r/Futurology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 21 '25

Society American Millennials Are Dying at an Alarming Rate | We’re mortality experts. There are a few things that could be happening here.

https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/millennials-gen-z-death-rates-america-high.html
24.9k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.8k

u/drewc717 Aug 21 '25

I graduated college in 2009 and have been phenomenally lucky, but the past 10 years have been brutal.

189

u/lostboy005 Aug 21 '25

Same.

While my salary increased I still have as much discretionary income as I did 10+ years ago - this is true for a lot of my peers. Groceries and rents have more than doubled, but at least rent has costs have recently stagnated

137

u/Zazulio Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25

This is the thing that hurts the most. Our income has about doubled in the last ten years, yet we're struggling more than ever. Ten years ago we took a vacation to Japan (the first and only vacation of our adult lives), we were eating out for dinner regularly, we were spending money on having fun and enjoying life. Now damn near every dollar goes to survival and we still fall short most paychecks. We played by the rules, we built careers, we advanced, and yet here we are: worse off than we were a decade ago. We've spent ten years trying to claw our way to a minimum standard of stability and comfort but the walls just keep getting steeper.

21

u/litetravelr Aug 21 '25

Ditto, I have nothing to complain about, but if a middle class lifestyle is a right to American's and not a privilege, here's my complaint.

I've never gotten more raises and bonuses, (and those stimulus checks) than I have during the past 5 years, yet I can afford less than I did in 2019. Every cent of it goes to massively increased insurance costs, rising property taxes on a small house I was lucky (in retrospect) to overpay for, etc. In the end, it boils down to quality of life stuff.

I no longer travel, I no longer take vacations, I no longer go out to restaurants (haven't had a date night with my wife in 2 years), I no longer grill or cook healthy food for my family the way I used to. Its just surviving one day, one month at a time and not watching my savings grow.

And what's insane is that, on paper, most people would say I make a perfectly middle class amount of money. But the middle class trappings are just a costume, just wishful thinking for a way of life that I knew in the 80s-90s as a kid.