Everything will always change. You can't stand there and go "oh my gawd our parents had it sooo much better!" I can fill you with anecdotes all day long about people who did and who did not have it made and how they squandered it or even some who ran with it.

E.g. I had a 26 year old with a 4 year degree working at my last company buy a 400,000 house, 50% down working a job for 65k a year, no help from her parents.

Yes, it's harder. Just like it was hard to live through the great depression a scant four generations ago. And the civil war before that. And the revolutionary war before that. And plagues, famines, what have you.

If we don't stand up and overpower our circumstances, we are the weak men in the cycle of times.