I've thankfully avoided the worst of the GFC graduate syndrome myself but 50-55k in 2008 dollars is a very generous estimation of earnings for someone with no job experience trying to get a first job during a recession. 20-30k is more realistic if you could find work at all. The best I could do was about 20k substitute teaching, and that was very uneven income. If I hadn't been able to live with my parents for three years before scoring a Linux admin job halfway across the country (in a much higher CoL area) for ~48k (and crucially including health insurance so I could get off my parents' plan), I would have been on the street. It's almost impossible to get off the street once you're there.

In short, have some empathy. Bad things do happen to good people, and even bad people deserve some dignity in life.

> Even if you had a meager income of $50-$55k a year this whole time, you would have produced nearly $1 million dollars worth of income before taxes by now.

And how much was rent, and food, and car insurance? It's easy to multiply a salary by 20 and conclude that they fucked up. It's a lot harder to actually live on $50k/year when the system, owned and run by extraordinarily rich people, is trying to extract money from you with every dark pattern at its disposal. Car broke down? Credit card debt, 18% APR. Delay in paycheck deposit? Overdraft fees. Kindly old landlord decides to sell? Rent +20%.

When I was 18 I got a tech job with a top ten tech company (no FAANG at the time) right out of high school having only completed half a tech trade school. Home price to median income ratio was under 3.

Few talk about the fact that many companies will only hire at the rate you currently make plus 15 percent. Start low and never catch up.

You do realize there are parts of this country with a labor market beyond your comprehension, right?

exactly correct. millennials decided to sleepwalk forward and ignore reality. millennials are not out there solving societal problems even today. millennials also benefit from being raised in one of the most prosperous and nurturing environments that has ever existed. the only thing millennials ever did was spawn AI in a completely irresponsible and regrettable way. now our kids have to grow up not even knowing whether or not they will make it.