Anya Kamenetz Generation Debt

A few weeks ago I took a train all the way up the beautiful Hudson River to visit an upstate New York community college.

The snowy, wooded campus was populated by students and faculty who clearly cared a lot about their school but lamented how economic pressures detract from the learning environment. They talked about students in their mid twenties who are struggling to balance school with full-time jobs, family pressures, and even childcare.

All too often, these students are sitting through classes tired and disengaged, looking at the programs as nothing more than a means to acquire a certain income, but not having a clear understanding of how to get from here to there. It's gotten so bad that the college even held an event for students titled, "Why Are You Here?"

The problems on this campus exemplified some of the issues of Generation Debt. Community colleges, after all, are educating half of our nation's college students. And I had come here to talk about a specific set of solutions -- political solutions. I believe young people have a chance to really make an impact in this presidential election, and our agenda is first and foremost economic.

There are 43 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 29. The stereotype that youth are apathetic is far outdated. Youth voter did take a dive after 1972, which was, ironically, when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. It kept going down, down, down, until 2000. But while a generational gap does persist, between 2000 and 2004, turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds jumped from 40 percent to 49 percent of eligible voters, according to CIRCLE.

Young People Rocking the Vote

And in this year's primaries, young voters are turning out in record numbers. For example, in Iowa, where Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) scored his first-in-the-nation victory, his margin of victory in the caucuses was easily accounted for by the very high youth turnout in that state.

Youth voter turnout tripled in Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Florida, and Georgia; nearly tripled in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Texas; and doubled in California, Louisiana, and Massachusetts. Polls show that young people are following this election just as closely as older voters.

Just as it's a myth that young people don't care about voting, it's equally untrue that they don't care about economic issues. In late February a nationwide poll by Rock the Vote found that jobs/the economy was the single top issue named by voters under 30. Education/cost of college and health care/prescriptions also made it into the top four issues, along with Iraq.

Young voters are right on; these are the same Generation Debt issues that I write about in this column week after week.

The economy: In the current job market, young men are earning on average 12 percent less -- after inflation -- than their fathers a generation ago. Workers under 25 are twice as likely to be serving time in a temporary, part-time, contract, freelance, or other job that's not quite a real job.

Education: The cost of higher education, of course, is a very serious concern. On the one hand, the penalty for not going to college is higher than it's ever been. Workers with a bachelor's degree are earning about $50,000 a year, and high school dropouts average just $23,000. On the other hand, over the past 30 years, after inflation, private and public college tuition has doubled. And the way we pay for college has changed, too, with two-thirds of students now borrowing an average in the five figures to get that degree.

Health Care: Young people are also the largest and fastest-growing group in the country without health insurance. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 42 percent of young people are very worried about being able to afford the health services they think they need. Only 30 percent of those 50 and older share that sentiment.

What Will the Candidates Do?

So young people are fired up about this election, and they understand the real bread-and-butter economic issues that unite them as a generation. The question is whether the candidates they support are going to give them the policy answers they need.

Realistically, the ability of the federal government to reverse the Generation Debt problems is limited in many ways. Our leaders can't do much to ward off the coming recession. They can't put up trade barriers to halt the progress of globalization and increasingly high-skilled jobs going overseas. They can't roll back time and provide us with the same high-wage, unionized manufacturing jobs our grandparents enjoyed, or create another run-up in house prices that will make us safe and sound in retirement. Nor can politics take the place of personal financial responsibility and integrity.

But there is a lot the federal government can and should do to level the playing field for young people. One platform is outlined in a recent issue of The American Prospect -- see economist Robert Kuttner's piece "An Economic Compact for the Young."

Here's my take on the youth political agenda:

We need more aid for higher education. Our grandparents and then our parents benefited from huge expansions in federal student aid: The GI Bill in 1944 sent 8 million people to college. And in 1965, after the Higher Education Act was passed, the number of college grads doubled in 10 years.

Today, both Democratic presidential candidates have proposals to cut the big-business subsidies out of the student loan system, increase need-based grants and tax credits for education, and make sure aid is distributed more efficiently.

The Major Issues

I've become increasingly convinced that we need some measures targeting colleges, too, to compel transparency about tuition increases, and to distribute student aid in a way that addresses the problem of access. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has also proposed a "Youth Opportunity Agenda" program to strengthen vocational and craft education, as well as mentoring and support, to get young people into the types of non-bachelor's degree jobs that can provide a great living and can't be exported out of the country.

A workable universal health care system would help young workers along with everyone else. Both Clinton and Obama have plans, the merits of which have been debated. The Obama plan may provide more options to young people, who have lower health care costs, to buy cheaper coverage.

To address the job market, some Democrats have proposed strengthening the ability of workers to unionize. The traditional labor movement played an important role in creating America's middle class, and I believe in the right of human capital to exert collective bargaining power. But I think we need a more portable, public-private system of benefits, voluntary association, protection, and mutual aid to fit the way people work today -- something like what's championed by the Freelancers Union.

Finally, there is one major generational issue that the Republicans are just talking more about: fiscal responsibility. Resolving our record national debt and making the necessary cuts to bring Social Security and Medicare into balance will have a huge economic impact on the young and future generations. While Obama and Clinton's platforms talk about "protecting" Social Security benefits, Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) Web site speaks the truth: "Promises made to previous and current generations have placed the United States on an unsustainable budget pathway."

If you're a young person interested in getting involved in politics, check out these resources:

YouthBuild, focused on low-income youth, will hold a political conference on April 1 in DC and present a "Declaration of Interdependence."

May will see the Better Deal Conference, also in DC and for youth activists, on "Reclaiming Economic Security for a New Generation."

Rock the Vote, Mobilize.org, and Campus Progress are three more groups working on activating young people in this election.

And, finally -- don't forget to vote!