Diapers for 26-Year-Olds

[Ubiquitous]

By David N. Bass

So long as Millennials fail to grow up, their economic plight is
unlikely to improve.

Ask anyone above the age of 50 whether "young worker" has become an
oxymoron, and they'll say yes. Now, there is hard data to back up the
assertion.

In the teeth of the Great Recession, recent college graduates -- those
in the Millennial generation, born in the 1980s and 1990s -- are
floundering in a hellish job market. Recent Census figures show that the
employment rate among young adults is 55.3 percent, the lowest rate
since the end of World War II. One-in-five young adults live in poverty.
Teen unemployment stands at 25 percent.

The Associated Press dubs it "the lost generation." But is it really?
And if so, who's to blame? Putting aside the media's victim meme, there
are many reasons for my generation's predicament (I'm 25), plenty of
them a direct result of our own choices.

It's a given that macroeconomic forces beyond the power of an individual
are curtailing Millennials' opportunities for financial stability. The
job market is flooded with older, more experienced workers jockeying for
the same entry-level positions that college graduates desire. The cost
of basic needs -- groceries, housing, clothing, and gas -- has spiked.
Wages are stagnant. Due to the federal government's spendthrift ways, my
generation faces a debt-saturated future.

But young people also are lagging because of self-inflicted wounds:
Massive student-loan debt, high consumer credit card balances, frequent
changing of jobs because of boredom, poor work ethic, entitlement
attitudes, heightened standard-of-living expectations, preoccupation
with self-esteem, and delay of marriage and parenthood.

Consider: In 2009, the average four-year college graduate owed $24,000
in student-loan debt. That's sustainable if a student leaves school with
a degree in a high-demand field -- say, nursing or engineering -- paying
a decent salary right out of the gate. But for liberal arts majors who
often spend the first year (if not more) of post-college life waiting
tables, it's financial hara-kiri.

It doesn't stop at student loans, though. Graduates leave school, on
average, with thousands in credit card debt. Throw in an auto loan, and
the debt-to-income ratio goes off the charts. It's tough to get ahead in
that financial scenario.

Do we care? Not really. In fact, the debt burden gives Millennials a
self-esteem boost. "Researchers found that the more credit card and
college loan debt held by young adults aged 18 to 27, the higher their
self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their
lives," according to a study published by Ohio State University.

Faced with no job prospects, 20-somethings often go to graduate school,
amassing even more student-loan debt. Those who do secure a job are more
likely to switch because they're bored or hope to find the mythical
perfect job.

"They have high, unrealistic expectations," Lee Jenkins, a manager
partner of Atlanta Capital Group, told USA Today. "And many of them
don't manage money very well."

In many cases, there is the expectation of a fat salary in exchange for
phoned-in job performance -- and we're not afraid to admit it. A Pew
Research Center study found that Baby Boomers' favorite identifying mark
was their work ethic, while only 5 percent of my generation reported the
same. In contrast, 24 percent of Millennials chose "technology use," 11
percent "music/pop" culture," and 7 percent "liberal/tolerant" as their
mark of distinction.

I can think of many things I'd like to be remembered for. "Technology
use" isn't one of them.

A New York Times story from 2009 showed that many college graduates are
turning down positions that don't meet a set of unrealistic
expectations. One Syracuse University graduate rejected a $50,000-a-year
job at a consulting firm "because he hadn't connected well with his
potential bosses." Connection is for your spouse or cell phone, not your
supervisor in a more-than-decent-paying job.

In a comprehensive review of Millennials' jobs plight, the Atlantic
concluded that my generation has high income expectations mixed with low
work expectations:

Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San
Diego State University, has carefully compared the attitudes
of today's young adults to those of previous generations when
they were the same age. Using national survey data, she's
found that to an unprecedented degree, people who graduated
from high school in the 2000s dislike the idea of work for
work's sake, and expect jobs and career to be tailored to
their interests and lifestyle. Yet they also have much higher
material expectations than previous generations, and believe
financial success is extremely important.

The 20s are a great time to "cast about" in search of a life calling,
but the exploration needs to end at some point. In contemporary culture,
that decade has become a second adolescence, a notion reinforced by
Obamacare's extension of parents' health-insurance benefits to
26-year-olds. Adults find a job and stick with it, even on bad days when
it doesn't help them self-actualize.

Prior to the Sexual Revolution, young men and women had excellent
reasons to keep a job and work hard: family responsibilities. In the
1940s, men on average married at age 24 and women at 22. Now, it stands
at age 28 for men and 26 for women. Increasingly, those who do get
married delay childbearing.

Once seen as a benchmark that signified passage to adulthood, marriage
meant leaving parents and assuming responsibility for another human
being. It was, and still is, a stabilizing influence on society. But
with Millennials' delay of marriage has come a delay of adulthood. If no
job is waiting after they graduate college, or if it's a job they don't
like, Millennials can always move back in with mom and dad.

"It's a safety net -- or safety diaper -- that allows kids to quickly
opt out of a job they don't like," said reporter Morley Safer on 60
Minutes.

Columnist Ruben Navarrette, writing on CNN.com, neatly summarized the
tendency: "Many millennials have been known to hold out for the perfect
job at the perfect company with the perfect salary and a clear path to
the vice presidency, even if that means crashing with mom and dad well
into their 20s."

So much for the independent American work ethic. More times than not, it
isn't until we've amassed burdensome debt or frittered away our 20s
playing video games and buying $5 lattes that we understand that real
life doesn't work that way.

It's time we stopped blaming external forces for our economic woes.
Every generation has faced its version of a "raw deal" -- whether it was
the Great Depression and World War II for the Greatest Generation, or
the Vietnam War and stagflation for the Boomers.

What matters is whether we shrug off the victim mentality and get our
hands dirty making a better life for our loved ones and ourselves.


--
"If Barack Obama isn't careful, he will become the Jimmy Carter of the
21st century."