America Has Abandoned Its Young People

When a society forsakes its young people, offering them basically nothing to help them start their adult lives, that society no longer has any reason to exist. What is the purpose of a society if not to maintain continuity between current and future generations? Who would have children if they knew in advance that their kids would lead lives far worse than theirs had been? That is the situation we face in the United States today.

America's Middle Class is shrinking. The problem is not merely that people are dropping out it. It's also the case that most young Americans will never get there. For those who get a college degree, there is often only a mountain of debt and a poor-paying job to look forward to. College tuitions are now inflating at a rate which boggles the mind. CNN Money recently published Stop the tuition madness (hat tip Bill Hicks).

... colleges are bidding up tuition prices faster than a hedge fund manager at an art auction. Over the past 10 years the cost of private college has jumped more than 60%, nearly three times as much as incomes over the same period, and will now set you back $42,000 a year on average.

Prices at public colleges have shot up even more, nearly doubling to $21,000 for in-state students. Got younger kids? By 2020 you're looking at a four-year bill that's likely to top $240,000 for private schools and $155,000 at public universities. Sure there's financial aid, but scholarships aren't keeping up with tuition inflation. So long, retirement hopes; hello again, boss.

Your children will suffer, too, if they're forced to start their adult lives with onerous debt. "Student loans can affect every decision young adults make: whether they can go to graduate school, buy a house, even start a family," says Patrick Callan, president of the Higher Education Policy Institute.

It doesn't have to be this way...

The rest of the CNN Money article enumerates "innovative" ways in which college might become affordable again. Let's cut through the hopeful bullshit. Nothing gets fixed in America anymore. Nothing! When was the last time a major problem is this country got fixed? You can't remember, can you? A long time ago I tried to capture this tragic insight in my Wheel of Suffering (below).

Original Caption—As problems become more intractable over time, our resistance to making real changes to confront those problems, our social inertia, becomes more entrenched. Thus the solution to debt-based economic problems is more debt...

And what's the problem we're going to fix this time? By 2020 parents are looking at a four-year bill that's likely to top $240,000 for private schools and $155,000 at public universities. Let me know when this problem has been fixed. Colleges raise tuition because they can! It's supply & demand, as though a college education were the same as Apple iShit. There are no constraints on tuition inflation outside its cost, but easily available loans are guaranteed by the Federal government, so price is apparently no object. Student loans are expected to top the one trillion dollar mark this year ($1,000,000,000,000). See my posts The College Degree Scam and The College Degree Scam Goes Ballistic.

At what point will young people be unwilling to take on so much debt? They are willing to take on this outrageous debt even in the face of a very uncertain job future because the alternative seems so much worse—not going to college.

The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task interviewed Tamara Draut, who describes the plight of those who never get a college degree (video below). The traditional route to a Middle Class life was in manufacturing jobs, but we've been losing those for about 35 years now, and wages are falling. See my post Manufacturing — A Story Of America's Decline. I should also note that the aforementioned Apple iShit is manufactured in China. If it weren't, this already expensive crap would be completely out of the reach of most American "consumers". There's the "genius" of Steve Jobs.

Draut calls the current tragic jobs situation "a depression-style crisis" for young Americans.

[The jobs situation] is especially bad for America's young workers, who are facing a "depression-era crisis," according to Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and program for Demos and author of Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead.

"It's become harder for anyone of this generation to either work or educate their way into the middle class," Draut tells The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task in the accompanying clip.

The result has been higher than average unemployment in this group. In 2010, the unemployment rate among 17-24 year olds was 17.3%. The reality is even worse for minorities. Latinos of that age suffered 20.1% jobless rate; for African-Americans it was 28.8%.

Draut says the country's declining manufacturing base is to blame for the plight of young Americans. "We've lost the ability to have a blue collar middle class," Draut says.

Without a college diploma it's nearly impossible to find work that affords a middle class life. "Today, young men with only a high school degree are earning 25% less than their parents."

In 1980, a man without only a high school degree earned about $39,000 per year. In 2010, the average salary had fallen to $30,000.

Thus the salary of a man with a high school degree has dropped about 25% over the last 30 years. But of course we can solve this problem!

How do we solve the problem?
The key, according to Draut, is to invest in infrastructure. If it worked in the Great Depression it will work again. Draut claims it's more than coincidence that the dwindling middle class comes at a time of steady "disinvestment in infrastructure." To that point, Draut calls for a W.P.A. program for the entire country.
Task wonders if we should take it one step further and reinstate the draft.

There it is again! The Hope! Sure, we'll just spend a few trillion dollars rebuilding our infrastructure, create a W.P.A. for the entire country. These appropriations are just going to fly through the Congress with no strings attached. And then we'll re-instate the draft. Unemployed young people can get their asses shot off fighting Muslims in a foreign land. Good idea!

Revisit the Wheel of Suffering and my remarks just above. Again, let me know when these problems have been fixed. The only reasonable conclusion here is that most Americans live in Disney Land.

America has effectively abandoned its young people. Any society that does that is not a society worth saving.