Generation Y Bother

In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, co-authored by Todd Buchholz, an economist, Harvard instructor, former White House director of economic policy, best-selling author of Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race, and one of Successful Meetings magazine's "Top 21 Speakers of the 21st Century," the authors misrepresent the motives, aspirations and work ethic of the present generation of young adults facing the new economy, and in doing so, egregiously misinterpret some of the most important and persistent themes and characters in classic American literature.

In their article, the Buchholzs claim that young Americans today are "risk-averse and sedentary" and have somehow inherited a "stuck-at-home mentality," as evidenced by a 40% decline in interstate mobility among 20-somethings since 1980. The Buchholzs support this view by referencing a recent study by the Pew Research Center which shows the proportion of young adults living at home nearly doubling between 1980 and 2008; and in order to emphasize their point, the Buchholzs juxtapose what they consider to be the typical young adult’s situation today with that of Tom Joad, the iconic, Depression Era protagonist in Steinbeck's great novel, The Grapes of Wrath. They propose that the young adults of today's generation, whom they dub, "Generation Why Bother," should learn to recognize the courage of Tom Joad, yank out their power cords, and do whatever it takes to get back out on the road. Unfortunately, the Buchholzs’ portrayal of Tom Joad "load(ing) up his jalopy with pork snacks and relatives" –as if to a Beverly Hillbillies soundtrack--and "flee(ing) the Oklahoma dust bowl for sun-kissed California," is a rather foolhardy depiction that utterly contradicts and discredits Steinbeck’s message. Did the Buchholzs even read the book?

Steinbeck's main character is by no means a determined capitalist or a savvy entrepreneur, or ambitious career-seeker. He is an egocentric, ex-con, turned humanist. Having just been released from prison amid the great Oklahoma dust storms of the thirties, Tom Joad is introduced to readers as a pathetic man of self-interest who developed a carpe-diem attitude in prison as a means of coping with the disillusionment and bleak prospects faced by those struggling to make a living during the Great Depression. The Joad's journey West, via Route 66, is by no means a risk-seeking capitalist adventure for restless movers-and-shakers who prefer transient, entrepreneurial lifestyles; and the Buchholzs’ suggestion that "sun-kissed California" held any real promise of fortune for migrating farm workers is a sorely misunderstood reference to the novel that falsely presents Steinbeck's California as some archetypal or mythological Land of Opportunity.

A closer look at the Pew Research study, from which the Buchholzs base their critique, reveals that employment status, among other variables, plays a significant role in the formation of multi-generational households. According to the study’s findings, nearly half of today’s unemployed adults, aged 18 to 34, are living with their parents because of economic conditions. While the study does not identify any clear socio-economic pattern or ethnic bias, it does find other contributing factors such as delayed marriage, immigration, and the economics of multi-generational living arrangements, the sorts of variables which the Buchholzs conveniently exclude from their analysis entirely.

The study surveyed young adults aged 25 to 34, a large segment of the demographic commonly referred to as Generation Y, or Gen Y, for short. Today, Gen Y comprises the largest segment of the population, representing those Americans born between 1979 and 1996 (ages 16 to 33, in 2012), and making up approximately 80 million people. That's about 5 million more people than those in the Baby Boomer generation, America's second largest population segment. The year was 1962 when the Baby Boomers ranged in age from 16 to 33, and it's clear from the Pew Research study's chart (left), that this group's declining trend in multi-generational household arrangements in the fifties and sixties stands in stark contrast to the trend set by succeeding generations since 1980. The shift is indeed striking, but hardly provides evidence that Gen Y, or the Breakfast Club generation preceding it, is somehow less adventurous and less industrious than their Baby Boomer counterparts were more than thirty years ago. Are we really to believe, as the Buchholzs suggest, that Gen Y is "literally going nowhere"?

What the Buchholzs also fail to acknowledge in their stinging critique of Gen Y are the multitude of historical, cultural and societal changes that have shaped our current socio-economic environment and have greatly influenced American multi-generational household arrangements. One important contributing factor is the rate of poverty in our country. In post World War II America, the U.S. poverty rate was in a constant decline every year before bottoming out in 1973, at just under 9%, then steadying (on average) between 1974 and 1980--a period marked by an oil crisis, an energy crisis, and the beginnings of a global economic recession. Shortly after 1980, however, the U.S. began to experience high rates of inflation, and the Fed's contractionary monetary policy eventually brought about a severe economic recession in the U.S. The recession peaked just before the start of 1983, when nationwide unemployment rates were 10.8%, the highest levels since our country's (and Tom Joad's) Great Depression.

What's even more striking is the strong correlation between the percentage of those living in multi-generational households and the U.S. poverty rate between 1961 and 2009. In somewhat crude fashion, I superimposed a rough approximation of the poverty rate (taken from U.S. Census data) onto the Pew Research Center's chart to illustrate the relationship. The two lines follow a strikingly similar pattern, with the movements in multi-generational households lagging slightly behind poverty rates.

Although their Op-Ed piece is brief, the Buchholzs never mention the evolving cultural and economic climates, or the shifts in consumer behavior, or the evolution of a greater environmental and social consciousness among young generations during the past half century. Gen Y is a generation of information processors, social net-workers, and telecommuters who, in my opinion, are highly innovative and highly productive in their own right; and who are not inclined to follow beaten paths, take on traditional careers, or place much emphasis on material possessions as those in the generations that preceded them. The Happy Days of the fifties-sixties, the sexual/cultural revolution of the seventies, and the mass consumerism that defined the eighties-nineties, has given way to a new generation that prefers to be more socially conscious, more environmentally conscious, and more health conscious; a generation that prefers to be connected (wirelessly or otherwise), not just to friends and family, but to the local communities where they live and the global communities in which they dream of living; a generation that prefers to wage voice rather than war, and prefers social change over expensive, gas-guzzling cars, and would prefer to create a cool Internet business rather than toil away at the production line of some auto factory.

Tom Joad doesn’t leave for California because he longs to be on the road; nor is he driven by any entrepreneurial hunger or capitalist spirit. His journey begins as a means of survival against the hardship and hostility and economic injustices facing his family and countless others who lost their farms to wealthy bankers and are coerced by wealthy California landowners to migrate West, risking life and limb, for jobs that do not exist. As Steinbeck’s story progresses, Tom Joad transforms from a man of pure self-interest to one who eventually sets out on a course of public action against the world’s injustices. Tom Joad is by no means the Jed Clampett character whom the Buchholzs romanticize about. Steinbeck’s Tom Joad represents the migrant's suffering, not the migrant's entrepreneurial success. Steinbeck's California, far from being "sun-kissed," is a state that represents a broken promise to the migrants. It symbolizes the exploitation of land for the means of mass production and support of an industrial system where workers like Tom Joad are treated like animals, denied livable wages and forced to kill to survive.

According to the Buchholzs, young Americans today are less inclined to buy a car or get out on the road, and are more inclined to spending too much time on the Internet checking Facebook. Yet the migrant lifestyle led by Tom Joad and his family is hardly the life we'd wish our children to consider. It is a harsh and cruel way of life that lacks family unity and home identity. What the Joads rely on most for strength and support is not the individual courage the Buchholzs are trumpeting, but rather a social connectivity to, and unity with, other families and individuals who share in the same plight and who are committed to one another's survival. Imagine what the Joads would have accomplished through the Internet.

For Steinbeck, the evils that plagued the Joad family and California's migrant workers were self-interest and an unsustainable capitalist system designed to reward a few at the expense of sinking thousands into poverty.  This was the Occupy movement Steinbeck was most concerned about, and it is not the one the Buchholzs describe in their article. Steinbeck wrote about his novel’s purpose: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this (Great Depression and its effects)."

Why are the Buchholzs so nostalgic for an era where a kid "longed for his driver's license and a chance to hit the road and find freedom" when we now have an era where a kid longs for his computer, an Internet connection and a chance to advance freedom by connecting and communicating with the world? I'm not suggesting that our young adults ought to spend more time on computers and less time getting out and exploring the natural world. I happen to have a son who belongs to Generation Y; and he's every bit the mover-and-shaker the Buchholz claim that young adults were prior to 1980. In any case, I'd rather my son stay out of his car, and have dinner more often with his family, and if he ever has a chance to, connect with someone from across the globe to do the very thing Tom Joad does: become a tireless advocate for the oppressed.