Archive: Opinions

"The share of young adults who lived in their parents’ home stayed about the same level in 1980, 1990 and 2000 (at about a quarter)," says a post by the U.S. Census Bureau.  "Since 2000, however, the proportion has shot up, from 23 percent to 30 percent."

Yike!  The stereotype of grown kids mooching off their parents is slowly morphing into a new view that the economy is preventing young people from gaining financial independence, and forcing parents to support their children at increasingly greater ages.  As a parent (whose kids are not living at home, but are, like all of us, struggling to pay their bills), that is very worrisome.

When I was young and I speculated with friends on whether we felt it was fair to bring our potential future children into our pessimistic view of the world, the logical answer seemed to be no.  As part of a generation that has seen the cold war with its threat of nuclear annihilation (remember those Civil Defense Drills that seemed to imply that crouching under our school desks would protect us from a nuclear blast?), a series of regional wars, and the rise of terrorism, it still seems like no may have been a reasonable answer.  But many of us had children anyway, and I don't think any of us regret that.

A year ago Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan publicly posted an optimistic letter to their daughter that said, in part, "While headlines often focus on what's wrong, in many ways the world is getting better. Health is improving. Poverty is shrinking. Knowledge is growing. People are connecting. Technological progress in every field means your life should be dramatically better than ours today. We will do our part to make this happen, not only because we love you, but also because we have a moral responsibility to all children in the next generation."

There is no doubt that their daughter will do just fine.  But how optimistic are other parents?  Are our kids going to be better off than we were?

A lot of Americans say no.  Statistics seem to say no.  Or give a mixed review.  If you go by the single metric of whether kids will earn more than their parents the outlook is bleak.  The Census Bureau reports that the world was both better and worse for the next generation using more than just that one indicator.  They reported that young adults are better educated than previous generations, but poorer. 

	The Census Bureau maintains an online tool called Young Adults Then and Now.  It measures the population of Americans from ages 18 to 34, their median earnings, the percentage living with their parents, those living in poverty, how many are married, their level of education, employment, and other metrics, and breaks the data down by state.

"Although today’s typical 18- to 34-year-old earns about $2,000 less per year (adjusted for inflation) than their counterpart in 1980, the range varies widely across the country," says a Census Bureau blog post. "Among the states with the largest growth in earnings for young adults is Massachusetts where they earn $6,500 more, and Virginia where they earn $4,100 more than the average young adult earned 30 years ago. Among the lowest are Michigan, Wyoming and Alaska where young adults earn at least $9,000 less than they did 30 years ago."

According to a 2013 Pew study, Americans retain their trademark optimism about the country's core values and its economic outlook over the long term.  But the poll also showed that two in three Americans across the economic spectrum felt that their own children would be worse off than their parents when they grow up.  In 20112 42% said their children would be better off than they were, but a year later that number had sunk to 28%.  The most recent CNN/ORC poll showed 57% of Americans saying the country is doing poorly.

A Stanford University study last year showed that the number of children earning more than their parents fell from 90% from kids born in the 1940s to 50% for kids born in the 1980s, with males seeing the most pronounced decreases.  The study showed that almost all men born in the 1940s earned more than their parents, but only 41% of men born in the 1980s did.

So what's the deal?  Would it have been smarter not to bring children into the bleak world?  No, not smarter, not smart at all.

First of all, if we don't have any children there won't be any world.  It's kind of like what they say about the lottery: you can't win if you don't play.  Our kids have much better life prospects than winning the lottery, because they are bright and have the enthusiasm of youth.  The economy might be against them now, but America has always been about meeting challenges and doing better.

"Kids are my heart," said First Lady Michelle Obama on a recent episode of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.  "When I think about the fact that some of them are afraid about what's to come, I don't want them to be afraid.  I want them to embrace the future and know that the world is getting better.  We have bumps in the road, we have ups and downs, but I want our kids to move forward -- I don't care where they come from -- with strength and hope."

That was one of the most inspiring views of our kids' futures I have heard, because it reflects faith in the new generation that it has it within its power to make the world better again.