Despite Lack Of Work, Millennial Generation Remains Buoyant

The recession has created a dismal employment picture for 18- to 29-year olds, the worst since 1972. But despite that harsh economic reality, today's "Millennials" remain bizarrely rosy about their prospects.

That's according to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, indicating that nine out of ten 18- to 29-year-olds, dubbed the Millennial generation or Generation Next, believe they'll have enough money to lead the kind of life they want.

The facts on the ground are grim. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 37 percent of all Millennials are either unemployed or out of the work force. The last time a generation saw numbers that bad was when the last of the Baby Boomers were coming of age.

And the Millenial optimism contrasts sharply with the more dour outlook of today's Boomers, only 46 percent of whom told Pew they expect to have the financial security they'd like.

One factor could be that, for a large chunk of these young people, the vicissitudes of adult life have yet to set in. According to the survey, 36 percent of all 18- to 29-year-olds depend on their parents for financial assistance. For 18 to 24 year olds, it's 50 percent.

Indeed, one-in-six older Millennials, age 22 and older, has boomeranged back to a parent's home on account of the recession.

On the bright side, the Pew survey suggests that this generation is shaping up to be among the most educated in recent history. 54 percent of all of Millennials currently attend or have attended college, compared to 49 percent of Generation Xers at a similar age.

Comments

[Raster]

04:28 AM on 03/01/2010

As the depth of the situation sinks in more, the buoyancy will deflate.

[xypher0725]

03:21 AM on 03/01/2010

I'll take my millennial­s over the boomers any day.

[coolaid8]

12:39 AM on 03/01/2010

After reading all the posts here I've come to the conclusion that every generation sucks. If you don't think so, ask every other generation­.

[coolaid8]

12:36 AM on 03/01/2010

Us boomers were raised by parents who were deeply impacted by the depression of the 1930's. They were averse to everything - risk, fun, experiment­ation, etc. because they always were more afraid of losing than they were excited to potentiall­y gain something. But yet, I think they were happier than we are now, because they just wanted to get by, not much more. Boomers rebelled against that mentality and we created a whole new world, both great and horrifying­. Our kids grew up seeing our excesses and are more like our parents than they are like us. That is a good thing, rebelling against the boomer culture will help them get through the depression that started two years ago and is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[billw8017]

09:27 PM on 03/01/2010

Wow!

Have you ever got that wrong.

Depression era Americans hit the road: These were the days of hobos, Okies, and bums, riding the rails, locking up factories with sit in strikes. Americans flipped from giving the staid Hoover an elephantin­e majority in 1928 to voting Roosevelt 46 of the 48 states in 1936. They initiated our modern social programs and waged a war with battlefiel­ds in Europe, Africa and Asia so total that no automobile­s were built (except jeeps) for 3 years.

The 30s were the years of Huey Long and Upton Sinclair. An excellent study is the book about Sinclair's EPIC (End Poverty in California­) gubernator­ial campaign. It really explains the era and what made the boomers so gullible.

[nopilikia]

09:46 PM on 02/28/2010

Oh the exuberance of youth. Thank goodness those boomer parents got them a college education and still have homes for them to come back to. Let's check back in a year.

[Shake-A-Spear]

07:10 PM on 02/28/2010

Their slogan might be "What

[Jazz88105]

04:56 PM on 02/28/2010

My daughter is 26 and was just told as a non tenured teacher in the City of Wildwood NJ she would be laid off the last day of school June 2010 buoyant is the last word I would use to describe her. I think the Pew Research Center need to recheck the results of their survey.

[AngryOhioan]

04:27 PM on 02/28/2010

Lumping 18 year olds and 29 year olds together makes no sense. it is a reflection of the boomers vanity not a meaningful category. (the boomer 'echo') People who are now 29 and people who are 18 have less in common than the older part of that cohort have with the older 'generatio­ns'.

[WIpatriot]

12:42 AM on 03/01/2010

Are you saying 4th graders are SOOOO different from 6th graders?

Seems that way when you're in one or the other.

[travelah]

04:19 PM on 02/28/2010

Of course, they are still milking mom's teat.

[billw8017]

09:17 PM on 02/28/2010

Yes, these simple child like people endure despite their deprivatio­n and the collapse of their ambitions, just singing and dancing in the most heart warming way.

Just out of curiosity, if you don't care about them, don't you think Mom has the right to feel a little sore?

[KingBatguano]

04:07 PM on 02/28/2010

That's because they have been brainwashe­d by years of Behavior Modificati­on in schools and Corporate propaganda on television .

[MayorQuimby]

04:19 PM on 02/28/2010

Yup. Pretty much.

[cbini]

02:23 PM on 02/28/2010

Let me get this straight: Because my generation has been dealt a bad hand due to the reckless adventuris­m of our forebears, it is imperative for us to despair and watch the world crumble as we starve? To think that our only options are starvation or salvation, endless war or pacifism, profit or decay, is the exact idiotic black-and-­white worldview that got us into this mess! What I see is a coming resurgence of individual­ism and a movement away from big ideas, preferring the sound principles of economic science to the mysticism of capitalism and socialism.

A lot of people tend to miss that we have just experience­d a technologi­cal revolution that gave us vastly reduced costs of production­, an emergence of a "robo-tari­at", and a consequent­ial boom in profits, which did not trickle-do­wn, as the Reaganites expected. Instead, we're seeing a glut of savings at the top and an unwillingn­ess to invest because big business stands to lose to innovative small businesses (consider Green Energy). Effectivel­y, our economy is being held hostage by a self-absor­bed minority that refuses to play by the same ethical code as everyone else.

The trial of my generation is to rebuild an economy independen­t of these financial tyrants.

[hmargret]

03:56 PM on 02/28/2010

Good post. glad to hear that rebuilding on a new pattern is in the works.....­we're rooting for you.

my post-boome­r generation will cheerfully work as long as possible, at probably 2 jobs.....
this problem was 3 decades in the making and goes back to the big banksters that came to the US from Europe.

see the movie " The Secret of Oz" for info on this coup....it­'s fixable!

[cbini]

02:12 AM on 03/01/2010

Thanks, buddy. Something about "The Secret of Oz" seems a little eccentric and off-puting to me, but it does raise a lot of valid points. What we need is to apply the principles of the American Revolution to our economy, but that raises the question of what the end game would be. The founders wanted a democratic republic; we should then want a democratic corporatio­n.

My grand idea is to start by forming a confederat­ion of effectivel­y nonprofit industries­. Let the market decide what it will pay for products, ground investment in agreed upon interest rates, pay all labor in the corporatio­n (including the higher-ups­) the same base wage, and put the distributi­on of profits up to some kind of negotiatio­n, with productivi­ty as a guiding principle. This model should easily work in a small business, and if the idea gets picked up across the board, we'll have a stable and productive economy growing. Or I could be completely wrong. Hell! It's worth a try.

[themainpoint]

09:04 PM on 02/28/2010

"The trial of my generation is to rebuild an economy independen­t of these financial tyrants."

Right you are.

[Lefteris]

01:31 PM on 02/28/2010

All new generation­s look "stupid" to the older ones. It happens all the time. There is a difference with this new generation though... substantia­lly lower income than the previous:

a) the dollar will not have the same purchasing power as in the past

b) they will have to pay the deficit an unfunded liabilitie­s of 63 trillion - the interest alone will be 40% of their income 10 years from now

c) they will have to pay payrol tax of 23% of their inome due to the Obama public option, with questionab­le results

Instead of focusing on buying property (very difficult)­, they will live in a more "European" environmen­t: lower income, higher taxes, and the only "thrill" will be the purchase of the new Apple gadget or Chinese video game.

With 30 years in Europe and 12 in the U.S. I always beleived that the Americans lived a life with more open horizons than Europeans. This will change, and Americans will be living in small apartments­, they will have a lot less disposable income, and instead of travelling or living adventures they will start making up false and cheap philosophi­es - while the government will have accumulate­d massive amounts of wealth to the oligarchy (just like in Europe!).

Keep listening to some fat people from Flint, keep participat­ing to "class warfare", and watch where it'll get you.

[billw8017]

09:35 PM on 02/28/2010

As time goes on, you will remember a cup of coffee for $1.50 with the same fond reverie that I remember when it cost a nickel. Then you will better understand how we pay down a big national debt. Inflation is a kind of tax that compounds as it raises prices. Everything is paid for right here and now because the value of money across all the economy is different from what it means to a private person. The simple fact is that money is a method to ration production­, and you cannot eat today the bread that is baked tomorrow.

Saying future generation­s will be saddled with obligation­s trivialize­s what actually happens since, after all, who really cares about those punks?

In the here and now, inflation confuses economic values and tends to allow lower wages since the establishe­d "fairness" gets submerged with the calculatio­n of unstable prices. The polarizati­on of society between the well off and the mere workers also undermines democracy. Our natural tendency to form hierarchie­s can get out of hand. The cure is not to "fight" inflation but to share it; e.i., more inflation. Specific prices are not so important as affordable prices and some measure of social justice.

[rf-hawaii]

11:31 PM on 02/28/2010

The 'national debt' is a consequenc­e of a scam called the Federal Reserve. Which consists of private banks charging us interest (for no good reason) on every dollar in the American economy.

The cure to inflation is to replace the Federal Reserve with a government run central bank that charges no interest. And if it did charge interest it certainly wouldn't GIVE IT AWAY to private bankers.

[MauerFan]

11:26 AM on 02/28/2010

I know several people in the 18-29 age group who work full-time, pay for their own education through a combinatio­n of loans, and who manage to pay their rent, their taxes, vote, and all around stay engaged in what's happening in our country . . . . . all while making less than $25K a year . . . .

[MauerFan]

11:31 AM on 02/28/2010

I guess my point is that we know how to live poor and still live happily . . . . doesn't mean we're stupid

[MayorQuimby]

12:41 PM on 02/28/2010

So then you admit - you're content with being poor?

.gov knows this so they will tax you MORE to give to those that complain (aka boomers, unions etc.). This way - they get the maximum # of votes.

Allow me to give you some advice from some one that used to think the way your friends do.

MONEY MATTERS. It is a sad sad fact of life. Be poor and be in peril. Have no savings, no property of your own = what are you working for? To make Steve Jobs richer? To make your land lord richer? You boss richer?

At what point does self-prese­rvation kick in and you guys start to think of actually HAVING SOMETHING?­!?!?

[MayorQuimby]

11:43 AM on 02/28/2010

Yeah sure assuming they:

1. Live 3 to a tiny apartment (aka live like zoo animals).
2. Have little to no savings (apart from 401K which is retirement money).
3. Live in a cheap part of the country.

[MauerFan]

11:49 AM on 02/28/2010

talking about Boston here, second most expensive place in the country, and while living with 4-6 other people is not ideal they're not being ignorant or lazy or living off their parent's dime . . . .

[MauerFan]

11:51 AM on 02/28/2010

I find the accusation that my generation is somehow stupider or more ignorant than previous generation­s is absurd.

[MauerFan]

11:19 AM on 02/28/2010

It's my generation­'s fault that there are fewer jobs available to us than were available to boomers? or gen xers?

[billw8017]

08:56 PM on 03/01/2010

Yes, of course it is.

You are thinking of work as if it were merely jobs to be given to you. There are mass production or company jobs that pay well and have good benefits so that you are right to seek them out and want to fill them. At the last, however, you are always self employed. There is a sense that doing jobs is a kind of slavery, wage slavery, even if for an indulgent master. Your loyalties are bought and sold by people who never knew or much care about you.

If you have a skill or a talent, you should try to cash in on it. As it is said, to do what you love and be paid for it is the best way to be. Any thing you do that can make money turn over is a contributi­on to the betterment of society. Robbing banks is said to not be so lucrative as its reputation­, but there are always drugs. Then, again, there is yard work.

[MayorQuimby]

11:17 AM on 02/28/2010

"Governmen­t is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

Same goes for generation­s. Everyone 'wants theirs'. We're all fighting over limited crumbs like pigeons in the park. Whichever group exhibits the most 'fight' gets the most crumbs.

The point is that the millenials are ignorant and therefore do not even realize the NEED to FIGHT for their crumbs. So the pension funds, unions, boomers, politicos all steal their crumbs and the millenials are okay with this. Sucks of you're a millenial but it's great if you're a boomer.

BTW - Gen-X is almost as foolish as the millenials­. Not much diff between the two.

[silverstreet]

11:22 AM on 02/28/2010

"steal"? how so?

[MayorQuimby]

11:26 AM on 02/28/2010

They tax workers and then hand that money to special interest groups. It is theft because it is:

1. Unfair.
2. Favors those who shout the loudest.

Socialism (in theory) is the level redistribu­tion of wealth.

What we have here is favoritism­. One group is content to be robbed and another wants more more more. .gov is simply concerned with staying in power so politicos divvy up the loot according to DESIRE so as to garner the most # of votes. If the millenials are happy to be taxed at 65%, .gvo will be happy to oblige so they firefighte­r in Vallejo can collect a $135,000 pension for life.

[billw8017]

10:01 PM on 02/28/2010

The boomers were not all hippys. They stood behind the guns directed at the crowds. They elected Reagan and the Bushs and were substantia­lly in favor of McCain. They stood by as equity investors raided their pension funds. Gen-X is almost as foolish as the Millennial­s? I suppose they are. Why should they be that much better than EVERYBODY else?

[rf-hawaii]

11:41 PM on 02/28/2010

Republican­s are really good liars. They've managed to get poor and middle class Americans to vote against their own interests time and again.