Young Workers in Free Fall: 1/3 Under 35 Live with Parents

Young Workers in Free Fall: 1/3 Under 35 Live with Parents

By Art Levine, AlterNet. Posted September 3, 2009.

So much for the economic independence that's supposed to come with young adulthood.




So much for the economic independence that's supposed to come with young adulthood.

But when unemployment among young men workers is the highest it's been in 61 years, as noted by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, it's little wonder that workers under 35 are facing so many economic obstacles.

On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO released the results of a disturbing new Peter Hart survey, "Young Workers: A Lost Decade" that found that about a third of workers under 35 live at home with their parents, and they're far less likely to have health care or job security than they were ten years ago. Even then, in a 1999 survey, when they faced economic insecurity, they still had reasons to be hopeful.

Those days are long gone. A quarter of young workers say they don't earn enough to even pay their monthly bills, a 14% rise from the last survey. As Richard Trumka, the presumptive incoming president of the AFL-CIO, said in a press conference today:

We're calling the report "A Lost Decade" because we're seeing 10 years of opportunity lost as young workers across the board are struggling to keep their heads above water and often not succeeding. They've put off adulthood - - put off having kids, put off education - and a full 34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial reasons.

Thirty-five percent are significantly less likely to have health care than older workers, only 31 percent make enough money to pay their bills while putting anything aside in savings, and almost half are more worried than hopeful about their economic future.

That's one reason that Trumka and other labor leaders announced this week a new outreach campaign to recruit young workers -- and a stepped-up drive for the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform. They're using the upcoming Labor Day, with the expected involvement of 100,000 union members in just the AFL-CIO alone in events and actions, as a launching pad to spur Congressional action. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142386/young_workers_in_free_fall%3A_1_3_under_35_live_with_parents/

She said that most jobs she finds on the internet that will hire recent graduates will not pay enough for her to cover her expenses in the communities where they are located (Washington DC for the most part). She has huge law school debt on top of regular expenses and is looking at jobs that only pay $30,000 per year. That, she says, is on top of a bunch of Capitol Hill jobs that apparently are pro-bono. She says that jobs that pay anything close to a living wage are reserved for those with five years of experience.

Maybe this will convince her to stop being a Republican, but I haven't broached the subject yet.

To get experience you need a good job.

That's a situation I've encountered and it's frustrating, to say the least.

My pal couldn't even get a waitress job at some kind of cheapo fried fish place while she was looking for something else because she'd never been a waitress before. It's a horrible paradox and it's really screwing us over. But, when you explain to older folks how the so-called world of "internships", which have become a prerequisite for everything, is really just a way to make everybody work for free for 6-12 months, they accuse you of "just wanting everything without having to work for it". I didn't know a living wage was such a radical concept.

Lately, when I've seen pieces like this, there has been less of blaming the victim which is progress of a sort. I bet a lot of these young people have hefty student loans to deal with too.

...... this is no way to run a society.

for both daughters. As a result we can't save anything for "retirement", not that we expect to have such a thing. I hope by the time we reach "retirement" age, the kids will be solvent enough to buy our dog food and drop it off at the cardboard box at the highway overpass.

Spare bedrooms are filling up fast.

Even if they aren't living at home, they are still heavily dependent on the parental units.

That people who are willing and able to work can not find jobs. I've been looking for work for the last two years. The thing that I hear the most is that I don't have enough experience. How in the hell am I supposed to get the experience without a job? Am I supposed to wake up one morning and the experience fairy grants me the need experience?

who graduated from college in the mid 70s had a real job until about 1980. The only good thing was the cost of living was lower then.

My tuition at Rutgers University was $200 a semester.

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I'm a boomer, my husband's a boomer, and neither of us, nor our boomer friends and relatives, would ever have even considered voting for those bastards. Many of us were anti-war activists in the 60s and 70s, and remain progressives today.

I can't figure out why you are so eager to blame my generation for everything. There are right wingers and progressives in every generation. The ones who bought the Repuke lies were both young and old. I remember feeling horrified when I started to see far too many young people buying the Reagan garbage hook line and sinker and turning into Republican robots.

If you think all boomers are making out like bandits, think again. You seem to think we are wealthy.

I don't know whether my husband and I will ever get to retire, since we have zero savings and are up to our necks paying our kids' student loans. I've been unemployed for over a year, and absolutely nobody wants to hire a 57-year-old woman, especially when they can hire a 25-year-old (or someone from overseas) for a much lower salary and no benefits. I've worked since I was 14, but I buy clothes at yard sales.

My husband and I are just one major illness or job loss away from bankruptcy. We don't know if the Social Security system that we've paid into all our lives will ever give us a nickel. We don't know if our kids will ever be able to afford houses, let alone help us out if we fall into poverty. We don't know where we will scrape up the money for health insurance for our daughter when she turns 23 next month.

Many boomers are also struggling to take care of aging parents and pay huge nursing home fees, although this is not the case in my family.

Please don't be so hasty to blame my generation.

still at home ( went back to school)technically living at home, son is making $9 an hour for a family of 5. Every penny we had saved for retirement is now gone ( someone had to help feed everybody). I was supposed to be retired right along with hubby but now I need to go back to work to help make ends meet. Yeah we boomers are really living high on the hog. Oh and I nor my hubby ever voted for any republican EVER!

Edited to add.. our insurance (supposed to be good) dropped our dental and vision completely and co-pays went from $25 to $80 and prescriptions are just to expensive to even think about. I just have to forget I'm diabetic and hope for the best.:grr:

but I too grew up disgusted by my parents and inlaws verocious appetite for 'stuff' and excessive living. While they balked at any tax increase, the U.S. infrastructure left to them by their parents has gone to crap and will be left to my generation to fix.

The finger pointing can continue forever, but at the end of the day we're all in the same boat. There are endless examples of the selfishness and shortsightedness of the boomer generation that got us to our current mess and there will be endless opportunities for my gen-X to blow it for our kids. Stay tuned.

Why not stop looking around for people to blame and grow up?

If we do not hold these people responsible generations to come will view this as a viable way of behaving.

Baby boomers tend to vote more Democratic than any generation except those in their 20s.

Gallup Poll article:
May 8, 2009
Democrats Do Best Among Generation Y and Baby Boomers
Republicans do better among Generation X
by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- Although Democrats currently enjoy a party identification advantage over Republicans among Americans at every age between 18 to 85, the Democrats' greatest advantages come among those in their 20s and baby boomers in their late 40s and 50s. Republicans, on the other hand, come closest to parity with Democrats among Generation Xers in their late 30s and early 40s and among seniors in their late 60s.
Link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/118285/Democrats-Best-Among-Generation-Baby-Boomers.aspx?CSTS=alert

Quote from article: "Baby boomers, as is well known, grew up in the tumultuous age of civil rights, Vietnam, Woodstock, and Watergate. It is certainly possible that these events have marked this generation in a more Democratic or liberal direction for life."

As for holding us responsible (For what? For voting Democratic?) what do you envision? Rounding us up into death camps? Please get over yourself.

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I came across and ad for a fast food manager at a local mall. Full time job 35 hours per week. Must have at least three years experience in fast food. Must have dependable transportation and know what Punctual means! Must be willing to work weekends Friday,Saturday and Sunday!$9.50 per hour after 90 days.


I answered this ad only to set a few things straight, first, 35 hours is not full time 40 hours is full time. Second, Friday is not the weekend and $9.50 an hour is not a good wage to pay someone in an obviously hostile work environment. I then pointed out that 35 hours at $9.50 is not enough to keep ones head above water forcing the applicant to be less than punctual because he had to work for another asshole just like this one.

Maybe if this continues long enough, America will finally eliminate the taboo that comes with living with your parents past the age of eighteen. Then I can say I still live with my Grandparents without being looked at as if I were some kind of slime creature that just crawled out of a sewage treatment plant.