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More than a third of young adults have delayed going to college because of difficult economic conditions in the United States, says a report released on Wednesday by the progressive nonprofit organization Demos and the advocacy group Young Invincibles. Exactly half of 18-to-24-year-olds reported less than $5,000 in total debt; 8 percent owed more than $25,000, according to the report, “The State of Young America,” which also collects data on college-completion rates, tuition and student loans, and employment and health insurance.

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.

While the expansion of health insurance to young adults has been one of the consistently positive stories around the ACA, a new report points out the news isn’t all that good. The rate of full-time workers between 18 and 24 years old with employer-sponsored insurance dropped 12.8 percent over the past decade, while dropping 8.5 percent for workers ages 25 to 34.

The report’s first chapter, Jobs and the Economy, explores how long-term trends and the current tumultuous economic environment has taken a toll on young Americans’ employment prospects, paychecks, and ultimately their earnings for years to come. Unemployment and underemployment rates for young Americans remain dangerously high, and almost 60 percent of employed young people say they would like to work more hours. At the same time, there is also a clear wage pay gap, gender pay gap, and education pay gap. 

A new report from Demos looking at The Economic State of Young America shows that “average [higher education] tuition is three times higher today than in 1980.” “Average tuition at public 4-year colleges was $7,600 in the 2010 academic year, up from $2,100 in 1980,” the report notes, while “average tuition at private 4-year colleges nearly tripled in a generation, increasing from $9,500 in the 1980 academic year to $27,300 in 2010.” At the same time, the federal Pell Grant is covering an ever smaller percentage of th

All sorts of big life decisions are postponed as well, especially within minority groups. Almost half have delayed purchasing a home, a third have delayed moving out on their own or starting a family and a quarter have delayed getting married.

NEW YORK-- Today's 20-somethings are the first generation, as a whole, to face downward economic mobility compared to their parents' generation, according to a new report from national policy center Demos and youth advocacy organization Young Invincibles.

One enduring mystery of the Republican Party's extreme anti-tax position is who they are speaking for? Does any substantial swath of the American public really oppose tax increases so much that they want this option completely off the table as a means for taming the deficit?

Republican leaders in Congress like to talk about the need to foster more economic "certainty" and "reassure" the markets. Just yesterday, for example, House Speaker John Boehner appealed for cutting social insurance programs on the grounds that "Nothing – nothing – would send a more reassuring message to the markets than taking bipartisan steps to fix the structural problems in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security."