Evolving Folks Project

“Life on Earth maybe expensive, but at least you get a free trip around the sun.” -Unknown

When I was a kid (aging myself here), Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was a colossal show. You’d see celebrity homes that were mansions. So I thought a million-dollar home would be a damn palace when I was little. But boy, was I wrong? As a middle-aged adult, a million-dollar home isn’t what it was in the 1900s. Well actually, I was kid the 1980 and 90s for the Zoomer or Gen Alpha who might read this post. I might have to do a TikTok about it to reach them. Let’s say owning a million-dollar home these days ain’t gonna get you featured in People Magazine or on TMZ. In most cities, a million-dollar home is a standard regular-sized house. New York, Chicago, ATL, Los Angeles, or randomly, Boseman, MT, a million dollars might get you a freaking shack.

I’m only slightly exaggerating. But being an adult in 2024 and over the last several years is expensive as fuck! The cost of food is through the roof. Gas ain’t been cheap since the Bush Era. I thought that’s why that asshole invaded Iraq? Buying a house or renting is barely affordable for the middle class, let alone the working class. Everything is more expensive nowadays. Thanks, inflation!

One thing I looked forward to as a kid about being an adult was having money to buy the shit I wanted and also being able to eat ice cream for dinner. But adults never tell kids about goddamn diabetes. I’m off-subject again, but the cost is too damn high. Little Lornett would be pissed to know that I’ve made it to adulthood and now the cost of most things are ridiculous including basic needs. Case in point: 2012: I bought a 2008 Honda Civic for $15K. Today, a 2020 Honda Civic might run you anywhere from $18K up to freaking $25k. WTF! A brand new 2025 Honda Civic has a base price of $27K, but if you want some bells and whistles, be prepared to spend up to $35K on a new Honda Civic. For almost $40K, that car should fucking fly, but the future promised to me in Back to the Future was a mixed bag. Damn you, Hollywood!

With the astronomical rise in living costs, we still find ourselves in the United States of Poverty. We have a whole-ass election in the United States. The economy is barely being mentioned by the candidates. Hell, no one is talking about raising the minimum wage, which has been the same amount since Bush was in office in 2008. In simpler terms, Zendaya was a mere twelve years old. Shout out to all the idiots I knew in college who came from small-town USA that would parrot what their Faux News-watching dad and granddad told them: “If you raise the minimum wage, all the prices go up.” Well, doofus, the prices have increased tremendously in the last 20 years since I was a broke-ass college kid, and the federal minimum wage is still only seven dollars and twenty-five cents. Bullshit! I am glad unions have made a comeback. They’re not perfect, but they’re one major way to protect the working Average Joe or Jane against a legal and political system that heavily favors the corporate owners over the workers. I tell all workers, whether blue-collar or white, to unionize!

Ways that this nation keeps massive amounts of my fellow Americans in poverty are legion. School lunch debt, yup, the United States can fund a genocide in Gaza, where Israel has been bombing tons of innocent civilians, including children, for almost a year. In the USA, hungry kids have see their parents into debt because our public schools won’t feed schoolchildren for free. Money for war, but can’t feed the poor! Shout out to deceased rapper 2Pac for that thought. The childhood poverty rate in the United States is between 12% and 20%, depending on the source. 50% of Americans can’t afford healthcare in a nation prioritizing private healthcare. No Medicare for All, no public option, no nothing for people. Almost a third of the citizens in this nation are in some type of medical debt. And if you’re not a U.S. military veteran. In that case, you’re gonna be paying a lot of pocket if you get sick, need surgery, or get seriously injured. So much freedom! 40% of my fellow Americans can’t afford a $400 financial emergency. If your car breaks down, your fridge stops working or your home water heater gets busted, most Americans will have to go into debt or borrow money to get things repaired.

Finally, many Americans face housing insecurity or homelessness. Yup, far too many people don’t have a place to stay or call a home. I am fortunate compared to many people in this country. I own a home. Sadly, so many people are out in the streets or worried about when they’ll be out on the streets. This is America in 2024. Far too many deluded people think they are gonna be rubbing shoulders with that asshole Elon Musk at the Met Gala. The reality is a vast majority of people are closer to being homeless than becoming a billionaire.

Capitalism has failed a vast majority of people at this point. As I write these words, the global market seems on the brink again. If stock markets crash again, politicians will use taxpayer money to bail out multi-billion dollar corporations like they did in 2008 and 2009. Socialism for the rich and gangsta capitalism for the rest of us. Corporate greed is the reason for inflation and the fluctuation of the stock market. The idea of infinite growth on a finite planet keeps us trapped in this boom and bust cycle. Companies are raking in record profits, yet the masses struggle to make ends meet. All while Democratic and Republican politicians scapegoat some social other as the reason your life is in a rut. Corporations, billionaires, and partisan Super-PACs have brought and paid for these same politicians to ensure their interests are met. Screw the will of the people.

So, to my coming-of-age Zoomers and my elder millennials, it’s not your fault that the cost of living is so high these days. It’s not because you grabbed a Starbucks latte on the way to work this morning, took out student loans, forgone parenthood, or got fur babies instead. No, the older generations sold us false hopes and dreams. They told us, as kids, that if you work hard and go to school, you can buy a house, raise a family, and retire. I’m a middle-aged man and won’t lie to the kiddies. We are in trouble; the kids will be, too, when they grow up in the next decade. It’s not too late to change course, but the road ahead will be extremely tough due to right wing and neoliberal forces violently protecting the status quo. But another world is still possible.

As an elder millennial, my social security will probably go to funding World War III with China and Iran. I’ll end up a greeter at Walmart when I’m 80 years old (where Walmart can benefit financially by taking out a life insurance policy on my old ass when I kick the bucket). If I still have my V.A. healthcare, the idiots in power will have privatized it, so it will suck and be too expensive, like most health insurance in the United States. By the time we millennials and Zoomers became adults, the elders knew the world they created was about to go up in flames. Even as corporations squeeze out the last profit from the natural world, climate change will cause the world to go ablaze.