I’m always surprised by how naive Kevin Drum is, and how willing he is to shit on millennials. Of course, he supports Hillary because he is depending on and supportive of the inegalitarian governmental and financial coddling of older generations. For this reason it is almost required that such an ex ante status quo supporter be a Clintonista as it is hugely in his privileged interest that she win because a terrible and unthinkable tragedy like his house falling 5% in value might occur if she doesn’t.
But in this article, he really just has no clue about why millennials are voting in such overwhelming numbers for Bernie Sanders. The stats he gathered are useless for discovering that — and many things can’t be found in stats at all.
However, if Drum had bothered looking any deeper than the shallow puddle of his insight, he could’ve examined job tenure numbers for a starter. The Forbes piece frames job-hopping as a choice, but most of the time it’s not — it’s lay-offs, being replaced with H-1bs, being forced to move from bad job to bad job and city to city to survive.
Or Drum could’ve taken a gander at housing costs and how millennials often can’t afford to buy or rent. In 1960, for instance, it was easily possible to afford the average apartment in nearly any city with a part-time job.
There is nowhere in the US where this is now possible. Nowhere with jobs, at least.
The three things that are most vital to establishing a good life are now out of reach or very, very expensive for most millennials: housing, education and reliable health care (no, the ACA didn’t really help with this).
In addition, what jobs exist are far more precarious, more demanding and less reliable than what their parents or grandparents knew.
And outside of the stats (which actually matter more than the numbers, as stats are always post hoc), it’s clear that climate change is going to absolutely torpedo their lives, as it won’t the Boomers because they’ll all be dead by then.
The millennials are perfectly aware that the Boomers have been for decades and are currently looting the future while destroying the planet, and then telling the younger generations (as Drum does) that they are entitled and ungrateful if they object to these facts.
Doesn’t take a damn genius to see why they vote against someone like Clinton who is promising more of the same, with some added unnecessary wars thrown in.
Or for something more concise if you are dismissive of my massive missive, check out this tweet from a friend of mine that explains it all pretty well.
Where would you say you and your partner fall in this generational evaluation?
The Forbes piece frames job-hopping as a choice, but most of the time it’s not — it’s lay-offs, being replaced with H-1bs, being forced to move from bad job to bad job and city to city to survive.
H1-Bs? Try “artificially keeping people at part-time if employees and misclassifying people as 1099s.” H1-Bs are also another form of perma-temps, imho.
Incidentally, it seems like tech workers should be ripe for unionization, but pretty much nobody I know in tech is so inclined. On the other hand I know a lot of libertarians or libertarian leaners who work in tech. Why is that?
I’m not a millennial, and I got very lucky by some things I did early in working life that insulated me from a lot of exogenous shocks. And made some lucky career decisions as well (picking the right time to go into IT vs. stay in journalism), so I have done ok and don’t have much to worry about.
My partner is a millennial (older millennial), but she happened to go into a career field that hasn’t yet been gutted and since she’s getting mid-career now is also mostly insulated from the worst of the economic tribulations affecting younger workers.
But again, this was mostly luck. If she’d started her working career two years later by graduating then, it would’ve been in the middle of the Great Recession and her career prospects would’ve been much worse.
Can’t depend on luck for the survival and flourishing of millions, is I guess what I’m saying. Those only a few years older and in different careers than my partner are and me will be much worse off.
“The three things that are most vital to establishing a good life are now out of reach or very, very expensive for most millennials: housing, education and reliable health care ”
Thank you for this. I think I finally understand the appeal of Sanders which I never got before. No longer living in the US I forget how much has changed.
“what jobs exist are far more precarious, more demanding and less reliable than what their parents or grandparents knew.”
Also this. Employers want some kind of unlimited loyalty (far beyond what they pay deserves) without any reciprocity.
I’m also thinking this is part of the equality-inequality cycle. The previous equivalent to the current cultural climate is the gilded age which also featured high immigration, lots of status striving and inequality (which comes from the other two). I was lucky enough to be born during the great compression which was very different.
I think most entering a career in the mid- to late-90s are much better off than those immediately after.
If I were younger, going into IT would not have been an option. As someone uninterested in a college degree, at the time it worked great for me. Now, though, the field is being eviscerated domestically just like manufacturing was, and most entry-level jobs are being automated away or are going to India and China.
Or Mexico — the very company I work for has most of its Level 1 Operations in Mexico. There is literally no career path in the US from that level up. That is going to become true of more fields, too, so that there is no base of experience to draw from in the US. That won’t lead to good things.
I was very lucky to enter the IT field when I did. I wouldn’t advise it now for most.
Yes. These are the reasons, although I am older and want these things. It was actually in the 1970s that they started to become less attainable. The 80s were a dizzying downward spiral.