How are Millennials faring, and how do they view America?
Millennials, those born after 1980, will play a major role in the 2016 election, and an increasingly large role in the U.S. economy. They are the most ethnically diverse group in U.S. history, and the first to grow up with the internet and personal computers. They have eclipsed prior generations in overall size, and, now, in their percentage of the workforce. They are, according to the White House, the largest single group in America, representing one-third of the U.S. population.
As it has for every other generation, the environment millennials grew up in influences their thinking, their identity, and their outlook.
They have been brought up in schools providing a much less appreciative view of American history and culture. Pew Research notes that “[Millennials] are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people…Millennials have also been keeping their distance from another core institution of society—marriage. Just 26% of this generation is married. When they were the age that Millennials are now, 36% of Generation X, 48% of Baby Boomers and 65% of the members of the Silent Generation were married… Most unmarried Millennials (69%) say they would like to marry, but many…lack what they deem to be a necessary prerequisite—a solid economic foundation… Millennials have emerged into adulthood with low levels of social trust. In response to a long-standing social science survey question, ‘Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people,’ just 19% of Millennials say most people can be trusted, compared with 31% of Gen Xers, 37% of Silents and 40% of Boomers.”
One vital factor must be kept in mind about the Millennial outlook on life: their extraordinary level of debt. Pew notes that Millennials are “…the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations …Their difficult economic circumstances in part reflect the impact of the Great Recession (2007-2009) and in part the longer-term effects of globalization and rapid technological change on the American workforce. Median household income in the U.S. today remains below its 1999 peak, the longest stretch of stagnation in the modern era…”
That may explain why, despite not having great loyalty or membership in political parties, they are attracted to candidates in the Democrat Party who advocate policies that have the government pick up the tab for tuition and health care.
The White House notes that “Total student outstanding loan debt surpassed $1 trillion by the end of the second quarter of 2014, making it the second largest category of household debt. In part, this increase in the aggregate level of outstanding student debt is due to greater enrollment among Millennials and to the changing composition of students, including a larger share of students from lower-income families.”
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Generation Opportunity’s 2016 “State of the Millennial Report” emphasizes that: “One of the toughest challenges facing young Americans is finding a way to pay for a college education that empowers them to find employment, pay off their student loans, and create better lives for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, government interference in higher education has driven up the cost of college through excessive subsidies that inflate prices. Government interference has also limited choice and competition in higher education by preventing new and innovative educational programs from competing and offering better, inexpensive alternatives. Making higher education work for present and future generations of Americans requires a major overhaul of the current system.”
The White House study also found that “Millennials are more likely to focus exclusively on studies instead of combining school and work. With college enrollments at historic highs there has been a corresponding decline in labor market participation among 16 to 24 year-olds.”
Not unrelated, Millennials are less likely to be homeowners than young adults in previous generations, and more likely to be living with their parents then their immediate predecessors.
The Generation Opportunity’s report adds: “while previous generations experienced relatively stable growth and an improvement in their economic condition, the Millennial Generation faces an uphill climb to success… Significant barriers to opportunity created by government impede the ability of young Americans to make a better life for themselves and their families. The number of young people making less than $25,000 a year is at its highest level since the 1990s. Worse, 48 percent of Millennials now believe that the American Dream is dead…
“These negative trends are caused by years of government intervention disrupting economic growth in countless parts of our lives. Enacting the following policy initiatives would be a start to turning around these developments… Government barriers to starting a new business have made it harder than ever for Millennials to chase after their versions of the American Dream. Government regulations have skyrocketed out of control growing from nearly 10,000 pages in 1954 to over 80,000 by 2013.22 The complexity of the tax code has also made it difficult to do business. In 1954 the tax code was only 14,000 pages long, but by 2013 it reached nearly 74,000.23 Occupational licensing requirements are another barrier. In 1950, only five percent of the American workforce needed a permission slip from the government to work. Today that number is around 30 percent, and it’s costing us up to 2.85 million jobs.”
Considering the unfairly critical views Millennials have been exposed to about their nation, and the hardships they have endured in an uncharacteristically harsh and increasingly overregulated economy, it is not surprising that some of their perspectives are even more cynical towards traditional American values than their famously rebellious parents who came of age in the 60’s.