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Young people are already facing the worst entry-level job market since the start of the pandemic and significant economic instability.
But overall economic conditions are making it more challenging for those just entering adulthood. More than eight in 10 young adults rate the economy as “bad” or “terrible”, according to a recent survey conducted with more than 1,000 18- to 34-year-olds around the US by Generation Lab, a research firm studying young people. While young adulthood is known as a time for establishing independence and responsibility, many are attempting to do so amid cuts to social safety net programs and the ever-increasing costs of basic needs like gas and groceries.
“It’s been rough for a long time,” said Nia West-Bey, executive director of the National Collaborative for Transformative Youth Policy. “But I think we particularly have a confluence of long-term economic challenges on the income side and support side, now coupled with an increase in expenses on everything.”
Not only is this the point where people are supposed to establish themselves as adults, said West-Bey, but young people generally have fewer resources to fall back on. “[It’s] demoralizing to be trying to establish yourself in this time of life, and just not seeing a way – and not having seen a way, maybe, even anytime in your lifetime,” West-Bey said.
Cloud Benn, 23, lives in New Orleans, and wanted to move out after graduating college, but housing costs made that impossible. Benn is working two retail jobs and another as a writing tutor, while paying their mom rent. Popular media depicts adulthood as leaving your parents’ house, getting an apartment and having enough left for groceries, Benn said: “We were fed that; we were told, hey, this is what adulthood is.”
But the reality feels dystopian, they said. Benn and their partner are saving to move in together next year. “Even if you plan it down to the penny, nine times out of 10, it’s never enough, especially in this economy,” they said. Benn is the same age as their mother was when she moved out: “She worked her ass off, got her own place and everything, and now I’m her age, working my ass off, [and] still can’t get my own place.”
Also in Generation Lab’s survey, respondents were asked who they assign the most blame to for the current economic conditions. A whopping 41% cited Donald Trump and 31% said “corporate greed and large companies”.
Still, it is not unusual for it to be difficult to become financially independent for the first time, says Kassandra Martinchek, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, but she added: “What’s unique about this moment is that there’s some challenges that may not have been present for other cohorts of young people.”
Martinchek says now, there is pressure on resources young adults have, income from jobs may be less reliable, and it is harder to get connected to work, on top of cost pressures. When viewed in contrast with the period before the start of the pandemic, young adults are navigating a whole new context when trying to become financially stable, Martinchek said.
Notably, starting a working life during an economic downturn can have long-term effects.
“We know that people who start their careers during these sort of economic downturn periods, or difficult economic periods, in some cases never catch up to their peers who graduated a few years earlier, before things went bad, or a few years later, when things start to turn around,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the non-profit Groundwork Collaborative. “These [economic] scarring effects are really real, and have real staying power.”
Tanajia Moye-Green, a 25-year-old PhD student in California, said that academic fellowships translate to her barely having enough to survive. As a first-generation, low-income student who tries to send money to her family whenever possible, everything has always felt expensive. “Ultimately when you’re a Black woman, there is no stability anywhere, especially in this day and age,” she said.
Recently, Moye-Green, who is disabled, needed to go to the emergency room by ambulance. “I just went with my friend; she drove us, because I knew I couldn’t afford that,” she said.
Green thinks about the urgency of building community, and reminding those in government that they are accountable to people they serve. “I care about all those people out there who are feeling it even worse than I am,” she said.
Raven Khreis, a 19-year-old college student who is home for the summer in Buffalo, New York, said gas was nearly $5 a gallon for her. She and her friends have been carpooling to save and still be able to hang out together. Khreis, who works as a restaurant hostess and in an unpaid internship she hopes will help with career goals, says she and her friends discuss “how most of us feel pretty uncertain of when we will be able to actually move out into an apartment or a home of our own”.
Shaniya Taylor, 21, lives with her mother in Florida. She said electricity bills were one of her biggest expenses, noting that Florida Power & Light enacted a big rate hike. She earned her associate’s degree and would love to go to a four-year college out of her home town. But housing would cost more than her monthly paycheck from the non-profit where she works. Stepping into adulthood amid such a high cost of living “feels scary”, she said.
West-Bey pointed to data from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle) after the 2024 election, which named economic conditions as a top issue for young people.
“It is really difficult to do long-term planning for your future that young people want and need to do, and is developmentally appropriate, if you don’t know where you’re going to lay your head at night, if you don’t know what you’re going to eat the next day,” said West-Bey.
