Media

At a telephone news conference this Wednesday, three national policy organizations will release the results of a new nationwide, bi-partisan survey of young adults ages 18-34 about higher education’s importance and affordability, student debt, and Congressional proposals to cut Pell Grants or charge interest on federal student loans while borrowers are still in school.  

There is no bigger national challenge right now than putting Americans pack to work, but little agreement on the magic formula that will create the consumer demand needed to jumpstart the economy and spark new hiring. Democrats favor more stimulus, Republicans argue for tax cuts and deregulation.

As I have written on numerous occasions, the evidence is squarely on the Democratic side of the argument. Spending on things like infrastructure, unemployment benefits, and food stamps is a more effective way to create jobs during the current downturn than tax cuts and deregulation.

Sometimes getting it half right means that you got it all wrong. Such is the case with the New York Times' coverage of the Census' Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).

By virtually every measure, the fortunes of America’s young people are falling under a deluge of debt, shrinking opportunity, rising costs of living and lack of access to health care. Writing with members of the Young Invincibles think tank, the authors write:

Occupy Wall Street has already accomplished a great deal by shifting public discourse in this country. Instead of focusing on the need for austerity and deficit reduction, attention is rightly being directed at economic disparities and the deep structural problems that the United States faces.

Demos just released new comprehensive polling about the opinion of young adults. Politically the most interesting data point that stuck out for me is their finding that an overwhelmingly 68 percent of young people say it is harder for them to make ends meet now than it was four years ago. From the poll results:

Facing diminished job opportunities and heavy student-loan debt, today's 20-somethings may be more downwardly mobile than their parents.

Poverty is often described as one of the most intractable problems facing America. That's nonsense. We know how to make big reductions in poverty with clear-cut public policy solutions.