I was listening to the radio this week, when the radio host said something that caught my attention. She said, “Think about how much money you have in the bank right now. Over 69% of average young adult Americans aged (18- 25) don’t even have $1,000 in the bank. They are a credit card generation, who are so consumed with material items and spending money using a little piece of plastic, they don’t even have enough money saved up in case of emergency. Young adults today don’t know the value of hard work and saving your money.”

At first, I was taken aback. Here is a radio host, who makes an average of $40,000, laughing at the fact that most Americans can’t get more than a minimum wage job. If you work a minimum wage job at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, your salary would only make around $20,000. That’s half of this radio host’s! The reason most Americans don’t even have $1,000 in their bank accounts is because 58.7% of people (aged 18-25) in the United States work 40 hours a week or more at minimum wage, and they don’t have enough money left over after they have paid all of their bills to save!

The other point that bothered me was when she said that “young adults don’t know the value of hard work.” I know first-hand the value of hard work and earning your own money. I know many young adults that work either part time or full time jobs and continue to go to college full time. We pay for our own education, car insurance, books, housing, and tuition. You name it, our checks are going to it. It’s very hard to save up money for a future, when all your money needs to be spent on an education so you can have a future.

Life would be pretty easy for all young adults if we made as much as a radio host the second we turned 18, but sadly, that’s not the case. If minimum wage was increased and the cost of a decent college education was lowered, more Americans would be living more comfortable lives.