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Millennial shuts down judgy boomers by comparing cost of 'luxuries' in 1980 vs 2025

The data backs him up.

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Millennial man says "luxuries" aren't the reason young people can't afford to live.

Millennials constantly lament the high cost of living and the fact that so-called "American dream" is out of reach for many of them. Housing prices have skyrocketed, as has the cost of a college education. Eating out has gotten drastically more expensive, and making food at home with fresh groceries is hardly any cheaper. It's just so hard, they say, to get a foothold in the modern economy. Boomers, who grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, however, aren't wasting any sympathy tears.

One of the big talking points in the great American millennials versus baby boomers debate is that, yes, things are more expensive; but has the younger generation has knee-capped itself by its lavish spending habits that have prevented them from owning homes? If millennials stopped buying $14 avocado toast and $1,000 iPhones, would they be able to save enough for a down payment on a modest house?

Freddie Smith, 36, of Orlando, Florida, recently went viral on TikTok for a video in which he challenged the boomer argument with statistics from the Bureau of Labor, Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Smith believes that the older generations misunderstand millennial finances because their concept of luxury is based on 1980s economics. That's when most boomers were coming of age and buying their own family homes, and their ideas of saving up for a down payment and affording a monthly mortgage are heavily outdated.

Smith says that for baby boomers, essentials such as rent and child care were much more affordable, but items considered luxuries (TVs, CD players, computers) were much more expensive.

How is the economy different for millennials than it was for baby boomers?

"The main shift is that core essentials—housing, education, healthcare, and even food—have become more expensive," Smith said. "Housing and rent, for instance, now outpace wage growth, making homeownership feel unattainable for many. The cost of childcare has also skyrocketed, and food prices have increased.”

The home price to income ratio is currently at an all-time high. The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University writes, "In 2022, the median sale price for a single-family home in the US was 5.6 times higher than the median household income, higher than at any point on record dating back to the early 1970s." That ratio was closer to 2.5 in 1980.

Even transportation has skyrocketed. Buying a new car now costs about as much as the median yearly salary, with entry-level vehicles disappearing rapidly and being replaced with high-tech, fuel-efficient offerings.

"As a result, I think older generations have a different perspective on luxury versus necessity,” Smith continued. “They grew up in a time when hard work typically led to financial stability, whereas today, even with hard work, many people struggle with the high costs of housing, rent and medical expenses. Basic survival used to be far more affordable, allowing people more financial room to build a stable life."

  - YouTube  www.youtube.com  

Smith’s numbers don’t lie. For a person in the '80s to own three TVs, a CD player, a cellphone, a microwave, and a computer, it would cost them 3.5 years of rent or a 20% downpayment on the average home. So, it was irresponsible for someone in that period to purchase all of what was known then as luxuries.

However, for millennials, these "fancy toys" are a lot more affordable compared to the big ticket items of housing, childcare, and college education. Skimping out on them won't make a meaningful difference in the attempt to save up the massive amount of cash required for a down payment on a modern home. To wit:

"But if you skip that daily $6 Starbucks drink, you’ll have enough for the downpayment in 29.22 years," Yokahana joked in the comments.

"I hate that housing and transportation have become luxuries," Molly added.

"Imagine spending 3x your rent on a microwave," Donutdisaster wrote.

Older people may see millennials with multiple TVs in their home, along with iPhones and tablets, and think that money could be better saved up in service of the "American dream." But the truth is that those savings won't really help, and worse, they'll make life pretty unenjoyable in the meantime!


Why are luxury goods more affordable now than they were in the '80s?

The price of manufactured goods has steadily fallen over the last few decades due to technological improvements and trade policies that have allowed the U.S. to import goods from places where labor costs are cheaper.

"International, global competition lowers prices directly from lower-cost imported goods, and indirectly by forcing U.S. manufacturers to behave more competitively, with lower prices, higher quality, better service, et cetera," Sociologist Joseph Cohen of Queens University said, according to Providence Journal.

Even as recently as the early 2000s, a high-quality TV was likely to cost over $1,000. Nowadays you can get an equivalent, or better, television set for just a few hundred bucks.

Why are housing prices so high?

Housing prices in the US have soared due to the low inventory caused by the Great Recession, mortgage rates, and zoning laws that make building more challenging.

 Rents have increased considerably since the pandemic due to low inventory, inflation, barriers to home ownership, and the fact that more people want to live alone than with a roommate or romantic partner.

Smith’s breakdown of the economic changes over the past two generations makes a strong case for the idea that millennial financial troubles have more to do with systemic problems than spending habits. The boomers got a bad deal regarding luxury items, and the millennials with necessities. Wouldn’t living in a world where both were affordable in the same era be great?

This article originally appeared in February. It has been updated.

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Immigration

A woman has a tearful reunion with her landscaper after he was mistakenly detained by ICE

"Fernando is our family, and family fights for one another."

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A pink rose garden. A landscaper trims a hedge.

Sometimes we just need a good hug and a good cry. That's most certainly what happened when a woman who goes by the name Lady Ak (@Ladya2thek) on TikTok was able to hug her beloved friend and landscaper, after he was detained and incarcerated by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

Rewinding a few days prior, she posted a video of all the wonderful work her landscaper, Fernando, had done in her garden. Under the chyron: "Our landscaper is not a criminal, but ICE took him away anyway," she gives a tour of the beautiful rose bushes, oranges, pears, marigolds, sunflowers, and more. She then asks, "Why am I showing y'all a video of my garden? I'm showing y'all because this morning, the man who planted all of this, built that garden bed, and has cultivated food and beauty for my family for the last few years, got deported this morning."

@ladya2thek

He was more like family....

She explains how her family met Fernando and how her husband reached out to him when they bought their first house. Her voice quivers as she continues. "When we moved in, our garden looked like this." She pans the camera from an empty cement square to a flower bed full of blooming flowers and fruit, "And Fernando did this."

In tears, she relays, "Now he's gone. He's headed to Mexico. His children live here. His wife is here. And the way I know that he's been deported today is because my husband is a police officer. And they locked him up in the jail my husband works in. And my husband couldn't even talk to him or tell him everything was gonna be okay."

Her empathy extends to her husband, as well. "I feel bad for my husband because I know this is really hard on him too. He's a really great guy, and a great officer. He's kind, he's compassionate, he's courteous."

 landscaping, garden, strawberries, fruit trees, gardening Red strawberries in a garden.  Photo by Oliver Hale on Unsplash  

Half a million likes and thousands of comments flooded her page. One TikToker writes, "Thank you to you and your husband for caring so much. We need more people with compassion like you. Thank you so much."

But it's the follow-up video that truly exemplifies the good in humans. Simply captioned, "We got Fernando back," we see the original poster hugging Fernando in a sweetly protective embrace. She writes, "Thank you to everyone who helped us get him back. We still have an uphill battle ahead, but we won't do it alone. Fernando is our family, and family fights for one another. Fernando is no criminal. He's a father, husband, and entrepreneur."

@ladya2thek

Thank you to everyone who helped us get him back. We still have an uphill battle ahead but we won't do it alone. Fernando is our family and family fights for one another. Fernando is no criminal. He's a father, husband and entrepreneur.

The first of tens of thousands of comments is: "That's my Dad!" And after quite a few messages back and forth, it would appear to be so. The OP writes, "We got your all, Liz."

Another family member vulnerably shares, "From the moment my father was detained, you and your family have shown us tremendous support and stuck by our side. We are extremely grateful to have Fernando back and fight this uphill battle. Thank you for all the support, we are grateful to have you guys in our corner."

The comment section continues to glow with love and support, not only for Fernando and his team, but for the woman and her law enforcement husband too. The idea that these bridges across all walks of life are being built, simply by looking out for one another, is a hopeful one. The two people in this embrace aren't bound by a political matter, but a human one.

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Democracy

Economics expert pinpoints the exact moment in 2012 when 'America went to hell'

Geography was more important than we thought.

via Canva/Photos

An angry man in front of the American flag.

America has never been a perfect place, but since the Civil War, it has been one where most people bought into the idea of the country and supported the institutions that keep it running. People may disagree on politics and culture, but when America was threatened, whether it was 9/11 or World War II, people came together to fight for the country they love, even though the reasons may have differed.

However, it’d be naive to say that sentiment is still as strong as it once was. Since The Great Recession, many people have felt that the vibes are off in America, and polls and research back those feelings. Right around 2012, when smartphones became ubiquitous, there was a considerable rise in the number of people who felt that America was on the wrong track and that racism and sexism were considerably worse than they were just a year before. There was also a big spike in mental illness.

So what happened in 2012? Did the world suddenly become drastically worse overnight, or had our perceptions been changed?

 woman, dispair, smartphone, bad news, woman in kitchen, upset woman A woman is upset looking at her smartphone.via Canva/Photos

Why does it feel like America is on the decline?

Other developed countries have experienced similar vibe shifts since 2012, but it has hit America the hardest. Economics blogger Noah Smith explains why this feeling of malaise has hit America so hard, and he illustrates it perfectly in a viral Substack piece called “Social media destroyed one of America's key advantages.” Smith is an American blogger and commentator on economics and current events and former assistant professor of behavioral finance at Stony Brook University.

In his Substack post, Smith postulates that the technological change hit America the hardest because it punctured our geographical buffers. “A hippie in Oakland and a redneck in the suburbs of Houston both fundamentally felt that they were part of the same unified nation; that nation looked very different to people in each place,” Smith writes. “Californians thought America was California, and Texans thought America was Texas, and this generally allowed America to function.”

 

Why did America fundamentally change in 2012?

Here’s an excerpt from Smith’s piece. Please check out the entire piece on the Noahpinion Substack.

Like some kind of forcible hive mind out of science fiction, social media suddenly threw every American in one small room with every other American. Decades of hard work spent running away from each other and creating our ideologically fragmented patchwork of geographies went up in smoke overnight, as geography suddenly ceased to mediate the everyday discussion of politics and culture.

The sudden collapse of geographic sorting in political discussion threw all Americans in the same room with each other — and like the characters in Sartre’s No Exit, they discovered that “Hell is other people.” Conservatives suddenly discovered that a lot of Americans despise Christianity or resent White people over the legacy of discrimination. Liberals suddenly remembered that a lot of their countrymen frown on their lifestyles. Every progressive college kid got to see every piece of right-wing fake news that their grandparents were sharing on Facebook (whereas before, these would have been quietly confined to chain emails). Every conservative in a small town got to see Twitter activists denouncing White people. And so on.


 protests, american protest, protest sign, demonstration, mass gathering A group of people protesting in the street.via Ted Eytan/Flickr

It may sound cynical to believe that America was a better place when people were less likely to talk to people with a different worldview. But, given how things have gone in the past 15 years, it’s fair to say that putting every American in a proverbial ring to fight it out just makes everyone feel under attack... and the fight never ends.

The problem with the Like button

Another development around the same time that many believe negatively affected the country was the development of the Like button on Facebook. The button made its debut in 2009, and it, along with the share button, which came in 2010, incentivized people to create content that their audience agreed with, creating echo chambers. The buttons also incentivized people to make outrage-provoking posts and create fake stories to go viral and increase advertising revenue.

 maga, trump supporters, trump flags, trump rally, american flags Trump supporters at a rally.via Elvert Barnes/Flickr

The positive takeaway from Smith’s geographical sorting theory is that, quite possibly, many people’s perceptions about life in Amerca are wrong because we’re seeing it through the distorted, funhouse mirror of social media that shows us every bad deed in a country of 330 million people and amplifies the voices of the unscroupulous. By pinpointing the moment that America “went to hell,” as author Jonathan Haidt says, we also have a roadmap to get back to when people had greater faith in America’s institutions and people.

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Democracy

Americans share 15 of the coolest things they've seen overseas that they want here. Like, now.

"Taxes filed FOR YOU, and the return just appearing in your bank account."

via Canva/Photos

A train conductor, a bidet, and fries with gravy.

America is the wealthiest country in the world, but it still lacks a few things compared to other countries. Why can’t America have a high-speed rail, a healthcare system that won’t bankrupt you, or super cool toilets like they do in other parts of the world? Why are we still tipping on every meal, and why can't you find a decent meat pie anywhere?

The great American experiment has done pretty well for the past 248 years, but we still have some blind spots. It would be cool if a brave politician could one day make America truly great by poaching all the best ideas from around the world and creating the perfect country.


A Redditor recently asked people on the AskReddit subforum, “What's one interesting thing you saw in another country that made you think, 'How does my country not have this?" The responses are a great starting point for this hypothetical leader to begin making the improvements we’ve all been dying for. Bidets? Yes, we can! French fries with gravy? Yes, we can! Beer at Burger King? Yes, we can!

We compiled a list of the 15 most interesting things they have in countries that should be implemented in America, like yesterday.

15 cool things they have in other countries that we need in America

1. Cashiers can sit down

"I was an exchange student in Germany during my Junior year in high school. Right before I left, I had a job as a cashier at a grocery store. When I first went shopping in Germany, I thought, 'THEY GET TO SIT?! WHY COULDN'T I DO THAT?!' The only place that does this in the U.S. now is Aldi, which of course is a German company."

"Corporations: 'It's a slippery slope. If we let cashiers sit, what's next? The federal government will make a law that says that pregnant women get time off, and we have to give them money? Fathers get paid time off, too? We let people stay home if they're sick, without a doctor's note? Employees get more than 2 weeks of vacation per year? We have to pay people enough to afford both food AND housing? Where does it end?!'"

2. On-time public transport

"I travelled everywhere in Japan by public transport. My Japanese was terrible, but I could get everywhere with Google Maps because of the utter reliability of the services. I turned up at the station or bus stop and caught the transport that presented itself. The train, which was 5 minutes early, was not my train. The one that was on time on the right platform was the one I needed to catch."

japan subway, japan, japanese train, public transport, transportA subway conductor in Japan. via Canva/Photos

3. Fit-levers on faucets

"I saw something similar in Mexico City, only it was a foot pedal to activate/flush a public toilet. This operation seems so much more sanitary than using a handle to flush a toilet."

"You want two peddles: 1) to lower the seat (it should automatically lift back up unless it has a lid which auto-closes); 2) flush."

4. Coupon crushers

"In 1997, I was in Singapore and saw these things that looked like vending machines. It was a machine that you would take your empty pop can, and put it in this compartment, lift a handle to crush the can. It would then drop down into the machine. Then the machine printed out coupons for businesses in the area. I thought it was genius! I've never seen it anywhere else."

5. Bidets

"More Bidets, pls. My anus can only take so much tp."

"Honestly, every person who has tried it has understood why I love them so much. It’s uncomfortable at first because it’s different, but it really does leave you feeling much cleaner."


bidet, toilet, faucet, clean, bathroom, tileA common bidet.via Canva/Photos

6. Private public restroom stalls

"Public restroom stalls without the stupid gaps in between the doors, and smaller to zero gaps on the bottoms of the doors."

7. Server buttons

"In South Korea, there were buttons on the tables to signal you were ready to order, pay, whatever. It meant no pushy or hovering waitstaff and they were able to chill and relax a bit when no one needed their help."

"In Korea, they have a 'bing-bong' button on your table on a restaurant. If you need something, you press the button, your table number shows up on a screen by the server station, and they come over to your table. Usually, I just hold up my empty bottle or side dish and make eye contact from across the room, and they smile and bring me another one. Otherwise, the servers don't come by and bother you during the meal. It's so so so much better this way."

"We have this at Korean BBQ restaurants in Los Angeles."

8. French fries with gravy

"In Canada, you can get French fries with cheese and gravy."

"We have this in the US. If you're in the Jersey/New York area they're called Disco Fries."

disco fries, poutine, French fries, gravy, cheeseSome delicious putin. via Canva/Photos

9. Free healthcare

"Basically, your medical bills are paid for by your taxes, so when you go into the hospital, the only thing that ends up costing money is the parking. The drawback can be that there is a waitlist for some surgery (except when it's urgently needed to keep you alive), at this time, medical insurance can pay for it, but it's still not as expensive as in America. Also, depending on the country, your medication is also a fraction of the actual cost. For example, in America a box of medication I have to take would cost me about US$600 a month, here in Australia that same medication only costs me about US $15"

"Socialized medicine is only as good as the people implementing it. If it isn't working properly, that isn't really the concepts fault. It's the people running it."

10. Traffic light countdowns

"In Germany, the traffic lights go from green to yellow to red like they do everywhere else, but after red, they light up red + yellow together before green. That way people have a head start getting ready to hit the gas and by the time it’s green you’re immediately moving forward. Bothers me more than it should when it just goes from red to green in other countries."

11. The government does the taxes

"Taxes filed FOR YOU, and the return just appearing in your bank account."

12. Beer vending machines

"Beer at Burger King" (One-upper!)

vending machine, snack machine, snacks, food, vending, A man using a vending machine.via Canva/Photos

13. Attached caps

"This one's less exciting than a lot of others, but I bought a bottle of Coke in London, and when I opened it, I realized there was a little piece of plastic that held the lid to the neck of the bottle, so you don't have to hold it. I can't believe we don't do that in the US. It's such a tiny little thing, but it feels like a no brainer when you think about it."

"That is due to a new law (an EU law, but a lot of brands have done it for their UK products too). Bottle caps have to be attached to the bottle to prevent them from being littered and to help ensure that they are also recycled along with the bottle."

14. Meat pies

"America, they are just not as big a thing here as they are in other countries. I loved them in New Zealand, in fact, when I was there, they had a fast food joint called Georgie Pie that was absolutely fantastic, also bakeries everywhere, where you could get them too."

15. Clean public toilets

"Clean, modern public toilets. I've been to Japan a few times, and those public toilets are amazing. I need to go back to try the one-way glass wall ones. (On a side note, having been to some Japanese music festivals, it seems that they have no problem setting up mens bathrooms in a way that the women line up looking directly into the men's bathroom. Very odd.)

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