Put Millennials First

Most elections, one supposes, are about perceived self interest. Candidates or parties are perceived, rightly or wrongly to “support my interests,” or “harm my interests.” But without overplaying the theme, the 2012 U.S. elections might unusually be less about “my interests,” and more about “my children’s interests, or my grandchildren’s interests.”

That might tend to explain why single (no children) voters might tend to lean one way, while parents might tend to lean a different way. I don’t mean that in a simple party affiliation sense, or a marital status sense, but in a time frame sense.

Parents, you might argue, naturally have a longer time frame than people without children. That isn’t to say parents necessarily agree about what should be done to ensure better life chances for their children and grandchildren, only to say that the behavioral time frame is different from that of any particular person without children. Those differences in perspective are not universal, nor exclusive, just arguably different in magnitude, by some significant amount.

Perhaps this is an election that is a bit unusual. Maybe some people will choose to act in ways that potentially harm their own interests, to protect the interests of their children. In other words, they will choose to put the interests of their Millennial children ahead of their own interests.

Some might say that is what they should do. Parents will get this. It's what they do, every day.

Generation Opportunity, which describes itself as “the largest non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States engaging and mobilizing young Americans on the important economic issues facing the nation,” might be a case in point for parents and their grown children to be thinking in similar ways about the future.

The youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year olds specifically for September 2012 is 11.8  percent. The youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year old African-Americans for September 2012 is 21.0  percent. The youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year old Hispanics for September 2012 is 12.1  percent and the youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year old women for September 2012 is 11.6  percent.

The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.7 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

If the labor force participation rate were factored into the 18 to 29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18 to 29 unemployment rate would rise to 16.6  percent,
Generation Opportunity says.

Some “11.8  percent of young Americans are now unemployed through no fault of their own and more still are falling out of the workforce due to an historic lack of opportunity,” says  President Paul T. Conway, former Chief of Staff of the United States Department of Labor and former Chief of Staff of the United States Office of Personnel Management.

“Young Americans know this is not fair,” Conway simply notes.

For Generation Opportunity, the polling company WomanTrend conducted a nationwide online survey of 1,003 adults ages 18 to 29 between July 27 and July 31, 2012.

Some 29  percent of Millennials believe that the economic policies coming out of Washington are helping them, while 47  percent of Millennials say that the economic policies coming out of Washington are hurting them. The point here is that, perhaps unusually, a significant  percentage of parents might be thinking they need to act in ways that further their childrens’ interests, and their grandchildrens’ interests, not their own.

And that would mean the job market first and foremost. Some 89  percent of young people ages 18 to 29 say the current state of the economy is impacting their day-to-day lives.

Some 51 percent reduced their entertainment budget;

• 43 percent reduced their grocery/food budget;
• 43 percent cut back on gifts for friends and family;
• 40 percent skipped a vacation;
• 38 percent driven less;
• 36 percent taken active steps to reduce home energy costs;
• 32 percent tried to find an additional job;
• 27 percent sold personal items or property (cars, electronic appliances, or other possessions);
• 26 percent changed their living situation (moved in with family, taken extra roommates, downgraded apartment or home);
• 17 percent skipped a wedding, family reunion, or other significant social event;
• 1 percent other;
• 8 percent none of the above (accepted only this response);
• 3 percent do not know/cannot judge (accepted only this response)
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• Longer term decisions also are being affected, apparently. Some 84 percent of young people ages 18 to 29 had planned to but now might delay or not make at all a major life change or move forward on a major purchase due to the current state of the economy.
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• Those postponed actions include 38 percent who are delaying buying their own place, as well as:

• 32 percent go back to school/getting more education or training;
• 31 percent start a family;
• 27 percent change jobs/cities;
• 26 percent pay off student loans or other debt;
• 25 percent save for retirement;
• 23 percent get married;
• 12 percent none of the above (accepted only this response);
• 4 percent do not know/cannot judge