Are Today's Youth Really a Lost Generation?

A quick note before I begin: After finally sorting through all of my endless technical difficulties and finally (hopefully...) having figured out how to work this Blogger thing, my much overdue posts are here. (I’ve had them saved in a word document until now.)

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The title alone of this piece caught my attention, because at my theatre, one of my directors often says that, according to her sources, our generation has been given the name “The Crystal Children” or “The Star Children”, because we are supposed to fix and change everything that the past generations have wronged with the world. So when the idea of being named “The Lost Generation” surfaced, I was immediately interested. The article hits home for me, because really, my sister is facing a lot of the troubles and difficulties that the author writes about. She graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design in May with a major in Photography and Digital Imaging, and is having a bit of trouble finding a permanent job, which is why she’s, for now, living back at home with us. I don’t mind it nearly as much as she does, since I get to spend the time with her that I missed over the last four years. (A quick edit: good news! Job opportunity has come through, and in the first week of November, she’s moving down to Shreveport, Louisiana! Sad that she’ll be so far away, but she’s getting a great opportunity!) 

Along side the article, a few inserts were included: charts with numbers and bare facts to accompany the research. One titled ‘LOST: By the Numbers’ reveals that 20% of young men within four years of graduating college are still living with their parents due to income issues, which is twice the amount of young women. That adds up to 5.9 million individuals, Americans ages 25-34, living at home. That number used to just be 25%, back in 2007. It’s unfortunate what four years can change in a statistic like that. And among the younger people who have joined the adult and professional worlds, 37% of young families with heads of households younger than the age of 30 that are currently living in poverty. So while experts estimate that the Great Recession will end in the coming years, what the author, Cymru, calls the ‘greater recession’ doesn’t show any sign of ending. And that ‘greater recession’ is what all of those statistics say-- that the young adults are in trouble, and might not be able to fix their problems.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/are-todays-youth-really-a-lost-generation/245524/]