It doesn't work and comes off like we are the ones that are a sack of shit.
Let's see. So I argue that financial skills are beneficial in this world, and you say I am calling you a sack of shit. A creative interpretation for sure.
The OP is in the US which is a large, complex and diverse nation. I don't know nearly enough about it to comment on specific strategies. Then there are possibilities like getting help from wealthy parents, working with others or even emigrating. If a particular person has a genuine interest in taking any action at all, then the their circumstances could be looked at. Otherwise, I can only share my own experience while acknowledging how things have changed over the past decade.
Where I'm from, Melbourne, I felt that housing prices (which had gone up enormously before I had a chance to get into the market; I paid a heavy price for being slow to begin) were completely unworkable, so I did not bother trying. And yes, I spent years in defeatist self-pity because I didn't realise how much worse things were going to get.
I noticed that smaller cities in the state were much cheaper than Melbourne, and the industry that I worked in paid just enough that I could rent in Melbourne, save a deposit and start to pay off a house. It was damn hard because I had no life whatsoever to achieve that. I never had a double-income or a relationship, and had to live like a bum and work like a dog. Cheap food, walking/PT, you name it. Worse, the prices have since doubled here so that strategy would likely not work at all.
However, the city where I currently live has grown and is somewhat equivalent to where Melbourne used to be. And there are even smaller, more distant cities where there are still somewhat affordable houses with decent access to facilities. And certain jobs (I am reluctant to be specific about locations or industries because I do not want to be identified) are in demand and paying very reasonably.
For someone with youth and energy on their side, I could see the same strategy I employed working today with the right starting point (working/renting/saving deposit/etc. in regional city) and then moving into a property in smaller city.
I never got advice from anyone since none of my friends were forced to leave Melbourne as I was, though some got stuck renting for life because they didn't bother acting when they had a chance. One guy would get on his soapbox and became quite skillful at ranting about the market, the greedy rich, the government, capitalism, etc. I tried to show him strategies like the one I ended up following, but he had little interest; both his parents enjoyed complaining endlessly, too. Both his parents ended up poor despite living through the easy-street golden age of the '70s and '80s. Anyway, today, I have my own house and at last check my whiner friend still had nothing.
Now that things are even harder, I would say that it would take a
very specific strategy to pull this off here. No doubt, many parts of the world are downright futile. It will surely only get worse. At some point, it will be completely impossible pretty much everywhere. Our existing systems will surely break down eventually.
I realise that there are some stereotypical 'Boomers' who invalidate younger generations by ignoring the myriad of living cost and social pressures that have made home ownership an order of magnitude harder. I'm not a fan of the narcissism of the
stereotypical members of that generation, though occasionally, they do make a semi-valid argument. All the 20-somethings at my old workplace insisted on buying a brand new dream home, which would cost at least double what an older home in a neighbouring city would have. Then again, all of them had partners, too, and families. Many of them had kids, too. Good luck to them.
For people like me who lack any of those privileges, my earlier comment, "Financial skills are absolutely critical," stands true. I see no reason to correct it.