- A rising number of young Americans are disconnected from work, school, and a sense of purpose.
- Disconnection rates have been increasing since the 1990s, affecting young people’s futures.
- Poor mental health and a lack of a financial safety net contribute to rising disconnection.
I don’t think it’s just not getting a fair slice-- they don’t like the pie.
When I was 20, there was hope that technology was serving us better, we could (and would) fix pollution and global warming, people’s health around the world was improving, open space and protections for wildlife were increasing. Progress seems much less of a straight line now, and young people I know are skeptical of human effort in general. The easy solution seems to be just do less and have less, which doesn’t motivate you to work for rich people. I don’t agree with all of the gloom, but you can’t expect them to just snap out of it.
Progress is well and alive for people in the top 10%. Lots of people I know are thriving, but they come from money and are making six figure salaries at 25.
But for the bottom 90%, we’re all fucked. As much progressive as I’ve made in my 15 working years, I’m not really any better than I was at 22 when i got my first job.
Are you kidding? The parents can’t figure out why? Really? Neither can mine by the way.
They don’t understand that the social contract is broken. Working for a living wage is a concept that’s all but disappeared. A job can’t pay the rent and food. And employers aren’t giving any significant pay raises or promotions in order to cut costs. They’ve been through TWO major economic events - 2008 and COVID - and the massive layoffs that go with them.
I think I heard Jimmy Carr say something about this along the lines of the reason that millennials and the younger generations play so much video games is that it’s the only way to experience the fantasy of actually doing something and progressing in any significant way that we don’t experience any more in real life. And forget about owning a home and building a family with kids and all that. It’s become incredibly difficult and something reserved for the wealthy elite.
Boomer parents who were able to get a well paying job with a high school degree and got good raises their whole life will never understand this.
Not sure I agree, no matter what way you cut it, Boomers/Gen X were sold a turd , sure it was disguised as a snickers and they chewed away with gusto, embracing it with both hands but what they did can’t be replicated even though most of them refuse to even acknowledge that, Limits to Growth within a finite biosphere etc pollution, population, resource depletion, climate chnage etc all catching up with us.
Lamenting it’s loss is bizzare, it was a turd to begin with. Entitled white folks fucking the biosphere and minorities over and living off that explotation is surley fucking toxic.
Not recognizing it for what it was and poviting to a sustainable lifestyle (from about say the '70s or 80s) is however even bizarrer and inevitably has lead us to where we are.
That “young people” are tempted with the same stupid snickers turd and lamet not being able to chow down is just indoctrination writ large I guess.
