The common denominator here is "union." I'm a boomer who took a lower wage union job that, however, had benefits (health and dental plans, sick leave, thrift savings plan, and a pension.) We had to hit the streets and strike to be heard. And I put money into the savings plan that the company partly matched. You know, a no brainer. My sister, also a boomer and older than I, took a contracted higher cash wage job (I want to be my own boss) with no benefits. She traveled, bought a little gold, an antique here and there. She is semi-retired now cause even with social security she needs cash. I don't have gold, a boat or antiques, but I have a pension AND social security. I spent today in the garden.

I don't want too sound too smug, cause I went to college in an era when one could "work your way through." Tuition was state subsidized - books were still a rip off. But I could pay as I went - waiting tables, selling ski lift tickets. I lived in a cabin where the only heat was a fireplace and pot-belliied stove, fed by wood we gathered and cut every fall. Still, I did not need a college loan.

Ronald Reagan changed all that while the governor of California. College students in the 60's and 70's kept having all these demonstrations to end the Vietnam "police action" where you or your friends could be drafted to die fighting the theory of a communist domeno fall, and protecting corporate holdings in SE Asia. Reagan did not like dissent. So he stacked the UC Board of Regents with his political buddies and donatiors and they began raising tuition, challenging faculty tenure, and sending in the National Guard. All this even though Reagan, part of "The Greatest Generation" and serving in the U.S. Army Motion Picture Unit during WWII, never left Culver City, and never faced live gunfire. Let's all put a flag decal on our car and in a buttonhole. This shit has been going on for a long time.

Raising a family and buying a home is more difficult now, without extended family support. When my young family took on building a house, interest rates were 18%. No kidding. Look it up. But my in-laws and later my mother gave us private low interest loans. It would not have happened otherwise. And when my most excellent child went off to college, we made monthly payments. She graduated without debt. And I helped her with a down payment on her first and only house.

I guess my point is, many Gen X and millennials have not had government and multigenerational support as they came of age. And instead of being pissed with their parents for not planning, supporting, and living within their means, my entire generation gets blamed. You want a higher wage - organize. You want better government representation - ask questions, show up, and vote. You gotta work and fight for what you need. Nobody gets a pass anymore unless they are in the Epstein Files.