Millennials Are The Brokest Generation Ever

Michael Snyder | Apr. 24, 2010, 9:11 PM

No group in America has been hit harder during the current recession than young adults. Millions of Americans are graduating from college with virtually no money, lots of debt and with very dim employment prospects. Those who don't go to college are even worse off. All their lives these young Americans were taught if they studied hard, got an education and worked within the system that good jobs and the American Dream would be waiting for them. But now millions of them are realizing that all of their studying and hard work is not providing them with the rewards that they always thought they would get. This is causing large numbers of young American adults to become depressed and disillusioned. In fact, record numbers of them are moving back in with their parents. But without decent jobs, what are they supposed to do?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March the national rate of unemployment in the United States was 9.7%, but for Americans younger than 25 it was 18.8%. In fact, according to a Pew Research Center study, approximately 37% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during the recession.

Things are even worse for those under the age of 20. According to a new report based on U.S. Census Bureau data, only 26 percent of American teens between the ages of 16 and 19 had jobs in late 2009 which represents a record low since statistics began to be kept back in 1948.

But the inability to get good jobs is only part of the story....

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Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-are-the-brokest-generation-ever-2010-4#ixzz0m9aMbAeb

I am scared to death that whatever I get my Bachelor's in the job will be outsourced soon after!

When I graduated college in '94 the economy, while not as bad as now, was not great. I worked two jobs for three years just to afford to live. I did not get a job in my field right away, there was a recession in '01, and I'm still trying to catch up from all of that. Many months of eating beans and ramen noodles and doing as little as possible. No vacations, no nights out on the town, no fun.

Maybe storm the walls of a gated community and BBQ some of the haves and have-mores. I hear they are good with beans and you can mix the leftovers with your ramen noodles. :beer:

I graduated college in '93 and spent the next 8 years clawing my way up through crappy job after crappy job. At least there were crappy jobs back then, I guess...

I graduated in CompSci after the damn bubble popped. Im 30, and it seems like I never fit into any of these damn groupings. But I do know its been a very, very tough decade to become an adult in

Say what you will about the baby boomers opportunities, retirement may not be all that promising for them past this point. As the disparity in income and wealth widens further and further, those at the bottom, no matter what age, are becoming more enslaved and left without options.

Despite coming to age in the roaring 00's, I thought it was a miserably bitter time myself (even though Im over 25). I couldn't get a job (so I was self employed). I couldn't afford reasonable insurance (so I learned to operate). I couldn't afford a normal home (lived small and cramped). I couldn't afford to be an America (so I left).

Vancouver Island. Nice weather and people here

I've always wanted to move there, but I understand that short of marrying a Canadian, it's difficult for Americans to get a resident visa.

My wife and I both have college degrees, so we passed the minimum points. I didn't use a lawyer. Just filled out the PDFs, printed them, and sent in the fee (then took medicals).

Telling them to follow their bliss, instead of emphasizing the need to do serious career planning.

are in India.

The percent unemployment does vary. I see a fair number of job postings for entry level positions if you have a good match for the skills required. But employers are being very specific, and they don't seem to be interested in just hiring smart people and giving them on-the-job training.

Please, please, please realize that we are in a downward spiral in terms of job creation and nobody in a position of power is paying any attention. They think that this is just another "cycle" and soon the lagging indicators will turn positive.

Wake up! We have years and years of negative job creation to overcome and the ol' free market is not going to create the jobs we need. Not when corporations can import cheap ass labor from India and other countries and manufacturing can be "outsourced" to China and Southeast Asia.

That seems to be a non sequitur.

My SO works for a small county government. Recently, there was an opening for a janitor paying around $10 per hour; SO said that there were almost 200 applications/resumes submitted for the job.

Hard times indeed.

for telling the truth

I felt like the canary in the coal-mine in the '80s, as I saw reaganite employment changes take effect - eventually removing all vestiges of workplace and economic security.


Although it's now a great environment for billionaire bankers and deluded neo-liberal war and privatization profiteers.

the mess we are in started 30 years ago.

Dont blame any single generation, its been more a class/party way of thinking and or acting IMO. Its no single age group but rather a group of powerful like minded individuals and those who support them spanning the generations.

Neither did we think we were owed a life of bliss and high pay as you entitled darlings are conveying with this endless whining.

Seems to me that just before the bubble burst there was a segment on 60 Minutes showing what dreadful employment prospects you were WHEN JOBS WERE STILL PLENTIFUL. How you didn't have basic table manners or the smallest ability to accept criticism.

Goodness, nobody ever had it bad but you. There was never a dust bowl or a Great Depression or two world wars OR THE DRAFT.

And, I see that this will shock you, we EXPECTED to be poor when we first graduated college. We EXPECTED that it would take quite a while to achieve our goals and a higher standard of living.

I cannot believe the crap that is coming from you poor little things.

comically so, really.

please tell me it was sarcasm.

But then who the heck knows, according to another wiki article, we are Generation Y, after all: :shrug:

but I indentify more with gen x then y I think.

"commentators have used birth dates ranging somewhere from the mid 1970s<7><8><9><9><10><11><12> to the early 2000s" (from the wikipedia articleO

This would put me in the same generation as my oldest child, which makes me feel even more gen x than y. No way are we in the same generation. That does make any sense. I'm 23 years older than him.

But then in the end it doesn't really matter anyways. :)

tammywammy - born 1980

I propose "Generation 2.0"

I forgot this is where I'm supposed to blame the Boomers for Reagan and then point out it was "my" generation that gave us Obama. lol

;)

For him, Gen X is the people celebrated in all those Brat Pack movies that were popular when he was in first grade, and he's damned if he'll be defined by a generation that had already worn out its welcome long before he came of age.

There are also attitudes towards things like computers and video games that distinguish the two groups, and he's definitely with the Gen Y-ers in that respect.

The Millennials start with people born in 1982

The freepers and teabaggers are obstructing and misdirecting their anger thanks to the Fux News cavalcade of idiocy - Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and so on, when the anger should be directed at people who are fucking up this country and sending our jobs overseas.

Another reader of Strauss and Howe I take it? :hi:

Us "Millies" are already starting to feel like the older members of the Greatest Generation, who came of age just before and just as the economy crashed. 2008 = 1929, the 80-year cycle continues...

Heh. If you have nothing, its better than oweing

Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose

and likely never will....that said, this recession is tough on all groups but I think it's a partcularly cruel blow for the young ones who worked their way through school and immediately ended up the bush quagmire

Nostalgia of yesterday can blind you from the ills of today. Let these people know the current America, and that its needs to be changed.

Aim low, America.

It took me three years to land a "real" job. Between '82 and '85, I waitressed, worked as a bank teller, did retail and waitressed. You get the idea. It took a graduate degree to launch my career. I am concerned that my generation - late boomer - will never be able to retire and will hold on to jobs far longer than planned. That will really impact today's young adults too because once "real" jobs open up again, there are likely to be fewer chances for advancement. The job market is not going to be pretty for at least another decade.

They have a tenuous grasp on those jobs at best. With all the downsizing/outsourcing/exporting of jobs, people over 50 are being thrown overboard and a young adult gets to do their job at a mere fraction of their pay!

I graduated 1981 myself. Went to college, did all the "right" things. Today? I haven't had a "real" job since late 2005. Since I'm now 48, I don't have much hope of ever having a "real" job, or even being employed again. I guess I'm an "early retiree"??????? But I know what you mean, cuz if I did have a job, I sure as hell wouldn't feel like I'd be able to retire, either.

Have the same concerns - both about our generation (born in early-mid sixties) per being able to save for retirement - we are the age of the end of defined pension funds in favor of 401ks - and if you work for nonprofits or low paying jobs, or small businesses - not even the opportunity for a 401k all about being able to save and invest well. Not many of us are able to do either well, let alone both. Hard to fathom what this will mean for our children (those of college age now.) Doesn't look good.

I'm fortunate enough to have a defined benefit pension. My 401(K) would never keep me afloat in retirement. I do all the crap that I'm supposed to do at my age. I have 50 percent (my age) in bonds, non-stocks and the other half in stocks. Every market "correction" has taken its toll on my portfolio. I think I'd be better off stuffing it into the mattress.

and felt they deserved it. Its a tough adjustment.

The boomers ate the world, not their kids' expectations.

If the parents can barely support themselves, what are the prospects for their children?