Man's story about how easy life was for his grandparents is blowing people's minds

Plenty of stories paint Gen Z as lazy or entitled for questioning workplace "norms," but these young workers are really just rethinking outdated traditions. Reddit user u/gregsw2000 shared a unique perspective on this topic through a conversation with his nearly 90-year-old grandmother, a member of the Silent Generation. His post shines a light on just how different things were when she first entered the workforce.

According to the post, u/gregsw2000’s grandmother began working as a payroll clerk in 1951 and was considered an "old maid" for not marrying until her 30s. "The minimum wage for women in 1951 was $0.75 per hour, and that's what she earned. She says she could easily make ends meet on that wage because rent was about a third of her salary, and her other expenses were much lower," he explained.

The CPI Inflation Calculator estimates that 75 cents in 1951 will be nearly equal to $8.60 in 2022. The OP's grandmother's description of life in her youth is wildly dissimilar from the reality of young folks today in the US. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour and hasn't changed in more than ten years.

The OP also mentioned how simple it was for his grandmother to get a job: "She wanted to tell me she never even had to submit an application for any of these jobs — her parents knew the owners from around town, and they knew she needed a job, so the owner approached her about it. She said she had seen some of the wacky requirements for jobs these days. She moved to work as an office manager for a florist after leaving that place. They came up to her. She had no idea the position even existed."

After getting married, OP's grandma moved in with his grandfather instead of continuing to live with her parents. As a "shoe cutter," where he made less than $1.25 per hour, OP's grandfather is said to have supported the two of them because he didn't want her to work.

u/gregsw2000 revealed that his grandmother only worked part-time and received a minimal inheritance. His grandpa "never made good money in his entire life, only working at a single 'low skill' factory job, which was eventually offshored sometime during the Reagan administration," he wrote. 

But in 1962, they had everything, including a "new, standalone, home with a 20-year mortgage, for an extremely affordable payment, new cars, and my grandmother is a self-described 'impulse shopper,' who would buy all kinds of random shit she'd never use if allowed," OP shared. His grandmother is still living off of social security and the money from selling their house after his grandfather passed away, for ten times what they originally paid for it.

OP concluded by saying the following: "When Boomers try to tell you life was hard during their lives, they're not telling the truth. The minimum wage almost always supported a decent living, as intended, while they were up and coming. There was no 'failing' unless you just did not want to work, weren't white, or drank and smoked away your paychecks. Don't let old folks gaslight you. They're outright lying about what their financial lives were like, or the amount of 'hard work' they had to put in to have those lives. It is a mythology they have built for themselves, not reality."

This article originally appeared 1 year ago.