Background: I work as a programmer on legacy stuff, like really old code and programming languages, so all of my American coworkers are in their 60s, a few are actually in their 70s. Anyone younger than that, other than myself, is overseas, mostly Indian.

I just got off a meeting with one of my American coworkers that's training me at my new job, and we sort of started talking about life in general. He's in his late 60s. He told me that leading up to Y2K he was making $150 an hour, and that he probably could have gotten more. Following Y2K, once he settled into a normal job, he was making $80 an hour in the early 2000s.

He told me he's going to retire soon, but that even in the 90s he was making more than he makes now (mind you this was when a dollar could get you 3x what it can now, at least, everything else being equal). He said it was because of offshoring, that that killed salaries in programming, at least this stuff. He says there's way less people who know how to code this stuff, but they just offshore most of it, so it doesn't matter.

He was telling me that he had a 2 bedroom place he was renting back in the day for $250 a month in Dallas, then he moved to the Bay Area, got a pay bump, and rented a similar place for $550. This is while making about what he makes today in 2023. He said he was able to get what he thought was an extremely expensive place in Lake Tahoe back then for $800k. This is wild to me, because I probably make half of what he does, and I'd have to drop that much to get a decent house here in Texas, where it's supposed to be cheap. I can't even imagine what that place in Lake Tahoe is worth now. Holy fuk people had it good back then. No college debt either because school was pretty much free. This guy traveled the world, bought a few houses, and lived a life of complete comfort while being an office wagie like me. It's unbelievable.

Mind=blown and how bad things have gotten, and then the covid fiasco happened, and things got several times worse over the span of a few short years.

That's it, I guess I just wanted to share this depressing story with someone other than my wife lol

Cr7didthis.gif

pics of wife?

Yeah idk, he said he likes doing this stuff, I guess coding is like his hobby. He works part time, he sort of makes up his own hours. Like he's not technically on today, I'm supposed to text his personal phone if I need help with what I'm doing.

It's the complete opposite of me, I would never do this stuff if I didn't have to.

You can't really compare Y2K fixer programmer salaries to any other period. A lot of those guys were making serious bank off the hysteria, especially if they knew languages that were essentially obsolete like COBOL. As soon as the calendar rolled over, those skills went back to being obsolete again and they were back to making regular money again.

A lot of people I work with are COBOL developers, it's still around believe it or not. Every place I've been at, and a lot of big companies, still run COBOL on their mainframes, especially banks and big utilities. My last job was at a massive company and every program that handled any financial transaction they did was COBOL.

But yeah, Y2K was a moment of opportunity, he was still making $80 an hour in 2002, which is around what he makes today, over 20 years later.

I know a guy who has been a millionaire since the late 80's or so. supposedly he still works a lot. funny thing is he always talks about retiring to florida or something.

You can expect to pay 50% more for the same house if it is on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe versus the California side. Lots of California residents figured out that the tax savings of living in NV where there was no state income tax was absolutely worth paying the premium. Then Covid hit and absolutely rekt the prices even more. This is on top of Lake Tahoe also being a very popular destination to begin with.

I really wanted to move there because it was a no income state tax and in the mountains. There aren't very many places like that.

The dude you are describing basically lived in probably one of the best times to be alive in terms of opportunities and never realized it. Huge salary, huge demand, right location and time to get into real estate, relatively low cost of living etc.

Thanks for the story op, I feel so much better now.

i was looking at jobs the other day and this one came across my screen. it was an armed guard for $14/hr, so i did some math and i was making $11.15/hr @ tire shop back in the day, and that 11.15 then is $15.89/hr today.

so basically this company wants to pay someone to carry a gun and be security for less than a guy working in a tire shop. meanwhile houses are easily 2x of what they were in 2008 even before the crash.

its not just with this job. thats just an example. im seeing this chit all across the board. wages not being anything close to their equivalent of 2008 and prior.

Back in the early 90s, my parents lived in Boise ID making $30k, and bought a house for $68k. Mortgages were 9%, but they were able to put like 25% down.

Now they make $40k and the house is $380k. JFL at wages vs asset inflation. The Fed is running straight class warfare.

Gonna need pics of the wife if you want us to really understand the story.

Yeah I was wondering why he got something on the California side, maybe it was way more on the Nevada side back then too. I've been there, but I'm not that familiar with the area.Sorry man, I usually try to be positive on here lolYeah it's crazy, but the most drastic change I can see was during covid. A $350k house here in Texas pre-covid now lists anywhere between $600k to $800k. It's absolute insanity.It's hard to get ahead when you have to pay so much more for a house, even if you manage to secure a decent salary. I don't know how those that don't have that decent salary are going to do it. If you got in while you still could, that's great, but for those who didn't...I really don't know.

Unless you have an annual income surpasing 2-300k you HAVE to be heavily investing and saving money. If we continue on the trend of the past 15 years in this country virtually everyone will be poor by retirement age. The dollar is loosing value and they are giving us less of them.

The obvious solution to increase wages is by importing more cheap labor through immigration! Also, give me more Covid bucks because things are too expensive.

My extreme sarcasm regarding how we got here is only slightly mischaracterized from some peoples genuine opinions.

Lol orly? Strong username.
It's scary stuff for sure.With the stuff I do, I don't know how this rumor spread, but it has to be intentional, they always say there aren't enough Americans that do STEM, that Americans can't do math, so they HAVE to outsource the work. That's complete BS. They could easily train people here to do this stuff, they just don't want to. I remember when I was looking for my first job I probably applied to close to 1k places and didn't hear back from most of them. The ones I did hear back from made me do such ridiculous white board style tests I thought you'd have to be a genius to be a programmer. Once I finally got in somewhere I couldn't believe how much easier it was than what they were putting me through during interviews. I imagine they do that so the can fail out most people here in the US, and then turn around and say they can't get qualified candidates, they need them from India. I've worked with a bunch of Indians now, and most of them aren't as good as the people stateside. I have nothing against them, but that's just what I've observed.

my younger brother who graduated college in 2022 (engineering) received approximately the same starting salary as our dad who graduated in 1986 lol (actually a little less).


little bro started at $67.5k out of college

dad got $24.5k in '86 (is about equal to $70K today)

you can imagine how much further that money went in 1986 also..

I remember when I graduated from college twenty years ago and people were looking for 50k a year to have a decent salary to start with. Now that's barely minimum wage and you definitely can't live on it by yourself.

lol I thought the same in my freshman year of HS (2008).

Now I make ~$56k and need a roommate to survive. brutal

Yeah. Was paid the 2021 equivalent of $15 an hour to do nursery work in 1993. Similar job in 2021 w/loads more experience and they would only pay $12. And the 1993 job had medical insurance and an ESOP program...no benefits in 2021.
#vanlife #tinyhouseliving #multigenerationalhousing
I was living that corporate life and I was social with IT types around 2000/2001. It was already starting then. But there were still some people who made it; self-study and got good paying jobs by passing certs.

When US companies bring in visa workers not only can they keep salaries low, they can also keep those workers chained down as said workers risk losing their visa and being force to return to their home country if they get fired or quit. So they will put up with a lot more BS than a native might.

sht do be crazy

It's not as clear cut as Zoomers make it out to be. A house in 1960 was a third smaller than the brand new "decent" house they want. And minimum wage was a dollar. And people weren't trying to raise 4 kids on minimum wage like now. That was a high school kid's entry job.

boomers stole everything

Yea its fuked up, I make an above average salary, bought a house valued at the absolute bottom of the market, have 2 "cheap" cars and am barely above water right now trying to support my wife and young son.

Cost of living is too fuking high.

People need to stop speaking for entire groups of people. I don't think all zoomers expect a mcmansion

a 3 bedroom townhome in my area (1500 sq feet) is almost $400k

I remember my Grand parents were saying $45k was a good salary back in 2001. If you were making that you were living good. Hell, parents apartment was $450/month.

Now $45k is poverty.

Yeah, I'm kind of old...at least for misc. My grandparents didn't have big houses, I've mostly lived in small houses, and I don't really care about having a big house either. Less now than ever, given I'm single and don't expect to have bunch of family to house.

The usual "but people had a lower of standard of living in XXXX so you can't really compare that" rubs me the wrong way.



3/2/2 brick house on my street here is around 1600 sq. ft. and was $70K new in 1990.




That doesn't sound bad, right? Except the houses aren't selling for that, they are valued around $300K.

I did see an option recently for $135K.







That price includes a leased lot [$200 per month] and set up.

This statement is invalid simply because your current affordable starter homes are those built in 1960. Those same homes aren't affordable like they used to be.

Go look up any cheap $200k house. Look at the build date.


also:

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/aver...r-home-4172916

I finished highschool in the 90s. When I operated a piece of construction/mining equipment in 1997, I was 21yo and was making $25/hr.Lots of OT, was bringing in about $75k/yr working seasonal. You could net out 90-100k/yr working other jobs off-season depending how motivated you were.

Rental apartment was ~450/mo, new pickup was $35k, gas was $0.55/liter. Same apartment building today is $1500/mo, equivalent mid-optioned pickup is $70k, fuel prices are triple.

Same company I worked for back then is advertising the same position for$30/hr.

When I went to college I had zero parent money, but I could work my ass off May-August in construction and pick up some bouncing/security weekends during school to live a decent student life. Graduated with $5-6k in student loans I paid off that first summer.

My oldest is in middle school and Im resigned to the fact I am going to have to help my kids out if they are going to make it. We have their college set aside, I am even considering making some sort of real-estate move so they have a head start then too.

I was a bootstrapper, but dont know what the bootstrappers are supposed to do now.

Buddy I’d be perfectly happy with a 2 bedroom ranch. But in my area they’re $300K, need a new roof, and the interior hasn’t been updated since 1970 when Dolores and her husband moved in. Now they’re old and trying to cash out of a place that isn’t worth near what the asking price is. But there’s 100 retards in line ready to pay 50K over asking just so they don’t have to pay $2,000 a month for an apartment in a megacomplex with all the other ****ing morons that moved here for some reason and also can’t find a house. And this is not some super exclusive area. I mean it’s nice but it’s not Dallas or Miami.


I can only imagine that this all comes crashing down in the next couple years. It is not sustainable in any way.