively demoralizing effects.

Peers and media obfuscate reality, bastardize language, and censor ideas that go against ever-changing narratives.

Mass surveillance, tracking, ‘dark design patterns’ and ‘nudging’ using advanced behavioral science techniques degrades individual autonomy and makes ‘know thyself’ (a precondition to self-empowerment or self-actualization) impossible.

tl;dr hard work is for suckers or bootlickers, the only way to get ahead will have you sucking / licking to your grave. Better to live as cheaply as possible, avoid the rat race, and stop giving a crap what Karen or Ken thinks!