Earnings Stifled by Graduating During Recession

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated college in 1995. It's been great. I caught the start-up ttech/telcom boom (95-99), then the real estate boom (01-06) and now the stock market boom (09 onward).

I fully acknowledge it's been great timing and luck.
I also fully acknowledge that had I graduated in college five years later I would not have been in a position to capitalize on any of those.

Thank you for acknowledging this. It seems like so many people in this forum complain about being unable to live on 400k a year, then attribute everything they have to " hard work," and snark on anyone who can't drop a million plus to live in the hottest inner neighborhoods. It makes me seriously question a lot of people in this area.

[Anonymous]

I graduated in 1989 and 1992 (graduate degree); I married in a couple of years and was never able to move and change jobs to take advantage of the booms. While my salary has gone up, both my husband and I have been affected by graduating in a down cycle for both our specialties and have never fully recovered. On the plus side, we did live in lower cost areas, so had a good, fun life. Living in the DC area is so much harder, but had to make the change for husband's career--now he is earning much more, but housing is so expensive.

Since moving here, I feel like we were really passed by the generation who graduated after us--so I have much more sympathy for many of the current crop of graduates; at least there were low paying state government jobs back in 93! In the long run, we would have been better staying in those state jobs with the house we purchased for 100k back in the late 90s.

[Anonymous]

Graduated undergrad in 2008, I make $110k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated college in 1995. It's been great. I caught the start-up ttech/telcom boom (95-99), then the real estate boom (01-06) and now the stock market boom (09 onward).

I fully acknowledge it's been great timing and luck.
I also fully acknowledge that had I graduated in college five years later I would not have been in a position to capitalize on any of those.

Thank you for acknowledging this. It seems like so many people in this forum complain about being unable to live on 400k a year, then attribute everything they have to " hard work," and snark on anyone who can't drop a million plus to live in the hottest inner neighborhoods. It makes me seriously question a lot of people in this area.

Well I also work my @ss off, as does my spouse. Income, however, is stagnant nowadays. Gotta go do your own thing.

[Anonymous]

OP, I heard somewhere that people who graduate in a recession later take fewer risks to advance their careers, in other words that the environment in which they started their careers has an affect on their choices many years down the line. I don't have any study reference to back that up, and I don't remember how many years the effect apparently lingered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- I'm a 2009 law grad who is doing okay, I've managed to work my way up to a somewhat decent salary, but I can't help but feel that my career somewhat failed to fully launch because of when I graduated.

When I read threads from 35 year olds who've managed to accumulate ridiculous amounts of wealth, I just can't fathom how someone could make so much, buy a home without being totally house poor, and still invest/put away tons of money for retirement. People who were fortunate to be born in time to graduate during a boom economy and when houses weren't insanely $$, you are so lucky.

I graduated in 2001 and even then it us took YEARS to save for a house downpayment, so that by the time we started looking there were multiple offers on every crappy house on the market and everything sold above asking price. So we were squeezed out. We had no parental money coming in, unlike the majority around here (at least it seemed that way). Then we waited a few more years and bought right as the market started to turn. And we kept saying if we had just been out of school five years earlier we would have had enough money to get this house for 200K less. Such is life.

I graduated in 2000 and got an FHA loan December of that year. No downpayment needed. They were giving anyone loans at that time. My BF and I (DH now) purchased our hose in the boondocks of Reston on a combined income of 67k. House was 187k. Sold it for 435k in spring of 2006. It most definitely was luck and a bit of willingness to take a risk.

Today we could never afford the house we live in had we not had that first equity gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I heard somewhere that people who graduate in a recession later take fewer risks to advance their careers, in other words that the environment in which they started their careers has an affect on their choices many years down the line. I don't have any study reference to back that up, and I don't remember how many years the effect apparently lingered.

This actually really resonates with me. My whole life I did the "right" things -- graduated top of my class with honors in undergrad (was the first in my family to graduate college), got a really great scholarship to a top tier law school, etc. Then the bottom fell out and I watched all around me as a lot of my classmates struggled to find jobs. I was on unemployment myself for about 6 weeks after a temporary job ended until I finally accepted a job below my capabilities and now I'm stuck here. I had no idea how much the first job I took out of school would affect my future career, and now that hiring is picking back up to some extent, I feel like a picked over good. At the time though, taking this job felt like a better option than not having a paycheck. I probably am much more risk averse because I'm terrified of going back to that feeling of being 25 and needing unemployment.

[Anonymous]

2008 MBA. It was a tough year. I'm at $200k now, could be more like $250 or $300 if I'd played my cards differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I graduated college in 1995. It's been great. I caught the start-up ttech/telcom boom (95-99), then the real estate boom (01-06) and now the stock market boom (09 onward).

I fully acknowledge it's been great timing and luck.
I also fully acknowledge that had I graduated in college five years later I would not have been in a position to capitalize on any of those.

Thank you for acknowledging this. It seems like so many people in this forum complain about being unable to live on 400k a year, then attribute everything they have to " hard work," and snark on anyone who can't drop a million plus to live in the hottest inner neighborhoods. It makes me seriously question a lot of people in this area.

This. There is a hige difference between income and wealth, especially with marginal tax rates over 40%. Getting $1mil in after tax family money is like 10 years of earning about pretax 200k more per year.