We’ve all grown used to the fact that there are record numbers of people living on government assistance and that record numbers of women are unmarried. Now comes a simple headline that a record number — 36 percent — of young adults aged 18-31, the Millennials, are living with their parents. A just-released Pew Research study boils the data down to reveal that nearly 22 million young adults are unable to afford to become independent adults. The current 36 percent is a “slow but steady” climb from 32 percent in 2007 and 34 percent in 2009.
The percentages of young adults who have jobs or are in college also followed the same type of pattern. More young adults are going to college, and fewer are working in paying jobs. In 2007, college enrollment rose to 35 percent and to 39 percent in 2012. The number of Millennials with jobs was 70 percent in 2007 and only 63 percent in 2012.
More and more young people are choosing not to marry because they don’t think they can afford to get married; instead, far too many become promiscuous or they cohabitate serially. These are the young people who will be underwriting ObamaCare well into their old age and who were the focus of the president’s “Hope and Change” campaign rhetoric. They are learning, the hard way, the importance of listening carefully to politicians and comparing rhetoric to reality.
Unfortunately, their lessons are coming too late and will exact a very high price, not just on them individually, but also on the broader society as well. While many Millennials are sleeping around, they are accumulating emotional and psychological baggage from abortions and physical damage from STDs (record numbers there, too, with nearly 20 million new STD cases annually, with most of them affecting 15- to 25-year-olds). Those who are cohabiting are raising record numbers of children in unstable relationships, and the number of single mothers and children in fatherless homes is setting records as well.
These are not cultural changes that bring hope; instead, they are changes that will wreak lifelong damage on today’s generation and continue emotional, spiritual, and physical havoc well into future generations.
Once again, a simple headline fact screams out, for those in the know, ramifications that affect us all.