Youth Optimism hits historic low

[MakiSupaStar]

Interesting read in regards to how those in college are viewing their perception of the American Dream.

Youth Optimism Hits Historic Low, New Poll Reveals

Youth Optimism Hits Historic Low, New Poll Reveals
Gallup Youth Optimism
Job seekers attend a recent career fair.

NEW YORK -- Noelle Aldrich never planned on moving back in with her parents after graduating from college.

Aldrich will graduate from Oklahoma Baptist University next Friday. Once the ceremony is over and her mother and sister board a plane home to Claremont, N.H., she and her father will make the return trip by car, with all of her belongings nestled in the backseat.

Aldrich, 21, considers herself to be a consummate planner. Possibly more unnerving than anything else, she says, is the lack of knowing what comes next.

“It’s going to take me years to ever make what my dad makes now,” said Aldrich, who wants to work as an elementary school teacher, but has yet to find a job. “Eventually I hope I’ll get there.”

Aldrich is hardly the only 20-something questioning whether or not she’ll be able to build a better life than her parents. For nearly three decades, pollsters have been asking, Will today’s youth have a better life than their parents’ generation?

According to a recent Gallup poll, for the first time in the history, a majority of Americans now believe that today’s youth will unlikely achieve the same standard of living as their parents.

Since 1983, polling organizations have posed the same question: “In America, each generation has tried to have a better life than their parents, with a better living standard, better homes, a better education, and so on. How likely do you think it is that today’s youth will have a better life than their parents — very likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely, or very unlikely?”

In Gallup’s April poll, only 44 percent answered in the affirmative.

The survey broke down respondents according to age. While 57 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds thought today’s youth would have a better future than their parents, optimism waned as respondents got older. For instance, only 37 percent of those 65 and older shared the same sense of possibility.

Matthew Segal, the 25-year-old president of Our Time, a national membership organization for Americans under 30 which has about 300,000 members and grows by 2,000 members each week, sees a different story in the results. He thinks that many members of his generation still believe in the social and upward mobility associated with the American Dream.

“Something that is unique and that we’re still trying to figure out is in light of war, in light of a terrible recession and in light of staggering student loan debt, is why we still have this lingering sense of optimism that things will get better,” Segal said.

Still, Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University, doesn’t see 57 percent as a reason to be overly sanguine. “You’d hope, as a country that believes in the American Dream, that those numbers for young people would really be a lot higher,” said Sum. “We don’t want them walking around with a rain cloud over their head, but when this many don’t think they can meet mom and dad’s standard of living, we should be concerned.”

Sum referenced a poll released in April by AP-Viacom of Americans between the ages of 18 to 24, which indicated that young people are skeptical about the notion that life would necessarily improve with each generation. It reported that four in 10 predicted it would be difficult to raise a family and afford the lifestyle they desired.

But the same poll also found that in the face of such odds, 90 percent anticipated finding careers that would bring them happiness.

For the time being, Aldrich, who owes about $50,000 in student loans, is doing her best to remain positive. She is willing to relocate to whichever state will offer her a teaching job and has a color-coded map of cities where she either knows people or states that offer loan forgiveness for individuals that elect low-paying professions.

While neither of her parents went to college, her family as always viewed higher education as a ticket to a better life. Her father works as a safety director at a custom cabinetry business; her mother is a receptionist at the same company.

“It’s not that I don’t think my parents led a great life, but they’ve always instilled in me the notion that I should have bigger and better things than they had,” said Aldrich, adding that "it's not about extra comforts. I just want financial security."

[sloasdaylight]

If you tell people they're nothing more than pawns for long enough they start to believe it.

[EricF]

The survey broke down respondents according to age. While 57 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds thought today’s youth would have a better future than their parents, optimism waned as respondents got older. For instance, only 37 percent of those 65 and older shared the same sense of possibility.

This also sounds like the older age group having little faith in the abilities of the younger generation. "Gawdamn kids don't know nuthin'! Get offa my lawn!!"

[Actium]

Being a slave to crazy student loans is why so many of my peers(mid 20s) are not optimistic about their financial security. Also every time I hear upward mobility I lol.

[MatticusMania]

I am pretty optimistic about my future. The fate of the world, however...

[jaywa]

Reality bites.

[Absentia]

Ahhhh when one realizes that the 100k they took out in student loans wasn't worth it.
Simply put the idea of the "American Dream" has been a bit inflated and people's expectations are way beyond what they should be.

[Relic]

Meh, I think everyone's optimism has hit an all time low.

[jmattbassplaya]

Originally Posted by Relic

Meh, I think everyone's optimism has hit an all time low.

This.

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by Absentia

Ahhhh when one realizes that the 100k they took out in student loans wasn't worth it.

I've got a 22-year-old daughter living at home with us right now after 5 years of college, dealing with this exact thing. It has been a challenge to say the least. She's brilliant, an "A" student in pre-med working two jobs and slowly pulling things together but there's no way she's going to be self-sufficient anytime soon.

[iamlowsound]

Of course you aren't going to make more money than your parents right out of university, they have had an extra 30 years of working to get to their pay scale. I think a lot of people loose sight of that and want everything now. Work for 30 years and then see what mind of money you are making.

lowsound

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by iamlowsound

Of course you aren't going to make more money than your parents right out of university,

Unless you are able to snag a gig with one of the major investment banks or some such. Then it is entirely possible. But there a lot fewer of those jobs then there are people willing to take them, and you have to be extraordinarily well connected to even be in the running.

[Blort]

Originally Posted by Actium

Being a slave to crazy student loans is why so many of my peers(mid 20s) are not optimistic about their financial security. Also every time I hear upward mobility I lol.

I am one of those people, and I hope on a daily bases I get killed in a car accident or by some disease so someone gets screwed out of their money.

To top off my optimism, I was even "let go" from my job, because my old boss was pissed at me because student loan collectors kept calling him looking for me.

[sloasdaylight]

Originally Posted by iamlowsound

Of course you aren't going to make more money than your parents right out of university, they have had an extra 30 years of working to get to their pay scale. I think a lot of people loose sight of that and want everything now. Work for 30 years and then see what mind of money you are making.

lowsound

This.

[bmc]

Young Americans
Left out in the rain
It’s tougher than it appears for the millennial generation
Jan 6th 2011 | from the print edition of The Economist

Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone. By Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray. Bantam; 272 pages; $15. Buy from Amazon.com




PLUGGED in, narcissistic and upbeat, America’s twenty-somethings may be the most educated, diverse and digitally savvy generation in the country’s history. They are also most likely to be living with their parents. Though they burst into the workforce with expectations of fun and fulfilment (leading employers to grouse about their sense of entitlement), they have been delivered a slap by the recession. Nearly 16% of 18-24-year-olds are unemployed, almost double the national average. Most are simply struggling to keep their heads above water, according to the MacArthur Research Network.

The young in previous generations have also tended to drift, yet “opportunity structures today are less forgiving of trifling mistakes.” That is one of the conclusions of “Not Quite Adults”. Drawing on eight years of data and more than 500 interviews with young people between 18 and 34, Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray dismantle the common belief that this generation has been coddled into laziness. Rather, these young adults have come of age at a particularly merciless moment. Even before the recession, which will wreak lasting havoc on their earning power and trust in government, the market had ceased rewarding diligent, low-skilled labour with reasonable pay and benefits. Employment is now largely divided into well-paid, highly-skilled jobs and the poorly paid, less-secure jobs of the service sector. The middle has been hollowed out, on-the-job training is rare and good posts hard to come by.

A university degree has never been more essential for securing good employment. Graduates earn 54% more on average than those who never graduated, yet only a quarter of Americans between 25 and 34 have a bachelor’s degree. Nearly half of the 3m people who enroll in university in America drop out within six years (among wealthy countries, only Italy has a worse rate). Part of the trouble, Mr Settersten and Ms Ray point out, is that in the absence of reliable public schools, parents must play a big role in the academic careers of their children. Good quality, low-cost options for higher education abound (despite the rising price of private tuition), yet the children of poorly educated adults are less likely to make the necessary investment in education. The debt that young people carry today is often not from college, the MacArthur research finds, but from the cost of not investing in college.

Mr Settersten, a sociology professor at Oregon State University, and Ms Ray, a writer attached to the MacArthur Research Network, use statistics and anecdotes to map out a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots—the generation’s “swimmers” and “treaders”. The former often have supportive parents, wider social networks, university degrees and a greater sense of civic engagement. Many “swimmers” even choose to move back home to help pay off student loans and save for the future.

Most twenty-somethings, however, are “treaders”, who simply replicate the lessons of their poorer, less stable, non-voting and hands-off parents, but to worse effect. The authors argue that when young adults invest in themselves and their careers before taking on the baggage of marriage, children and a job to pay the bills, they are equipped to make better choices down the road, for themselves and as citizens. Having a child too early can be one of the costliest barriers to advancement, whereas postponing nuptials until careers are in place leads to lower divorce rates.

“Not Quite Adults” offers a valuable portrait of the diverging destinies of young people today. In a country that prizes self- reliance and private solutions for social problems, more young adults are doomed to sink. Regardless of where one assigns blame, when nearly two-thirds of the next generation is struggling to find “a secure foothold in the middle class”, everyone ends up paying the price.

[HaMMerHeD]

Optimism, to me, has always been a code-word for self-deceit.

[McHaven]

It's nearly impossible to find a good paying job right out of school in my field. I'm about to graduate. I've applied to hundreds of jobs and haven't been selected yet. I've had to accept an unpaid internship for the summer, so I can get some experience. With this crappy economy and high number of unemployed, there are people with my same education, and a lot more experience competing for these same entry level jobs.

[colcifer]

Don't forget about academic inflation! Degrees are hardly worth more than the paper they're printed on right now.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by iamlowsound

Of course you aren't going to make more money than your parents right out of university, they have had an extra 30 years of working to get to their pay scale. I think a lot of people loose sight of that and want everything now. Work for 30 years and then see what mind of money you are making.

lowsound

That's part of it, and I do agree with that.

However, one big difference between my generation and my parents. House prices.

Even taking inflation/relative costs into account, house prices, at least over here, are stupidly high. That, tied in with current economic crappness, means banks are even less likely to give someone a mortgage (plus the added difficulty that so many more jobs seem to be contract/term based, so it's harder to root yourself anywhere).

That means you are stuck paying rent longer, which means you are loosing money for longer just to keep a roof over your head. Makes it harder to save to get a large deposit (that you need if you want to get a mortgage now).

[Just something that bugs me, feels horrible when I think of how much I've spent in rent!]

[jaywa]

Correct. Not just in the U.K. but also in the U.S., real wages have not kept pace with increases in the cost of living. It's not even close.

Hence all the married couples working 2 or 3 jobs between them just to maintain a standard of living that one income could support back in the 60s.