Xennials were barely adults in the 1990s. I am about as old as as Xennial could be, and I was only 22 in 2000.

I liked the 90s, because people still entertained and engaged with one another, no smart phones. The internet was a thing but hadn’t taken over. There were still cultural differences between towns and cities and that made people/places more interesting.
Best of all, no euro- so travel in Europe was literally dirt cheap. Franc, drachma, escudo, etc. Gas was ridiculously cheap.
however, people were racist and sexist and got away with it. The sexual harassment at work was real and little to nothing done about it. So many highschool and college girls raped and not much done about it. Sad.

90's so good: Before 9/11, TV shows Friends & Seinfeld, bicyle clubs in the DMV, $0.99/lbs salad bar all summer at Giant Food, shopping for cool clothes at Commander Salamander in Georgetown.

Early 90s was a recession; we started coming out of it by '97.

We came out of law school in '92 into a terrible hiring market, and the big law firms had salary freezes due to a weak economy, and some firms actually dropped associate salaries. Three first year classes in a row had the same salary. For those starting in the workforce in the early 90s, they never really made up for that, most of my peers were 10 years late to home ownership compared to people even 4-5 years before or after them.

The 1990s were fantastic. You could expect to go to a good university, for a reasonable amount of money. You could raise kids as a single mom and send them to a good university. You really felt like you could be anything in the world you put your mind to. And it was fun -

I was traveling and didn't confront the kind of over tourism you see now. It was easy to go off grid because there was no grid. You didn't have to worry about someone posting a video of you for the rest of the world to see. We wrote lots of letters. It's amazing to reread those now.

I made good money during college summers in the mid-90s because I knew what the internet was and could explain it to people. I had no tech or programming skills to speak of, but it didn't matter.

I'm GenX and almost 49 so I started working in the 90's in NY. Babysitting and then working as a cashier at a grocery store, clothing store, shoe store, ice cream shop, camp, etc. I did a lot of customer service jobs as a teen so know exactly how hard/easy it is.

Culturally I think the music was crossing diversity lines in a different way. White people loving R&B, rap that was easy to hear and understand (Naughty By Nature's OPP was huge when I was in 9th grade, for example, then Tupac had great hits). Then grunge and flannel - being depressed and edgy became cool in a new way. But race relations were tense. Rodney King, the Crown Heights riots in '91 and Yankel Rosenbaum, OJ Simpson, etc. I recall my dad getting told to get out of the city one day during riots (white jewish man) and he shoved his way on a packed train and his coat was outside the door for the hour-long ride home.

Politically Clinton was president most of the 90's and we as a society completely threw Monica under the bus - the jokes about her were relentless.

My dad got laid off in '92. So for my family, there was a big economic downturn. He got a new job but it didn't pay as much. By the time I was 14 I no longer got allowance, we no longer went out to eat, got bagels, vacations, no extras.

In terms of LGBTQ, nobody at my 1000+ HS was gay outwardly, but we hurled the F word around. At the same time nobody where I lived would EVER do what was done to Matthew Sheppard ('98) or use the F word at anyone who was gay or lesbian. We used the R word liberally, but our school had a special ed program for kids with down's and we were all very kind to them.

I graduated from college in 1990. The economy wasn't great and getting a job right out was tough, but once Clinton was elected, it was like the Oz scene when black and white went to color.

The internet coming on line, the economy improving, prospects of a middle east peace deal/two state solution, the peace dividend of winning the cold war etc were all political and economic touch stones. Culturally, not fabulous, but not a wasteland and certainly better than today.

Oh, also: you paid rent, landline, gas and electric. Plenty of people didn't have cable and it was normal not to watch much TV as a 20-something. You didn't pay for internet at home or cell phone in most cases as a young person. I never had a pager although I knew people who did.

90s for me (entirety of my teens)-

US wasn't in a war (after 91)
No cell phones, but did have computers - which were very exciting, it felt like a new dawn (remember chat rooms?)
After school jobs were easy to get and plentiful. I even saw minimum wage go up in 96, which felt amazing
College apps were easy and not at all stressful. School itself wasn't stressful.
Friends and I had lots of freedom in our small town. We weren't tracked, but I did have a curfew

I'm 57 and can only really compare my experience as a child, teen, and young adult to that of my DCs. My friends and I spent a lot of time doing "nothing" in the best possible way, and those years were fun and very carefree for me. That being said, the privilege of being raised in a stable UMC household colors my perception here.

In the late 90s (when I was in my 20s), it was very easy for someone who was college educated to make decent money at a job that did not take up all of their time and pay affordable rent in a fun city neighborhood. I personally think the music was better and dislike living in the era of smartphones and social media, but that's all personal preference. On the flipside, the early 90s were still fairly dangerous in terms of crime and throughout the decade if you went out to a bar, club or concert, you'd come home smelling like smoke.

EDM

Asking specifically X-ennials, Gen X, and Boomers, who were wage-earning, taxpaying adults during the 1990s - so no rose-colored childhood glasses. I'm also specifically asking those who grew up in the United States, I wouldn't ask people who grew up in Rwanda or Bosnia or Chechnya this question.

Were the 90s actually better, economically, culturally, technologically (as in we had the right amount of technology - not too much?) Were things actually better then, or is it really only a matter of millennials thinking their childhood was the good old days. Also, a possible counterpoint is that we have progressed since then on LGBTQ and racial issues, for the most part, so the 90s nostalgia might be very concentrated among white, middle class, suburban millennials. What I think I'm really getting at besides the whole "is nostalgia real" question is, was it actually easier back then to work a steady job and afford things, and were we healthier as a society before smartphones and AI.

Bonus points if you are old enough to vouch for the 80s as well.