Complaints from the older generation that “young people just don’t want to work hard and earn money” have become widespread – but how justified are these complaints? In a TikTok post, realtor Freddy Smith suggested turning to the simplest arguments – numbers. More info: TikTok
The author of the video is a realtor and he makes an analysis of the rent/wages ratio of 2024 compared to 1980
Share icon Image credits: fmsmith319 So, the Original Poster (OP) quotes many representatives of the older generation about how they rented apartments themselves from an early age in their youth, and worked, worked, worked… Okay, let’s leave aside all aspects of modern work, and focus on rent. In 1980, Smith says, average rent was $243, while the federal minimum wage was $3.10 per hour, so rent took up almost 49% of the monthly gross income. Today, according to the OP, average rent is $1,747 but the federal minimum wage is just $7.25. So, basic arithmetic proves that you won’t be able to rent an apartment on the minimum wage. Share icon Image credits: fmsmith319 Okay, Mr. Smith continues, that’s just the minimum wage, and many Walmart and roadhouse workers make around $15 a day nowadays. But even if we double the minimum wage, taxes turn that into 75% – making it nearly impossible to rent even the smallest apartment. College graduates are no better off. So, according to the author of the video, the starting rate for bachelors nowadays is around $24 – which means that rent is 45.4% of their gross monthly income in 2024. Share icon Image credits: Markus Winkler (not the actual photo) Share icon Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko (not the actual photo)
Today, even college graduates have to spend the same share of their incomes on rent, as minimum-wage workers spent in 1980, the author concludes
Now let’s go back to the second paragraph of the text, where rent had almost the same share in the income of minimum wage workers in 1980! But then the worker just studied for a couple of weeks and started their job, and to get a bachelor’s degree today, you need to spend several years in college. And to pay for your tuition too. In other words, Freddie Smith states, today bachelors spend the equivalent on rent of what minimum wage workers spent in 1980. And you want to object to something about ‘childish’ millennials and Gen Z?
You can watch the original video here
Well, it is not surprising that the cost of rent has increased compared to 1980 – after all, inflation has done its job over the past four decades. If we look at this CPI inflation calculator, we’ll see that $1 in 1980 is worth $3.81 today. That is, almost four times. On the other hand, rent has grown much more since then. Thus, data from the website iPropertyManagement shows us that in 1980, the average rent was indeed $243, and according to last year’s data, as Forbes claims, it was $1,372. That is, the growth over the same period of time was 5.64 times. And even if we take the states with the lowest rent – according to Forbes, these are North Dakota, Iowa and South Dakota – then the growth in the cost of rent will be from 3.65 to 4.02 times. As we can see, this is much closer to the dollar inflation rate over the past 44 years. But this is all a world of dispassionate numbers, and in the real world, the situation is much more turbulent. And the comments to the original video only emphasize this. In particular, some commenters point out that rentals were much less convenient in 1980 than they are today. On the other hand, rental conditions also differ from the figures in statistical reports… “Don’t forget that apartments require 3 times the amount of rent along with non refundable application fees first months last months and security deposit down,” one of the commenters reasonably wrote. “And it’s going to be even worse this year due to the raise in taxes,” another responder added. In general, people in the comments almost unanimously come to the conclusion that the older generation is not familiar with these problems – after all, forty years ago the situation was completely different. “[They] will never get it. They were handed so many affordable things,” one of the commenters summarized. And do you, our dear readers, also agree with this?
People in the comments mostly sided with the author, claiming that the rental situation nowadays is quite difficult
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