Whatever Happened to the Good Life?

Since we're accustomed to thinking of young people and students as the shock troops of social change, explaining youthful inertia has become a national preoccupation (sadly, we expect impassivity from the middle aged). Many point to the absence of a draft as a motivating factor. Others cite the lack of contemporary examples of successful collective action to inspire faith in the efficacy of protest. But more often than not, the problem is conceived as cultural. The emerging generation, of which I am part, is post-Watergate, post-Monica Lewinsky, and weaned on irony and satire. We expect the government to deceive us and are hardly surprised, let alone outraged, when these expectations are met. Others argue that young people aren't particularly self-absorbed or apathetic; they're overworked and indebted. Today's twenty- and thirty-somethings are so busy struggling to make ends meet, they simply don't have time to take to the streets.

The latter theory has gained traction with the recent publication of three thoughtfully argued books: Tamara Straut's Strapped, Anya Kamenetz's Generation Debt, and Daniel Brook's The Trap (subtitled Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America). Compared to our parents at the same age, these authors contend, we're working longer hours for less money, reduced job security, slashed benefits and fewer social services. Over the last four decades, opportunities for social mobility have declined dramatically, with wealth concentrating to a degree not seen since the Gilded Age.

In other words, it's getting harder and harder to stay -- let alone join -- America's crumbling middle class. Today's minimum wage is worth 30 percent less than it was in 1968. According to Draut, "if wages had kept pace with rising productivity between 1968 and 2000, the average hourly wage would have been $24.56 in 2000, rather than $13.74." Instead -- and particularly in fields with a social service component -- salaries have failed to keep pace with inflation and benefits, like health insurance or retirement funds, are elusive rarities. Meanwhile the cost of living has skyrocketed. Between 1995 and 2002, median rents in urban centers like San Francisco, Boston, and New York surged by sixty or seventy percent. The price tag on a simple studio in these cities is well over a thousand dollars a month. Finally, a college degree, often regarded as the key to a middle class lifestyle, costs more than ever before. In the 1960s and 1970s, when many quality public universities were free, Pell Grants covered nearly three-quarters of college tuition; today, the percentage has fallen to one-third. At the same time, tuition has outpaced inflation three times over since 1980. As a result, the average student leaves a four-year college with over $20,000 in educational debt; a graduate degree means $45,000.

As a member of "generation debt," I know these frustrations firsthand. It's hard to feel footloose when your owe $40,000 in student loans and haven't even started chipping away at the interest. I've had to move back in with Mom and Dad when housing costs were too much to cover. I haven't had health insurance in eight years and saving for retirement isn't even on the horizon. But are things that bad? Am I really so oppressed? Unlike twenty percent of the world's population, my basic necessities are covered. I've got food, clothing, shelter, and then some. I'm typing this on a G4 titanium laptop. I have a cellphone. I've traveled the world.

The fact is, even though young people today are making less, we're spending more. Between 1979 and 1990, the spending of the average person working for minimum wage increased by 30 percent. Generation Y has an inordinate amount of buying power in the United States: $175.1 billion dollars per year, much of which is wielded during the twenty plus hours a week they're online. And supposedly we have no time for activism? It makes sense that in a society where young people carry supersized debt, they expect a supersized lifestyle. Though generally inhabited by fewer people, the typical new American home is 40 percent larger than it was 25 years ago. The same period has seen the quadrupling of retail space per capita, which says something profound about rates of consumption. Jumbo SUVs, loaded with luxury options, make up half of all private vehicles on the road. Pleasure and vacation travel have become standard. Air conditioning in dorm rooms, a smorgasbord of dining options, extravagant fitness centers to work off those extra calories -- all amenities unimaginable back when college was cheap.