This month’s
off year elections sent one message to
Washington that has been heard loud and
clear. Voters expect Congress to focus on
the economy, especially employment, and take
decisive and affirmative steps to deal with
both the causes and ravages of the greatest
economic downturn in the U.S. since the
Great Depression. As the Obama
administration considers a variety of new
proposals to help bring down the
unemployment rate, one key constituency is
raising its voice and asking for a
return on the investment it made in his
presidency.
Members of the
Millennial generation, born between
1982-2003, who were eligible to vote in 2008
went for Barack Obama over John McCain by a
2:1 margin and made up over 80% of the
President’s winning margin. They continue to
support his presidency and identify as
Democrats by similar margins. A late October
Pew survey indicates that Millennials
identify as Democrats over Republicans by
almost 20 percentage points (52% vs. 34%),
well above the 8-point Democratic advantage
among older generations. In the latest
Research 2000 weekly tracking
survey conducted for Daily Kos, 80% of
Millennials had a favorable opinion of the
president; only 14% of everyone in this
generation viewed him unfavorably. This
compares with a 55% vs. 39%
favorable/unfavorable ratio among the entire
electorate in both the Research 2000 survey
and in a series of November surveys
conducted by organizations ranging from ABC
News and the Washington Post to Fox,
although some other polls put the
President’s job performance ratings closer
to 50%.
But despite
the clearly stronger support the President
has among their generation, Millennials are
increasingly restive about the lack of
action in Congress to address the economic
problems they face – both now and in the
future.
Recent Pew
research
studies underline the major impact that the
recession has had on individual
Americans and their families. Thirteen
percent of parents with grown children told
Pew researchers that one of their adult sons
or daughters had moved back home in the past
year. Pew found that of all grown children
living with their parents, 2 in 10 were
full-time students, one-quarter were
unemployed and about one-third had lived on
their own before returning home. According
to the census,
56 percent of men 18 to 24 years old and 48
percent of women were either still under
the same roof as their parents or had moved
back home.
The lack of
jobs was particularly acute among adult
members of the Millennial Generation (18-27
year olds), 61% of whom said that they or
someone close to them was jobless recently.
A clear plurality (46%) says that the “job
situation” rather than rising prices (27%),
problems in the financial markets (14%) and
declining real estate values (7%) is their
major economic worry.
As a result,
the number one concern among Millennials is
the state of the economy and the need for
jobs, but they have a unique perspective on
how to deal with this issue.
Millennials
believe there is a clear link between
education and employment and are
increasingly concerned that the pathway
through the educational system into the
world of work is becoming increasingly more
difficult and expensive to navigate. Last
week, about one hundred of the nation’s top
private sector and government leaders
gathered for the
Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council also
identified education as the nation’s top
economic priority.
For
Millennials, the problem is personal. A
smaller share of 16-to-24-year-olds – 46
percent – is currently employed than at any
time since the government began collecting
that data in 1948. A job market with
Depression-level youth unemployment (18.5%)
and a wrenching transformation in the types
of jobs America needs and produces makes the
implicit bargain of education in return for
future economic success harder for
Millennials to believe in every day.
Recently Matt
Segal, Executive Director of the Student
Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) and
Founder and National Co-Chair of the “80
Million Strong for Young Americans Job
Coalition”
presented some ideas to the House Education
and Labor Committee on what Congress
could do to address this challenge. He
advocated increased entrepreneurial
resources be made available to youth; more
access to public service careers through
internships and loan forgiveness programs;
and the creation of “mission critical” jobs
in such fields as health care,
cyber-security and the environment that
would tap the unique talents of this
generation. Since two-thirds of Millennials
who graduate from a four-year college do so
with over $20,000 in debt, debt, his
testimony also urged immediate Senate
approval of the student debt reform bill
recently passed by the House.
There is more
that can be done beyond these excellent
recommendations. This summer, the
President's Council of Economic Advisors
released a report outlining the importance
of community colleges in making America's
workforce more competitive in the global
economy. "We believe it's time to reform our
community colleges so that they provide
Americans of all ages a chance to learn the
skills and knowledge necessary to compete
for the jobs of the future." The report
urged Congress to pass House Democratic
Caucus Chairman John Larsen’s bill,
The Community College Technology Access Act
of 2009, in order to help meet President
Obama’s goal of graduating
five million more Americans from community
colleges by 2020.
Millennials,
like their GI Generation great grandparents
in the 1930s, are facing economic challenges
that caught them by surprise and for which
no one prepared them. But Millennials aren’t
looking for a handout or sympathy. Instead,
in the “can do” spirit of their generation,
they are organizing to overcome the
challenges created for them by their elders.
It’s time for the Democrats who control
Congress to recognize these concerns and to
act decisively on their behalf.
