Just over a decade ago, my roommate and I sat on the couch in our new apartment watching the news: Wall-to-wall coverage of people walking into shiny office buildings with empty boxes and walking out with their belongings. It was September 2008 and the Lehman Brothers investment bank was collapsing, a fact that felt especially personal to us given that my roommate, fresh out of college, had just moved to New York for a job there.
What followed was one of the worst financial collapses in the history of our country, the Great Recession. Millennials like me entered the workforce with fewer available jobs, lower pay, and less financial security. Now, our generation is gearing up to face our second financial crisis in just over a decade. This time, many of us are parents of young children, some are caring for aging parents, andof us are burdened by excessive student loan debt.
Addressing the health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus is rightly not only the United States’ top priority, but the biggest priority in the world. It’s critical that people follow aggressive social distancing and stay-at-home measures if they can, and that those in charge provide frontline workers with the resources they need to maintain their health.
Millennials and Generation Z comprise more than a third of all U.S. adults, so our economic stability doesn’t just impact us, but our entire country. And we’re uniquely at risk: Americans under the age of 25 make up
FACTS...