As someone who falls into this category, yes I have a mortgage, yes I have kids, yes it’s insanely hard to juggle it all and keep your head above water… I have worked hard since 15 years old with only 2 times since having longer than 2 weeks off consecutively and I just turned 40. My job is fair, but can have long hours, on call, and work on weekends. The salary seems great, but where I live, plus being 2023 it just barely cuts it. As it is now I can get by, but my future for retirement looks pretty bleak right now. My wife has a decade old student loan that’s $500 a month and interest has basically kept it there and I have no way to afford paying over that amount which even if I did would still take 10 more years to possibly pay it off so this loan is for life.
So stagnant wages, student loan debt, rising costs on everything, no programs to help middle class, and finally the need for services or certifications that appear to be needed more and more for everything which also takes your money. If I can barely get by I don’t want to see how people less fortunate seem to do it… I honestly think about what if I didn’t have kids probably weekly because it seems like the better decision for survival. It’s messed up that you can do everything right yet still feel so close to failure at any given emergency. So screw her and her so called “hard life”. People our age do deserve better and more needs to be done to help. You know how much of a difference it would make if we had free daycare like some other countries? That’s just one thing and it would turn my life around tremendously. There is so much that can be done, but it never does.