A while back I noted a recent piece that expected 18-24 year olds would become more ”anti-market”.  Another depressing piece about young people is now out in Newsweek, describing how the financial crisis is destroying prospects for members of the so-called “Lost Generation” (in particular, those currently age 18-24). 

These pieces are crushing because they offer such a scathing indictment of the generation that came before us, the Baby Boomers.  For the first time in a long while, it would seem that a generation has placed its own interests ahead of its descendants’.  Boomers have stacked the budget to favor entitlements heading towards an older crowd (Social Security, medical expenditures, ‘pay-in’ based unemployment benefits, etc.), while racking up an impressive deficit.  In a scam of prolific proportions, universities and colleges have exploited the misperception that education is worth any cost, while employers have said wages are “unsustainable” and must be reduced.  As a result, more and more young people (more than two-thirds in 2009) are left with debt (averaging over $20,000 in 2007), which their elders had counseled them would always be “good debt.”  It’s not “good debt” when you can’t get a job.  In the first quarter of 2009, young people underemployment (which includes people who want full-time work but can only find part-time jobs), was more than twice as high for those under 25 (at 31.5%) than for those between the ages of 35 to 54 (13.5%).  Underemployment might partly be explained by Boomers filling jobs that they should have already left, but were forced to keep when their poor financial decisions destroyed their nest eggs.  Those young folks who get jobs get paid less: incomes have fallen for the young faster than they have for the old.  Even common Boomer practices like “marriage recycling” (i.e., multiple, ill-conceived marriages) have left the younger generation with unstable footing from the beginning.  (Although I strongly disagree with their ultimate conclusions, check out this report [PDF] from the AFL-CIO for a good statistical depiction of what’s going on.)

I hope that the dismal situation for the current generation will encourage Boomers to take some steps towards change: stop over-leveraging themselves (in both public and personal spending) and stop blaming economic problems on any supposed “spirit of entitlement” in the young folks.  Maybe then we can stop having to read all these bleak articles.

-Michael