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It's a source of pride for me that I am the only one in my immediate family to attend college.
My dad (as you might have read above) graduated from high school near downtown L.A., went to the Pep Boys office (he loved cars) and got a job at their store in his neighborhood. About four years later, they opened a new store in Santa Monica and they sent him there to be the manager.
Mom grew up on a farm in Idaho, and hated it. After high school, she was allowed to move in with an aunt in Santa Monica. She went to a business school and learned to be a secretary. She did a little of that before meeting dad, getting married and becoming a housewife.
My brother was a thug in high school. After one year at junior college, his lack of academic awareness/ambition was obvious. He enlisted in the Navy, re-upped and did eight years before a vision problem forced him out with a medical discharge. He probably would have been a career sailor if his vision hadn't failed. He followed that with 30 years in the USPS.
Me, junior college then major college for a BA degree. Newspaper guy for 44 years in all. I got a profession I liked and was good at, but not monetarily lucrative. Not complaining.
The differences in the generations is becoming clear through these posts, particularly a few from the last page or so.
[snip]
Anyway, the point is, average Depression- era people didn't have money at all. Now, people have way more money, and, theoretically, at least, we would all seem to be better off than our parents. But we're not, because the money -- more of it though it is -- can't be stretched nearly far enough nowadays.
Different definitions of and perspectives on being poor (and rich, too). But the results can be much the same, relatively speaking.
Here's part of the history we aren't allowed to teach in red states now.Other than Social Security, the GI Bill might have been the greatest law pashed in the 20th century.
I think I am. Mom is a mid-level supervisory nurse and my stepfather is a retired industrial mechanic/machinist.
Not sure I'm better off than Mrs. tbf's parents though. Her dad worked a union job with AT&T for 50 years and has a nest egg approaching 750K.
Although given a job in which I generally love every two years, I neither own nor have any equity in a home like they do. But the ones they own aren't going to make them rich.
The pension, disability, and health benefits I earn when I retire in a couple years will be worth a good deal more than that. Plus, with all the tax-free income made on deployments over the years, we've been able to save a pretty decent 401K.
A pension: a very valuable thing because it is generally less volatile and thus more secure than the currently prevailing 401k's, I think, is almost extinct nowadays. My mom would have been in real trouble upon my dad's death if not for his pension.