Man reveals how easy life was for his grandmother: ‘Don’t let boomers lie to you’

A man’s Reddit post has gone viral after he shared a story about his grandmother and how easy her life was.

In the popular Reddit forum, r/antiwork, user u/gregsw2000 recalled a conversation he had with his grandmother. He said she’s almost 90 and is a part of the “silent generation,” referring to people born between 1925 and 1945. The title of his post is labelled: “Don’t let boomers lie to you.”

Although the man’s grandmother wasn’t a boomer herself, he noted that she officially joined the workforce in 1951 as “a payroll clerk”. He also claimed that she was an “old maid”, meaning that she didn’t get married until she was almost 30.

He went on to explain that while his grandmother had a low salary at the time, she was still able to live off of it.

“She made .75/hr as a woman in 1951, the minimum wage,” the original poster [OP] wrote. “She says there was no reason she could not have supported herself on that .75/hr, because her expenses would have been much less than her income, as even rents around here would have been around 1/3rd of her minimum wage income.”

This pay rate is jarringly different from what nonexempt employees in the country make now, as the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, according to the US Department of Labor.

The Reddit user went on to detail how his grandmother told him that she’d seen “some of the wild requirements for jobs these days”. However, she said that back when she joined the workforce, “she had never even had to turn in an application for any of [her] jobs”.

“Her parents knew the owners from around town, and they knew she needed a job and the owner approached her about it,” he continued. “When she left there, she went to work as an office manager for a florist - same deal. They approached her. She didn’t even know the job existed.”

He also noted that she was never expected to move out of her family’s home and that she continued living there until her husband proposed to her, when she was “in her very late 20s”. He explained that once his grandparents started living together, his grandfather wanted to be the one to work.

“My grandfather didn’t want her to have to work, and supported both of them on his near minimum wage job as a ‘shoe cutter,’” he continued. “She doesn’t remember exactly what he made, but less than 1.25/hr.”

According to the OP, his grandfather “never made good money in his entire life” because he continued “working at a single ‘low skill’ factory job, which was eventually offshored sometime during the Reagan administration”. He said that his grandmother also only worked “part time, with little inheritance” from her parents.

However, his grandparents still “had everything” that they needed in their lives.

“A new, standalone, home in 1962, with a 20 year mortgage, 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,” he added.

He shared that while his grandfather died about five years ago, his grandmother “is still living on Social Security and proceeds from selling their house for 10 times what it cost them”. He said the home was built in the 1960s and was “never renovated” before being sold.

In conclusion, the Reddit user shared his opinions about boomers and the kind of experiences they had in the workforce.

“When Boomers try to tell you life was hard during their lives, they’re not telling the truth,” he wrote. “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 ( which many of them did ).”

He claimed that readers should not to be “gaslighted” by boomers when they’re discussing some of the hardships in their work lives.

“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,” he added. “It is a mythology they have built for themselves, not reality.”

As of 7 December, the post has more than 11,100 upvotes, with multiple Reddit users in the comments sharing similar stories about their family members’ careers.

“My grandma didn’t graduate high school, maybe not even middle school and got a job at an investment bank on wall street, I think she took a few courses in bookkeeping but that was it,” one wrote. “If I tried getting that job with those same qualifications they would throw my application in the trash.”

“Grandfather was a farm boy who didn’t go to college. Started as a department store stock boy, was the VP of a multi-state franchise by the time he retired, which he was able to do early,” another wrote. “This could never ever happen today.”

“My dad, a boomer himself, started out his career as a cook and worked his way up to a captain (boating field). He barely graduated high school and had zero experience,” a third wrote. “Now you need an associates degree to even step foot on the boat. Everything is completely different now.”

Many readers agreed with the OP, including a boomer who explained why everything in the man’s post was accurate and shared their thoughts about America’s economy today.

“I’m a Boomer and I confirm everything you said is true. In 1976, I had a two bedroom apartment for $75 a month. Utilities included. I worked part time at a movie theatre and my ex worked sporadically doing construction and odd jobs,” they wrote. “The economy is the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how people do it, especially people with kids. Ridiculous medical costs, college tuition, and skyrocketing housing costs, rapidly growing homeless population, and 60 per cent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with no savings.”