Man realizes his father made more money than him in the 80s by working a blue-collar job

The changing global economic conditions have been straining wallets worldwide, with basic necessities becoming increasingly expensive. Housing, healthcare, and education are now nearly unaffordable for many average-income families. Reddit user u/SourceDestroyer sparked a discussion about this financial crisis, highlighting how workers in the '80s and '90s earned more relative to living costs compared to today’s workforce.

The person compared their current salary to what their father earned for similar work in the 1980s and 1990s. "It bothers me that my father made more money than I did in the 1980s and '90s," they mentioned in their post. "My father was a maintenance mechanic at IBM, making 38 dollars an hour. Today, I am a machinist setup programmer making 35 dollars an hour. It's a similar sort of work. I also worked twice as much as he did. Something doesn't add up." The post struck a chord with many on the platform, who promptly agreed and shared their own experiences of being underpaid despite putting in long hours of labor.

The post sparked an important discussion about how inflation and capitalism are getting out of hand. u/johnnyzen425 noted, "Broken system, plain and simple. Wages have stagnated to the point of inertia for 4.5 decades. Meanwhile, inflation trundles upward each year at 2 to 3%. The powers that be have convinced us that for others to succeed a personal loss will occur. Meanwhile, the wealth hoarding continues." u/Gellix warned, "Just wait until the next administration changes the way overtime works. It's gonna get even more of y'all's money exploited away. Exciting times."

u/Insciuspetra explained, "Unions increase pay and benefits for the entire workforce over time. This late-stage, non-free-market capitalist society prioritizes profit above all else to the detriment of the majority. Some companies even punish those who ask what their coworkers are being paid. That is some shady stuff." u/SteakNotCake shared, "My mom and dad made $175k in the '90s. Dad was also maintenance for one of the big three car manufacturers. Did so much overtime and worked the graveyard shift. Unions made that possible. My husband is a machine shop manager and didn't even break $100k this year. No union, of course, because we're in the south."

u/Seldarin wrote, "I explained to my mom the other day that the specialty trade my granddad did in Florida when she was in middle school only pays like 40% more now than he made 1960 when a gallon of gas was $0.31 a gallon of milk was $1, and a loaf of bread was about 20 cents. She didn't believe me, so I showed her the ads on Indeed. 40% was actually on the high end. Some were almost the same." u/Mike_hawk5959 remarked, "Don't forget, everything else is twice as expensive and you have to pay for things like internet and cell phone that he didn't. The shareholders are happy, though." u/quats555 added, "It adds up nicely, just not for you (or most of us). Corporate profits must always rise and executives and owners must receive increasing amounts of wealth! That's where the difference is going."