Here is everything you ever wanted to know (or not know) about Millennials but were afraid to ask. This link leads to a blog of a generational conference held earlier today that included Neil Howe.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/07/live-blog-generations-in-the-next-america/
You can thank Thinker for all the fireworks to follow.
6 new findings about Millennials
America is in the throes of a huge demographic shift, and a major factor in this sea change is the Millennial generation, which is forging its own distinct path to adulthood compared with older Americans. Our new survey illustrates the differences between these 18- to 33- year-olds and their elders. Here are key takeaways:
1. Millennials have fewer attachments to traditional political and religious institutions, but they connect to personalized networks of friends, colleagues and affinity groups through social and digital media. Half of Millennials now describe themselves as political independents and 29% are not affiliated with any religion—numbers that are at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the last quarter-century.
2. Millennials are more burdened by financial hardships than previous generations, but they’re optimistic about the future. Millennials are the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations had at the same age. Yet, they are extremely confident about their financial future. More than eight-in-ten say they currently have enough money to lead the lives they want or expect to in the future.
3. Singlehood sets Millennials apart from other generations. Just 26% of Millennials are married. When they were the age that Millennials are now, 36% of Gen Xers, 48% of Baby Boomers and 65% of the members of the Silent Generation were married. Most unmarried Millennials (69%) say they would like to marry, but many, especially those with lower levels of income and education, lack what they deem to be a necessary prerequisite—a solid economic foundation.
4. Millennials are the most racially diverse generation in American history. Some 43% of Millennial adults are non-white, the highest share of any generation. A major factor behind this trend is the large wave of Hispanic and Asian immigrants who have been coming to the U.S. for the past half century, and whose U.S.-born children are now aging into adulthood. The racial makeup of today’s young adults is one of the key factors—though not the only one—in explaining their political liberalism.
5. Millennials are less trusting of others than older Americans are. Asked a long-standing social science survey question, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people,” just 19% of Millennials say most people can be trusted, compared with 31% of Gen Xers, 37% of Silents and 40% of Boomers.
6. Few Millennials believe that Social Security will provide them with full benefits when they are ready to retire, but most oppose cutting current benefits as a way to fix the system. About half (51%) of Millennials believe they will get no benefits from Social Security and 39% predict they will get benefits at reduced levels. However, much like older adults, 61% of Millennials oppose benefit cuts as a way to address the long-term funding problems of Social Security.
TL;DR version: Millennials are fucked up kids who’ve been handed a shit sandwich.
Admin is 50. Admin is a Boomer.
You’re welcome?
Z,
I think Admin is 51, b. 1963.
Bob.
Sorry Z. You missed having me in your generation. So Solly.
Admin. thinks he is not a Boomer, but his brothers think otherwise. I give him a pass, he can be what he wants to be.
“More than eight-in-ten say they currently have enough money to lead the lives they want or expect to in the future.”
This statistic is blowing my mind. Are these people paying attention? I think perhaps if the phrase “expect to in the future” was not included it would have yielded very different answers. Or maybe the millennials have just lowered their expectations.
It doesn’t seem to match the 69% who don’t want to get married because they don’t have the financial stability. Or do they expect to in the future?
Punk & TPC
You don’t understand. The Millennials learned new math. If you use new math, they think they have plenty of money. It’s called a credit card and student loans.
Yep…boomers fucked their kids right out of the gate. Trying to coddle them and protect them from every ill as children essentially had the exact opposite of the desired effect. All of the coping mechanisms they should have developed as children were delayed until they were thrown into the big bad world of reality. Imagine hoe pissed off you would be after being told your whole life that you were special and then finding out it was all a lie.
The govt school/prison indoctrination process and the broken homes caused by divorce was icing on the cake but that is exactly what our owners wanted.
I_S
“More than eight-in-ten say they currently have enough money to lead the lives they want or expect to in the future.”
I’m not sure how this is possible, I’m probably in the top 5% of millenials income wise, and when I look at my future I’m not particularly hopeful.
Their expectations must be lower than dog shit.
hey, don’t knock student loans. It’s the only thing keeping our economy going….
Only a $100 billion in default so far….
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Without subprime student loans and auto loans to idiots, the economy would collapse….
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Millennials are unmarried because they are poor horny people scouting the social sites for free casual sex. Libertines.
No religious affilliation no problem with that. Though the fundies might consider pagans and devil worshipping atheists an God hates them and theyknow because they sock-puppet God which they might want to stop doing.
In debt..sure the number of millennials exceed the numbers of boomers before they started dying off, so yeh, lots of debt, but what few doesnt have debt?
I just wish they would stop whining so much about their positive outlook =)
-Boomer dad w/ a millennial from my loins.
Admin
They also learned new english. Probably didn’t understand the question.
The Millennials learned new math -admin
Yes, if you subtract from what you owe and put it into what you have column, transpose numbers by rounding new match core logic, then your fucking wealthy!!
But shit think of all the apps they could write for smart phones with that logic.
Millenials love big government….
Millennials Haven’t Just Rejected the GOP — We’ve Embraced Big Government
On Thursday The American Conservative posted an article on Business Insider asserting that millennials support big government solely because there is no other choice. The author fails to point out the fact that the reason there is no other choice is because the “other choice” (i.e. the Republican Party) is so far out of touch that millennials recognize conservative ideals will not move the country forward.
The author, Jordan Bloom, cites the College Republicans’ results from a forum of millennial voters that revealed a “scathing” assessment of the GOP. He then goes on to characterize this focus group as uninformed and “humorously anthropological.” Bloom couples the group’s conclusions with those of “libertarian populists” critical of the GOP’s tendency toward big business and slashing spending rather than fixing problems.
Bloom invokes Pascal Emmanuel-Gobry’s conservative manifesto which reasons that Americans turn to “big government” (i.e. the Democratic Party) when they feel socially and economically insecure and believe big government is the last resort. Bloom uses Obamacare as an example of this. What he fails to realize is that big government is favored because the GOP’s counter-proposals either do not exist or are not acceptable, as they are more methods to derail the Obama presidency than move forward. Republicans have tried to repeal this legislation more than 30 times. During this time they could have been pursuing other valuable legislation. The debt limit is another example. The GOP wants to slash programs that millennials have enjoyed throughout their lives or hope to enjoy in their future, such as Medicare and Social Security. To young Americans, the GOP is seen as a jaded, self-serving party that disrespects the president many young Americans voted for.
Bloom asserts one more reason millennials are turning to big government is that they believe it is the only way they have a hope of being as economically successful as their parents. That implies millennials, a group Bloom is a member of, are a group of competitive, entitled brats. We’re more than that. Perhaps this generation realizes the ways in which the Bush administration set us back to times prior to the Clinton years when we had a budget surplus. We see how Congress has fallen apart on both sides, the distrust and incivility that prevails. We consider history, looking for times when the country enjoyed prosperity and coincidentally those years were big-government years.
Millennial to offspring, “Remember, do not tell the new math teacher the dog ate your homework, tell them it got lost in the “cloud.”
AWD says:
The author fails to point out the fact that the reason there is no other choice is because the “other choice” (i.e. the Republican Party) is so far out of touch that millennials recognize conservative ideals will not move the country forward.
_______________________________
A bigger crock of shit I have never read. Juxtaposing the Republican Party and conservative ideals is beyond laughable.
“The GOP wants to slash programs that millennials have enjoyed throughout their lives or hope to enjoy in their future, such as Medicare and Social Security.”
AWD,
Both of these programs are for OLD PEOPLE. Millies haven’t been enjoying the benefits of these programs. The article posted by Admin references polls that say young people don’t expect to see any money from these programs. Millennials don’t want to cut funding for these programs because they know that without them their boomer parents would be eating dog food.
This guy Bloom is a dunce. He’s just telling you want you want to hear.
#7. Their optimism is unfounded and is beginning to yield to the reality which they have not been prepared for.
Punk and TPC,
I didn’t have time to pull this out earlier, but here’s the section from the full report that explains that “expect to have enough money to live the life they want” thing.
Despite their financial burdens, Millennials are the nation’s most stubborn economic optimists. More than eight-in-ten say they either currently have enough money to lead the lives they want (32%) or expect to in the future (53%). No other cohort of adults is nearly as confident, though when Gen Xers were the age Millennials are now, they were equally upbeat about their own economic futures. Some of this optimism, therefore, may simply reflect the timeless confidence of youth.
The confidence of Millennials in their long-term economic prospects is even more notable in light of another finding from the latest Pew Research survey: Fully half of Millennials (51%) say they do not believe there will be any money for them in the Social Security system by the time they are ready to retire, and an additional 39% say the system will only be able to provide them with retirement benefits at reduced levels. Just 6% expect to receive Social Security benefits at levels enjoyed by current retirees.
Keep in mind, Millennials have already found a way to manage without much income; many are living at home, others prefer a “rental” lifestyle where they don’t really own anything (houses, cars, even fashion) that they can get through cost-share / rental services. As long as they have their tablets and smartphones, they’re generally pretty happy.
It’s one of many reasons why retail is suffering; people starting new households represent one of the largest categories of spending. Not only do MIllennials not have the income, they also don’t have enough credit, because their student loan debt is so high. (All these are generational generalities, of course. Each individual is different.)
And, frankly, it’s time for a more reasoned approach to consumer spending in this country.
Cool. I’ll just take a look at th— 53%!!! That’s a lot of expectations.
Your right, though, Thinker. I tried a search for auto loans by age groups and didn’t find anything immediately but I wonder if they are buying Volts and Prius’ on credit as well. I did find this.
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If you believe that lending institutions are tightening up lending standards, which may or may not be true depending on your amount of cynicism, Millennials would be the people to avoid lending to. A credit score is very much just a likelihood and history of paying off debts, something that a lot of Millies have little chance of. And they ain’t taking on much credit card debt, either. While I was looking around I found this too.
“The 2012 Demos study also found changes from 2008 to 2012 regarding age groups with credit card debt. It found that older Americans on average have the highest credit card debt: people aged 65 or older typically carry $9,300 on their cards, less than a 6 percent reduction from 2008. Demos suggested the high balances were likely because the recession reduced savings and forced those in or near retirement to cut back.
Each younger age group had less credit card debt than those of older age groups. Survey respondents below 65 all managed to reduce their credit card debt significantly.
Those aged 55 to 64 carried about $8,200 on their cards, an 18 percent reduction from 2008. Americans 45 to 54 years old had similar numbers and improvements. Individuals in this group reduced their debt by 17 percent to an average of $8,400.
Americans 35 to 44 had steeper reductions, lowering their debt by nearly 40 percent to get below $6,200 per person.
Those aged 25 to 34 showed the best improvements and cut their credit card debt in half. People in this age group had an average debt of less than $5,200 in 2012, compared with more than $10,400 four years earlier.
The youngest surveyed, those aged 18 to 24, showed modest improvement but still had the lowest debt of any age group. Young Americans reduced their credit card debt by 15 percent, falling below $3,000 per person.”
Where kids back in the thirties this optimistic?
Punk, I believe they were, but let me dig up proof tomorrow.
Okay, I pulled together a lot of stuff on the G.I. generation as youth that bears uncanny resemblance to what Millennials have experienced, growing up. Shouldn’t surprise me, knowing generational theory as I do, but it does drive home why the theory is so strong.
First, two snippets from studies that summarize the G.I. generation:
GI Generation (born 1900s – 1920s)
The oldest living generation has far exceeded the 47-year life expectancy expected of them at birth. Families were large then, with many children not surviving their first five years and about a fifth of women dying in childbirth. It was the norm in developed countries for birth to take place at home, and 90% of all American physicians had no university education. This was the world before antibiotics, insulin, penicillin, nylon and many other things we would consider essential today, and marijuana, heroin and morphine were all available over the counter in pharmacies.
The dominant characteristic of the GI generation is their civic mindedness. Society determined early on that this new generation of youth would grow up clever and cooperative (Scouts, youth groups, and even the word “teenager” itself, were all created for them), and they were driven together to rebuild the world as they grew up with the images of The Great War etched in their minds. They have always liked predictability and stability, bringing military discipline to their homes, workplaces, schools and even places of worship.
The GIs formed the manpower component of the engine that beat the combined crises of World War 2 and the Great Depression. They worked as teams, obeyed hierarchical chains of command, and stuck to their task without complaint. No wonder they believe that it’s “good” and “normal” for people to all agree, to work the same way and even to all look the same.
And,
The G.I. generation was born between 1901-1926. They make up less than 1 percent of the workforce. They were born during the Unraveling at the turn of the century and were known as “good-kids.” They were our first Boy Scouts and Miss Americas. The chaotic times had adults instituting new rules to protect youth. Where the previous Lost Generation (Nomads) had struggled to survive amid child sweatshops and rampant social drug use, now authorities and parents were implementing child-labor laws and building playgrounds.
G.I.s had and still have a healthy respect for their elders and an appreciation for authority and rules. During the Depression, they patiently supported their parents, and as uniformed young soldiers, they fought valiantly in World War II to protect their country from foreign enemies “over there.” As the heroic veterans of World War II, the G.I.s returned home to begin their careers with educations subsidized by the G.I. Bill. They were strong believers in the good and power of civil organizations and institutions. They earned their paychecks and built suburbs, miracle vaccines, plugged missile gaps, and launched moon rockets. As senior citizens, they have safeguarded their own “entitlements,” but they have had little influence over societal culture and values.
So, that sets the stage… growing up during WWI and the Depression, they were exposed to difficult times for their families, all while their elders tried to protect them and provide them with positive activities like Boy / Girl Scouts, volunteer organizations through school and church, etc.
They were also exposed to nationalistic/patriotic propaganda from the US government during WWI, as well as forced patriotic sessions at school. Much of this directed them to become more involved in volunteer efforts that supported government actions and policies. Everything was geared toward making children support the U.S. role in the war.
(Side note: while the form of propaganda supporting a 3T war has shifted from overt / government sources to media / Hollywood this time around for Iraq / Afghanistan, it’s interesting how similar the approaches are)
By the time WWII came around, the G.I. generation was fully indoctrinated into a mindset that helped them ignore the negative things going on — after all, they’d already grown up during tough times, during which their “specialness” was celebrated and their “togetherness” was developed. While no polls / surveys of kids exist like they do today, there is ample evidence that they were a positive, happy-go-lucky generation as youth, focused on having a good time together, dancing to the new, “big band” music and just enjoying life. It wasn’t until after they fought WWII that they settled down, started families and reformed institutions of all kinds in this country.
If you want to read more detail on youth during WWI, including specific examples of the kind of propaganda they were subjected to, the Wiki article on it is pretty interesting and thoroughly referenced.
The top U.S. college where a student has revealed she works as a porn actress to pay her fees said Friday she has broken no rules, and stressed that financial aid is available.
First-year student “Belle Knox” of Duke University, who has received threats, outed herself this week to explain she was doing porn because she needs the money for her education.
But the student insisted she was not ashamed, and on the contrary enjoys doing it — while admitting that she would not have chosen that path if it weren’t for her $60,000 a year in tuition fees.
“We are in a society where we are so repressed, every single day. We’re told that sex is bad. We’re told not to have sex. We’re told not to show our bodies, and that’s really true for women,” she told CNN.
Thinker
Nice find. Now that I’m thinking about it, I suppose I would have to put myself in the “expect to in the future” category. I certainly don’t feel financially secure right now and I’m not expecting a seven figure retirement account to fall out of the sky, I’ve got the attitude to get there, though.
Sort of a “I will survive” mixed with a “can’t get much worse” with a sprinkle of “somewhere over the rainbow”
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You sound like a late X / early Millennial cusper, Punk. Do you mind if I ask your birth year?
Stucky, you asked somewhere on here about Obama’s generation. He’s technically a Nomad (Gen X), born in 1961. But because he’s right at the very beginning of the Gen X generation, he exhibits traits of both Boom and X generations. We call these people “cuspers.”
A “cusp” is the point at which two parts of a curve meet. In generational theory, this is the group of people who fall into the overlap between two generations, born in a time between eras and influenced by both eras. Interestingly, most cuspers tend to choose characteristics of one or other of the generations they straddle, rather than displaying characteristics of both.
Cuspers are able to fit into the Boomer world. They know when to wear a suit and tie and have a sense of how to behave appropriately so they don’t irritate Boomers in the way that full-on Xers do. They know it’s necessary to “play the game” by attending the office party so that they are seen there even though they don’t enjoy it. In private, they prefer more a laid-back, low-key lifestyle.
Because of this, cuspers have a hugely important role to play in the world, bridging the divide that so often exists between Boomers and Xers. Cuspers also make great generational mediators and may not feel the discomfort that people who are really typical of a one generation experience with another. This makes them extremely valuable in multi-generational workplaces.
Obama demonstrates this well, showing both the ideology that Boomers are known for, but also the pragmatism and “go your own way” maverick attitudes that many Gen Xers exhibit. Gen X tends to be cynical about existing institutions and doesn’t trust many of them to do the right thing. In many cases, they want to break down these institutions and rebuild a new system (i.e., nihilism). That’s why Obama initially appealed to Boomers, Xers and Millennials; he can be a chameleon that appeals to all of them in different ways. Holding up the facade is the only issue.
Those of us in generational marketing often refer to Boom-X cuspers as “Generation Jones” because they were (are) always “jonesing” for something more.
Both Admin and Obama are good examples of cuspers; where Obama appears to align slightly more with Boomers because of his idealism, Admin aligns far more with X because of his nihilism and cynicism.
Hope that helps to answer your question.
heheheh. 1979.
After reading The Fourth Turning I decided that I’m a millennial, with an overactive sense of cynicism. Hence, my role here on TBP. Trying like hell to get LLPOH and Stephanie to co exist on the same thread without an all out war.
You really do know your shit with the generational theory, Thinker.
At times I do feel a bit like a chameleon here on TBP, my colors changing to match the ones that I feel are in the right, which honestly can change with every thread. I do hate the system and want to destroy it, yet, I also want desperately to have a functioning system that I can feel good about.
I need to listen to many different views before I can settle on an opinion on how that can be accomplished, which is why I can listen to NPR and Rush Limbaugh without my brain melting, also why I am glad when you point me to stuff that opposes my own sources of information.
I thought so… right at the end of X, but you choose to align with Millennials or Xers, depending on the subject. As you age, you’ll settle into one role or the other, and no need to rush that.
Your need for information before making decisions puts you in the INTJ range of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, but I’m guessing you’re not one of the “extremes” like many of us are. You have more empathy, more ability to connect with people on an emotional level than some of us. Have you taken the MBTI? I don’t recall if I saw your scores here.
Punk, you know me too well.
When I was writing my Hillary article I took an online test… Three times. INTJ came up once, INTP came up twice. There were a few questions th
Damn mouse pad…
There were a few questions that I had a hard time answering. Apparently they were the deciding factor for Judging and Perceiving.
LLPOH
What can I say? You two are like oil and water for sure. I’m pretty stubborn myself, though.
Punk, you can view results for many of us in this summary Stucky did. Note the “Feeling” column should be titled, “Thinking” for those results. I think most are mid-range on the F/T and J/P scales. Nothing wrong with that; having emotions can be a good thing.
Thinker-nice analysis.
Hell, why would Millies back the RNC when they’ve also embraced big government? The RNC and the DNC are two wings of the same mega-party. Neither side is ever going to offer us something different, just more of the same. Massive spending, more giveaways, and kicking the can down the street in the hopes of putting off the SHTF moment as long as possible.