23536
Bluelight Crew
Liberal drug laws and same-sex marriage may be favorite causes for young Americans, but government is still doing too little for their generation.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-an-economic-strategy-for-millennials/282992/
Almost every week provides more evidence of the political system bending toward the cultural preferences of the massive millennial generation. But evidence is accumulating just as quickly of the system's failure to respond to its economic needs.
The Millennial generation, comprising the 90 million-plus young people born from 1982 to 2002, is now the nation's largest. The latest accommodation to their social attitudes came Wednesday when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an executive order permitting medical marijuana for seriously ill patients. Cuomo's order was relatively restrictive, but his decision established a beachhead for further loosening of the state's laws. And it continued a national trend toward expanded availability: 21 states now allow access to medical marijuana. Eight of them have established those rules just since 2009. In 2012, voters in Washington state and Colorado became the first to approve recreational marijuana use.
Gay marriage, another Millennial cultural cause, is advancing even faster. Seventeen states now permit it. Before 2012, no state had approved a ballot initiative to allow such marriages, but voters that year did so in Maine, Maryland, and Washington state. Since then, judicial decision or legislative action has authorized gay marriage in eight more states, including California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Further state-level gains may come more slowly, because most of the remaining bans are in conservative red states. But the direction of policy is unmistakable and irreversible toward greater acceptance of gay unions.
Millennials, of course, are not the only supporters of these changes; nor are they especially prominent in the groups that have pushed them. But they are functioning as a tipping point in the debates nonetheless.
Polling last year by the Pew Research Center found that nearly two-thirds of Millennials support legalizing marijuana and slightly more back same-sex marriages; in each case, that was more than any older generation. The clear shift in attitudes has seeded a belief among political leaders that change on these issues is inevitable because public opinion, over time, will only tilt further as more Millennials (and their younger siblings) enter the electorate. "There is a sense that where Millennials are on a lot of these cultural issues is where things will go for years," says Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster who studies young voters.
But if the sun is shining for Millennials on the cultural front, their economic forecast remains wintry. On Tuesday, Young Invincibles, a group that advocates for young adults, issued a bracing report that noted the unemployment rate for Millennials (which it defined as workers 18 to 34) has remained stuck in double-digits for 70 consecutive months. Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce has likewise found young workers today losing ground compared with previous generations in wages, workforce participation, and net worth, with the losses deepest for younger men. Add in mounting student debt, as well as delays in family formation and homeownership, and phrases like "lost generation" don't seem excessive.
The story continues: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-an-economic-strategy-for-millennials/282992/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-an-economic-strategy-for-millennials/282992/
Almost every week provides more evidence of the political system bending toward the cultural preferences of the massive millennial generation. But evidence is accumulating just as quickly of the system's failure to respond to its economic needs.
The Millennial generation, comprising the 90 million-plus young people born from 1982 to 2002, is now the nation's largest. The latest accommodation to their social attitudes came Wednesday when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an executive order permitting medical marijuana for seriously ill patients. Cuomo's order was relatively restrictive, but his decision established a beachhead for further loosening of the state's laws. And it continued a national trend toward expanded availability: 21 states now allow access to medical marijuana. Eight of them have established those rules just since 2009. In 2012, voters in Washington state and Colorado became the first to approve recreational marijuana use.
Gay marriage, another Millennial cultural cause, is advancing even faster. Seventeen states now permit it. Before 2012, no state had approved a ballot initiative to allow such marriages, but voters that year did so in Maine, Maryland, and Washington state. Since then, judicial decision or legislative action has authorized gay marriage in eight more states, including California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Further state-level gains may come more slowly, because most of the remaining bans are in conservative red states. But the direction of policy is unmistakable and irreversible toward greater acceptance of gay unions.
Millennials, of course, are not the only supporters of these changes; nor are they especially prominent in the groups that have pushed them. But they are functioning as a tipping point in the debates nonetheless.
Polling last year by the Pew Research Center found that nearly two-thirds of Millennials support legalizing marijuana and slightly more back same-sex marriages; in each case, that was more than any older generation. The clear shift in attitudes has seeded a belief among political leaders that change on these issues is inevitable because public opinion, over time, will only tilt further as more Millennials (and their younger siblings) enter the electorate. "There is a sense that where Millennials are on a lot of these cultural issues is where things will go for years," says Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster who studies young voters.
But if the sun is shining for Millennials on the cultural front, their economic forecast remains wintry. On Tuesday, Young Invincibles, a group that advocates for young adults, issued a bracing report that noted the unemployment rate for Millennials (which it defined as workers 18 to 34) has remained stuck in double-digits for 70 consecutive months. Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce has likewise found young workers today losing ground compared with previous generations in wages, workforce participation, and net worth, with the losses deepest for younger men. Add in mounting student debt, as well as delays in family formation and homeownership, and phrases like "lost generation" don't seem excessive.
The story continues: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-an-economic-strategy-for-millennials/282992/
