There has been a crowded field of suffering created by the Great Recession, in which $14.5 trillion of American wealth vanished.
Baby Boomers have lost retirement funds, while Generation X–ers have lost out on some peak earning years. The biggest losers, though, have been the Millennials. According to the 2010 census data released last week, many of them have literally lost their future.
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The media have taken to describing the 18- to 29-year-olds who will ultimately bear the brunt of the economic downturn as the “Lost Generation.” It’s the haunting turn of phrase that Ernest Hemingway credited to Gertrude Stein, who used it almost a century ago, referring to the men and women who struggled in the aftermath of World War I. “All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation,” Hemingway quotes Stein as saying in his book about the era, A Moveable Feast. Stein had recounted an outburst from a garage owner directed at a young mechanic who had failed to properly repair her car: “You have no respect for anything. You drink yourself to death . . .” Stein, according to Hemingway, was disgusted by the aimless generation of World War I vets.
Perhaps Stein didn’t quite take to all those young veterans invading her artistic stomping ground and abandoning traditional values for the indulgence and spiritual void of the Jazz Age. “The hell with her lost-generation talk and all the dirty, easy labels,” Hemingway wrote, feeling sympathy for the mechanic. What Hemingway and others in his generation had witnessed in the war shook their very notion of civilization, calling into question the social compact they had been raised to believe in. And in Great Britain, the meaning of “lost” was not in the least existential — over 800,000 Britons were wiped out on the battlefields.
This time around, “the Lost Generation” applies to a different kind of trauma. For the most part, America’s youth, with the exception of the men and women who enlisted, have been shielded from the decade of war — it exists as a constant background noise, perhaps, and maybe as one of the explanations for our dire financial situation. (The trillion dollars poured into Iraq and Afghanistan is cited by President Obama as a reason for the recession.) The present circumstances are in fact quite different from those that produced Stein’s “lost generation”: Whereas in the early 20th century a devastating war shook the old order, today the shattered economy has upended the Millennials’ chances for prosperity.
What do the data say? Overall, these figures have far-reaching implications for the education, quality of life, and opportunity available for Millennials. As reported by the Associated Press, at 55.3 percent, the employment rate for young adults is the worst since World War II; it has suffered a decline of twelve percentage points since 2000. The young aren’t able to strike out on their own, either — Census figures show 5.9 million Americans aged 25 to 34 living with their parents in 2011. That’s a total of 14.2 percent of that age group, an increase of two percentage points since the recession began. Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies analyzed the Census data and found that poverty is most acute among young families, with one in three below the poverty line. The poverty rate for all families headed by an adult under 30 has risen by six percentage points since 2007, to 28 percent in 2011; add a child to the family and the stat becomes a rise of eight percentage points.
That’s what this generation’s version of shell-shocked looks like: staring at the future and seeing a mountain of debt from Social Security, without any reasonable expectation of reaping the benefits. And there are plenty of this Lost Generation who, rather than turning to literature or the arts or even booze, dull the pain by worshipping the cult of celebrity, wondering why their own specialness doesn’t translate into hefty paychecks. For this subgroup, perhaps the New York Times’s description is a little more apt than Lost Generation — “Generation Limbo” — though it hasn’t quite caught on. The definition? “Highly educated 20-somethings, whose careers are stuck in neutral, coping with dead-end jobs and listless prospects” and waiting for the tide to turn. A recent Dartmouth graduate claimed that some of her fellow Ivy Leaguers had gone on welfare and have started training younger graduates on how to apply for government benefits: “We are passing on these traditions on how to work in the adult world as working poor,” the former waitress, now a paralegal, told the Times.
It is not a comforting picture. If Ivy Leaguers have turned to the government dole, what incentive do the less fortunate and less well-connected have to wean themselves off big government? Perhaps this is indeed a generation that is lost in limbo.
— Elise Jordan is a New York–based writer and commentator. She served as a director for communications in the National Security Council in 2008–09 and was a speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
It was after the "Stimulus" that the explosion of the Tea Parties commenced, and it was because of our children that many of us were in attendance at those events. For all of the denigrating and all of the false claims of racism or what ever else the Tea Partiers are labeled with -- it's our children's future most are worried about. That's why we want someone who actually wants to get government out of the way to become our president. We don't have time for anyone else. We have a country and a future for our children to save. This time it really IS for the children.
I am 30 and was hit by the recession rather hard, being laid off twice in 15 months and spending 6 looking for work in between. My solution: I moved to Moscow, Russia. At the moment, I have more opportunities here than in the U.S., at least without spending 6 months looking for work. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be living in Russia, let alone have better opportunities there than in the U.S.
I'm 24. Nearly 25. Head of a 2 person (and one puppy) household...my girlfriend and I. It's pretty bad. Friends are all with their parents. Most of my buddies are a fair bit smarter than I, but their engineering pedigrees have been rendered all but useless - no one is hiring, and the NLRB fiasco has hit one of my friends where it hurt - his potential job was aborted in the womb, so to speak. I had to turn outside of the US for gainful employment - first South Korea, then Germany. If I'm the only one from my class making any sort of money, then god help us all. I always expected to watch my friends succeed while I floundered with a much lower pedigree-degree. Drop taxes. Repatriate wealth. Show we are not interested in a war with the upper-class. Encourage new business. Wrestle control away from accreditation boards with a vested interest in the status quo. Streamline liability regulations - enable real tort reform. Pass a balanced budget. End Gerrymandering. Pass term-limits for representatives. Limit public sector pay to a % (under 100) of private sector equivalent. Do even some of these things and folks like me won't have to flee to find well-paying jobs.
I appreciate your commentary. I am part of the millennial generation at age 27. The lost that some may not grasp from you article which I feel must be said is that we are losing career building years. Good luck getting a proper job that can lead to bigger things. We are struggling to just flip burgers.
God help you if you have a computer related degree and you spend a long time unemployed. Now you no longer are up to date and know the technologies they want to use.
Add to that the unbelievable debt from medicare, SS, welfare, ect. and we see no improvement as we are outvoted by the baby boomers who want all their cake and eat it too.
I'm technically gen X, but in the sliver that graduated from college in the early '90s downturn with a liberal arts degree--yeah, I know--and resisted getting my Masters for ten years, leaving me in the same predicament as the Millennials I graduated library school with.
Dismissing the loss of Boomers' retirements as inconsequential in this is wrong-headed... half our problem is that they're just not retiring. Boom retires, X moves up, leaving opening level slots (if businesses are still afloat). Right now, those of us in X are occupying the low-level jobs that really ought to be there for the Millennial picking. (At least if we're employed.) Meanwhile, the Boomers, quite understandably, are clinging with a death grip to the top jobs.
Not a good time to be in the job market for Gen Y ... or anyone else for that matter! Obama's proclivity for politicizing issues rather than confronting them has exacerbated this mess we're in.
Should be interesting to see what this Administration has in store for politicizing Rosh Hashanah later this week. We can probably glean some clues from the ridiculous White House Easter Egg Roll earlier this year ...
An USA unschakled from leftist delusion and eco-ludite class and inter-generational warefare has all the resources to create wealth for millions of people. The ruling class and their useful idiots of all stripes will have to be defeated and purgered from any postions of power. If not this will be lokked back on as the "good times".
Clearly this is all part of the plan. The current administration is executing the Cloward-Piven strategy and doing a fairly good job at it. Their goal really is nothing short of the collapse of Western civilization.
As a baby boomer I still feel the financial pain of lost investments and the fear that comes with knowing I have fewer years to recover those assets. But I'm also a parent and worried about the future for my children and their children. Americans are optimistic and nothing will kill that off. I have faith in this country and Americans of all ages. So I expect to see a lot of winners in our future. And 2012 is coming soon.
As a member of gen X, the last year of depending on who you ask, and a child of many generations of manufacturing (oil & gas and High Tech) I am always hard pressed as to how people did not see this coming. My father and grandfather raised families on a single parent salary, my grandfather more successfully obviously of the two. But still I grew up in a household of one working parent and knew that I would either work myself to death or marry a woman who would earn or out earn myself if I wanted any kind of life (Baby Boomers live to work, their children work to live). I spent 5 years in high tech manufacturing and watched the jobs go to countries that could hire 100 people for my salary and saw the writing on the wall. I left for a cushy government job, teaching Science to low SES kids in South Oak Cliff in Dallas if you can call that cushy, and married a bust her butt hotel manager for a prominent chain hotel. We now have two kids and wish we didn’t work so much but between the two of us we pull down barely 6 figures, and are looking at a solid life. Of the people who stood to her right and my left at our wedding, the groomsmen and bridesmaids and their spouses they would account as the following: TxDOT Engineer and Sales Rep for flooring company – 6 figures, Air Force Capt. and Architect – 6 Figures, Teacher and Electrician – 6 Figures, Computer sales rep and housewife – 6 figures, Audio/Video Technician Self-Employed and Book Keeper for Musicians – high 5 figures. Notice that all are married, and with the one exception in every family both are working. It is not a zero sum game but let’s face it as the standard of living increases around the third world we can expect some decrease in ours. The saddest thing honestly is that only 3 of the 6 including ourselves have children by the age of 30. Waiting to be famous is no plan for gen Y or the ones who come after. All my students want to be Rappers, Ballers, or Momma’s and this is not a plan. Practical skills still have value, and the ability to manage people or sell still has value, biding your time has no value.
Gertrude Stein (she, no stalwart of morality or work ethic) criticized a mechanic for doing sloppy work.
Today's young adults lift their noses at $25/hour entry level mechanic work (with a potential of being $50/hour with a few years experience and a bit of entrepreneurship) because it might get their fingers too dirty for their cell phones, or cause them to miss socializing at the mall and talking about the latest episode of Jersey Shore or whatever pseudo-reality TV show they're twittering about these days.
Let's see... you got out of college at 23 and you have given up by 28?
The "Millennials" have no strength or fortitude. This Recession is a minor speed bump in the scheme of things. It's barely four years since, and the Millennials have given up. They campaigned almost exclusively for Obama... who promised to tax them, promised to make them pay for Social Security and medicare, Obamacare. He threatened (and delivered) a job killing agenda to punish the "rich". They got exactly what they voted for! But enough of the politics.
Every generation has had its problems. There was horrible stagflation of the early 80's, and whopping stock market crash in 1986, a recession on 1991, 2001. The Millennials, though, have come to view the 1993-2000 period through rose colored glasses, believing that THAT was the way things alway were and will be. THAT was abnormal... adversity in life IS normal for every living creature. You don't just give up.
There are LOTS of jobs out there. There are FEW liberal arts jobs. There are FEW unskilled jobs. You make your choice. If you choose unwisely, you get no job, and to live with your parents a few extra years. Therefore, do you research and make the RIGHT choice. Giving up is not an option.
