Pity the Millennials!

Millennials were already hurting from the 2008 economic crash, which brought the U.S. economy to a standstill, and by the 2010 Obamacare law, which incentivised the creation of part-time jobs over full-time jobs. Now it appears Millennials will bear the economic consequences of dysfunctional immigration policies, too.

“Young Adults: Then and Now,” a recent Census Bureau report on how today’s 18 to 34-year-olds compare with their 1980 peers, is a discouraging set of statistics for Millennials today.
 
Despite rising educational achievement (Bachelor's degrees +6.6%), young people have lost ground economically and in terms of independence, as AEI economist Mark Perry’s summary chart (right) reveals. Compared with their 1980 cohorts, more Millennials are living under their parents' wings (+7.4%), slightly fewer live on their own (-0.4%), and substantially fewer are creating their own families (i.e., marrying -24.4%). Economically, fewer are employed (-4.3%), more live below the poverty line (+5.6%), and their median income is down (-$1,962/year).

The bigger news in the Census Bureau report, however, is in the stunning growth in the percentages of young adults who are foreign-born (6.3% in 1980 vs. 15.4% today), speak a language other than English at home (10.9% in 1980 vs. 24.6% today), and minority (21.6% in 1980 vs. 42.8% today).

The growth in "minority" percentages seems to be entirely due to the Hispanic population. The Census Bureau defines "minority" as all people classified as "Hispanic" and "all people who are races other than White."  Based on Census Bureau data (charted below), non-Hispanic "racial minorities" actually declined from 31.6 million in 1980 to 29.1 million in 2013, while "Hispanic minorities" grew substantially, from 14.6 million in 1980 to 53.9 million in 2013. (Census Bureau data doesn't tell us what percentage of the Hispanic minority is here legally vs. illegally. Perhaps it should.)

In 1986, Congress passed a law giving amnesty to those who had entered the nation illegally before 1982, and the beneficiaries of that law were mostly Hispanic. The law ushered in preferential go-to-the-head-of-the-line treatment to foreign relatives to legally migrate to the U.S. to join those who had received amnesty.

Prospective illegals read the immigration rule changes for what they were – a huge reward for lawless behavior – and the flow of illegals into the country continued unabated. Now President Obama is attempting another mass amnesty of illegals by executive order, although a federal court has blocked his attempt for the moment. [See update below.]

A new report by the business analysis firm IHS, headlined Hispanics Will Account for More than 40 Percent of the Increase in U.S. Employment in the Next Five Years, offers these predictions:

• Hispanic employment growth will average 2.6 percent per year over the next 20 years. 
• The Hispanic share of total U.S. employment will rise from 16% in 2014 to 23% in 2034. 
• By 2020, labor force growth is expected to slow to the point that the annual change in the labor force is roughly equal to the amount of net migration. 
• The number of foreign born Hispanics will grow from 22 million in 2014 to over 29 million in 2034. 

Now we learn from a Congressional Research Service memo obtained by Breitbart that illegal immigrants allowed to get Social Security Numbers as a result of Obama's executive amnesty actions could be eligible to file back tax returns and obtain up to four years of federal welfare benefits amounting to thousands of dollars: for a family with three children, the four-year federal welfare back payment would amount to $35,521.

Pity the Millennials, who were already facing stiff economic headwinds from poor public policy choices of the current and past administrations. If Obama's executive amnesty isn't stopped, they will be paying back their student loans, struggling to get their own careers going, AND paying for very generous new welfare payments to thousands of new amnestied illegals.

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UPDATE:  For more on what's at stake in this court case, see Immigration and the End of the Rule of Law, in which Jonathan Tobin writes, "The stakes in this argument don't merely revolve around the status of illegals. If liberal federal judges and the president are determined to trash the rule of law in this manner, we are on the verge of a full-blown constitutional crisis."

Barone: Information-Age Millennials

Social historian and political trend analyst Michael Barone writes:

The Harvard Institute of Politics has just released its latest survey of Millennials, and reports that among those who say they would definitely vote this year, 51 percent would prefer a Republican-run Congress and 47 percent a Democratic-run Congress. In contrast, in 2010, the IOP poll of Millennials showed that 43 percent favored a Republican-run Congress and 55 percent a Democratic-run Congress. [snip]

This is an information-age generation that wants to customize its own world, that seeks ways to earn success by drawing on their own particular interests and talents. The Obama Democrats have advanced industrial-age policies that have centralized experts making decisions for large masses of people who are treated as identical and very small cogs in a very large machine. That has seemed to me a bad fit. Evidently many Millennials are starting to feel the same way.

Harvard's Revealing Poll of Millennials

The revelations in the latest Harvard Institute of Politics' (IOP) survey of the Millennial generation (MILs, ages 18-29) is surprising the left and the right.

MILs have lost much of their enthusiasm for elections. Paul Bedard writes:

The 25th “Survey of Young Americans' Attitudes Toward Politics and Public Service,” which interviewed 3,058 18- to 29-year-olds, revealed a swing away from Democrats since President Obama's reelection and the last midterm election in 2010. Harvard officials on a media call cited youth disillusionment with Obama. [snip]

Some 44 percent of younger Republicans said they will vote, compared to just 35 percent of younger Democrats, a group that pushed Obama across the finish line in 2012. Black and Hispanics, two other Democratic groups, are even less enthused, with just 19 percent planning to vote.

Overall, younger voters have the blahs, with just 23 percent saying that they will “definitely be voting” in the midterms. That number was 31 percent in 2010 and 36 percent in 2009.

A generation gap between younger MILs (18-24) and older MILs (25-29) is emerging. Michael Barone observes:

In the 2012 election, there was no significant difference between them: Older Millennials voted 60 percent to 38 percent for Obama, younger Millennials 60 percent to 36 percent.

But the Harvard IOP poll shows Obama approval among older Millennials at 48 percent and among younger Millennials at 45 percent. ... There is an even bigger, and statistically significant, difference between the two age cohorts on Hillary Clinton's favorability: 57 percent among older Millennials, 47 percent among younger Millennials. 

Barone hypothesizes that "attitudes continue to be affected by one's first years of interest in politics." Older MILs became politically aware during George W. Bush's unsuccessful term, while younger MILs came of age during Barack Obama's unsuccessful tenure.

MILs now have "historically low" levels of trust in government. Hunter Walker writes:

This chart created by the pollsters shows the steep declines in their "composite trust index," which is the level of trust on average in six different public institutions; the President, the U.S. Military, the Supreme Court, the federal government, and the United Nations. The drop is dramatic [chart by IOP, Harvard.edu]:

Millennials' Employment Prospects

"Our economic struggles," writes Millennial Evan Feinberg, president of the non-partisan Generation Opportunity, "are a direct result of years of an ever-growing regulatory regime, in which reams of red tape are making steady, full-time employment for young people harder to find and more difficult to keep. ... Millennials’ unemployment crisis exists precisely because the opportunity we need and crave is being stifled by the government."

Among the job-killing regulatory examples, Feinberg cites:

• Obamacare — "a frontal assault on young adults' chances of securing a full-time job. ...  The law’s new definition of a full-time work week, at 30 hours per week rather than 40, will make part-time employment more widespread as businesses seeks to avoid financial penalties associated with the law—a process that’s already underway across the country."
• "Growing taxation on businesses—and the uncertainty about where it will stop—has left employers unable to estimate future revenue, thus limiting how much they can hire"
• Environmental Protection Agency's "regulations on coal are killing good middle-class jobs across the country."
• "Government licensing requirements [that] are keeping Millennials from starting businesses or pursuing certain careers."

The regulatory consequences for 18- to 29-year-olds:

• unemployment rate in the last four months averaged 12% -- over 16% if those who are no longer looking are included;
• only 43.6% held a full-time job in June; and fewer college-educated Millennials are holding full time jobs as well; 
• overall 53% are either jobless or underemployed relative to their education; and
• 36% are still living at home with their parents.

Could Millennials be the Next 'Greatest Generation'?

Since we work with young college-age women, we tend to follow polls and trends of the 18 to 30 age group. Recent articles suggest those under age 30 — the Millennial generation — are facing tough times, and it's causing them to undergo the kind of philosophical shift that often occurs when reality overwhelms ideals. Could the tough times forge the Millennials into the next 'greatest generation'?