Thursday, August 26, 2010

Where are we going?

Like most college students staring down graduation, I was confronted with a choice: Now What? I’ll be honest, my answer to that question was to punt and enter grad school. Apparently though I’m not the only one interested in the fate of those still waiting for the big drop in their auto insurance rates. There have been several stories in the national press discussing the attitudes of and outlook for the 30-and-under set. I know that bashing the youth of America is a time-honored tradition in this country, so piling on seems a bit cliché. Having said that, a closer inspection of some of the numbers has me coming away with a feeling I can only describe as perplexed. The most striking thing I found was the amount of optimism displayed young people. Call me a pessimist if you want, but I don’t think any sober reading of our current situation instills confidence in our near term prospects. For instance, in the face of some pretty staggering unemployment figures (youth aged 16-24 unemployment hovers around 20%), coupled with low wages (only 31% of those in their 20’s report “earning enough”), young people today are overwhelmingly confident in their future success with 88% predicting they will “earn enough in the future.” Honestly, that is an almost shocking display of positivity, particularly since wages have fallen over the past decade and have stayed basically flat for the entire span of my lifetime. One consequence of this economic uncertainty has been, what some have derisively called, extended adolescence. A recent feature in the New York Times focusing on Americans in their 20’s refers to the “five milestones that define the transition to adulthood,” including completing school, moving out, gaining financial independence, marrying, and having children. Given the current climate I think that we should view the postponement of some of these life goals as something almost inevitable, and thank the stars above us that circumstances are not otherwise. Given the current rhetoric on the cost of our social safety net, can you imagine the demagoguery we would all be subject to if we were to experience a baby-boom by economically distressed young people? So what do you think? Are today’s young people a collection of entitled narcissists, texting away on their smart phones? Are their behaviors the inevitable outgrowth of a society that has not figured out to integrate this generation into the economy adequately? Or are the youth of today no more or less flakey than their predecessors? I have a feeling this is a topic I will be returning to often.

2 comments:

  1. I think today's young adults definitely have a feeling of entitlement that is unwarranted and, frankly, totally annoying.

    My husband recently opened up a business, and has already gone through countless employees who have no idea what work ethic is. People from 19 to mid-30s have passed through the last 3 months, and all the ones who left have one thing in common: they want to make easy money. Perhaps they haven't checked the news, but nowadays is not the best time to be searching for jobs, much less QUIT ones that you are lucky enough to find.

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  2. I tend to agree with you on the entitlement front. The ways some of my classmates interact with their professors is just mind blowing. At the same time I think we may be facing a real crisis in terms of this generation’s economic future. A lot of Boomers took massive hits on their retirement savings. They aren’t leaving the work force anytime soon. This has the potential to exert downward pressure on wages for the foreseeable future. The problems that would most likely result from this are almost too numerous to count.

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