Introduction to Sociology

MILLENNIALS AND POVERTY

Millennials, or Americans born between 1982 and 2000, now number 83.1 million and represent more than one quarter of the nation’s population. Young adults today are marrying at lower rates than previous generations, and self-reports suggest that a lack of economic security including wages, poverty, and housing (e.g., housing costs and living arrangements) are all associated with lower marriage rates among young adults. ^[3]. According to Pew Research (2017) more millennial households are in poverty than households headed by any other generation. In 2016, of the approximate 17 million U.S. household living in poverty, 5.3 million were headed by a millennial.^[4]

Figure 5. Millennials face greater rates of poverty when compared with other generations.

Most developed countries such as the United States protect their citizens from absolute poverty by providing different levels of social services such as unemployment insurance, welfare, food assistance, and so on. They may also provide job training and retraining so that people can reenter the job market. In the past, the elderly were particularly vulnerable to falling into poverty after they stopped working; however, pensions, retirement plans, and Social Security were designed to help prevent this. A major concern in the United States is the rising number of young people growing up in poverty. Growing up poor can cut off access to the education and services people need to move out of poverty and into stable employment. As we saw, more education was often a key to stability, and those raised in poverty are the ones least able to find well-paying work, perpetuating a cycle.

There is a lively debate about how much support local, state, and federal governments should give to help the unemployed and underemployed. The decisions made on these issues will have a profound effect on working in the United States.