This article was co-written by Abigail Romero and Jing-Jing Shen.
Once bustling public spaces, now visited only by the occasional mask-wielding passerby. Funerals with no attendees. Blue tents dotting long-winded streets. These images bore into the minds of so many Americans amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
Though the pandemic is not the genesis of our society’s problems, it has heightened the fears many young Americans already feel on a daily basis. An inadequate health care system, debt, and housing costs, among many other concerns, persist in our already fragile state. Hospital workers who fear contracting the virus confront shortages of personal protective equipment and a mental health crisis. An overall uncertainty surrounding the end of the pandemic remains, highlighting the global community’s lack of preparedness for major disasters. Financial insecurity from missing stimulus checks alongside asymmetrical access to COVID-19 tests have unveiled the disproportionate impacts of emergencies on poorer communities. As the death toll rises, the struggles that preceded the coronavirus have also grown, raising the question: Will the months after quarantine be any less anxiety-ridden?
Half (50.4%) of Americans ages 18 to 29 identify themselves as struggling, according to the most recent youth poll from the Harvard Public Opinion Project. Growing up in the wake of 9/11, experiencing continued fall-out from the Great Recession, and now confronting a global pandemic have contributed to young people’s sense of struggle and made them apprehensive about the present and future.
Beyond the coronavirus, each day young people endure struggles with individually unique effects. Yet across educational disparities, party divides, and racial differences, youth are facing these difficulties together. While the suffering is uneven and each challenge distinct, the struggle is collective — young people are not persisting through these times alone.
Struggles on Many Fronts
Despite the multitude of issues in the world, from climate change to income inequality to gender inequity, many youths have rallied behind a few priorities, including debt, housing, and health care. This selectivity in and solidarity behind issues can then concentrate focus on organizing.
As an example, most young people agree the government should take action to address debt. With U.S. personal debt growing 19% since 2009 and reaching its highest-ever levels last year, it comes as no surprise that debt is an issue that many people will face. Over half of young Americans find themselves in debt. Further, one in five youth say they have debt that significantly affects life decisions. When turning to policy, young Americans are split on how the government should manage student loan debt, with 33.1% of HPOP respondents saying the government should cancel student loan debt for everyone, 16.7% saying it should only do so for those in need, and 34.9% saying it should help with repayment instead. Still, only 13.4% wanted no change in loan policy. In essence, an overwhelming majority of youth are unified in seeking further governmental action on debt.
Many of the nation’s young people are also worried about their health and ability to obtain care. The HPOP poll found that 44.8% of survey-takers agreed with the statement “I am concerned about accessing health care if and when I need it,” and an equal percentage felt the same about mental health care. With the prevalence of mental health issues among youth reaching an all-time high, and millennials accounting for 20% of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus, healthcare access is becoming even more salient. Most respondents (62.9%) attested to a belief that basic health insurance is a right for all people and the government should provide it for those unable to afford it. Much like with debt, most youth agree that the government must change its policies to fundamentally attend to these daily challenges.
Concerns about accessibility extend into housing, especially given the recent appreciation in housing costs. More than three-fifths of young Americans express concern about housing costs. This worry is not confined by region, as 68.2% of young urban residents and 64.4% of young suburban residents express feeling the impact of rising housing prices. Likewise, a similar percentage (59.1%) of small-town and rural residents echo this point. From city to country, affordable housing has become harder to obtain for residents of all different communities.
Even without readily apparent solutions to rising housing costs, recognizing that a majority are suffering lays the foundation for continued action in this realm. More than half of respondents (59.9%) felt that “Basic necessities, such as food and shelter, are a right that the government should provide to those unable to afford them,” suggesting that young people have compassion for others who are struggling. This concern offers promise for political solidarity and empathy.
Young people have vocalized concerns surrounding debt, health care, and housing, either through majority opinion on the impact of these difficulties or insight into preferred policies. The prioritization of such issues can streamline a path towards change in the political sphere.
Institutional vs. Community Change
Governmental institutions may have the capacity to carry out transformative policies in these areas, but young people are skeptical of them. Two-thirds of young Democrats (66.2%) and close to half of young Republicans (46.4%) feel that “the government does not represent the America I love,” showcasing a lack of trust in institutions that can compound the struggles they already feel. To whom can young people look to address their needs?
After all, young people harbor distrust for national leaders. Under one-third of respondents said they trust the federal government (32.5%), fewer trust the President (31.4%), and even fewer trust Congress (28.8%) all or most of the time. However, local institutions retain more trust. The HPOP poll found that 42.5% of respondents said they trusted their state government, and 43.2% trusted their local government. These figures may point to greater confidence in authority located closer to home. Given young people’s proclivity for trusting regional institutions as compared to federal ones, it may be beneficial to pursue solutions through institutions at a regionalized scale.
Institutions can reduce policy lags to help spark the change for which the populace calls, but first, these institutions need to build trust with an already burdened generation. In the meantime, many young people are already enacting this regionalized approach themselves on a small scale. More than three in four (77.3%) respondents agreed with the statement “Community service is an honorable thing to do,” up from 70% in spring 2019, underscoring how young people increasingly value helping others. In fact, according to a 2019 Deloitte survey, people are more likely to aspire to help their communities than to dream of starting businesses or families. Around the world, they are taking matters into their own hands when authority figures fail.
Although the coronavirus pandemic is a devastating global catastrophe, it highlights these community-oriented tendencies. Despite mandated physical separation through social distancing and quarantines, many communities have become more socially connected. And young people are on the frontlines of providing coronavirus-related aid — teenagers are delivering groceries for senior citizens, college students are offering free K-12 tutoring, and medical students are joining understaffed health care teams.
Especially with the coronavirus pandemic exacerbating the problems they grapple with, young Americans seek impactful remedies. The struggles encountered by young people have fostered their unification behind policies on everything from debt to health care. These struggles are real, and the youth are unified in desiring substantive action, in demanding real change.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Susanne Nilsson