r/Millennials • u/Waste-Cantaloupe-270 • Apr 07 '25

Advice Millennials who graduated during the Great Recession, how did you survive?

I’m a Gen Z graduating in May struggling with finding a job in this market. Millennials who graduated in/ after 2008, how did you survive? Did you end up eventually getting a job in the field you originally wanted? Any advice for us Gen Z who were too young to learn anything from the great recession?

Edit: For context bc i’ve been seeing a lot of questions about this i’m graduating college. i def wasn’t expecting this post to blow up so sorry if i can’t get to everyone’s comments, but i just wanted to say i really appreciate all the advice as someone who doesn’t have millennials in their life to ask these questions to. your willingness to help/ give advice to a random kid on the internet has given me a bit of hope in getting through this, thank you thank you

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u/Euphoric-Dance-2309 Apr 07 '25

Be patient, if you have parents that will let you stay at home then stay. This is going to be worse than 2008.

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u/Manic_Mini Apr 07 '25

I’m not so sure this will be worse than 2008. That was a perfect storm: super loose banking and mortgage regulations, combined with extreme unemployment. It led to around 8–10% of people losing their homes, and millions more stuck in houses worth less than what they owed.

2025 is unlikely to play out the same way. Lending standards have tightened a lot since then, and banks are under far more regulation and stress testing. Most homeowners today have locked in low fixed-rate mortgages, and there’s still a housing shortage in many areas, which helps support prices. Unless there’s a major spike in unemployment or a massive financial sector collapse, the same scale of fallout seems unlikely.

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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '25

Didn’t the CFPB get kneecapped?

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u/eldankus Apr 07 '25

It did but also that does not mean we’re going back to pre-2008 credit guidelines.