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Young People After Four Years of President Obama

Jan. 16, 2013 10:00am

Karin Agness is the director of academic programs at AEI. In that capacity, she works to connect college students across the country with the public policy […]

Karin Agness is the director of academic programs at AEI. In that capacity, she works to connect college students across the country with the public policy research and expertise of AEI scholars. Prior to joining AEI, she practiced law at Wiley Rein LLP in Washington, D.C. In 2011, she was selected for the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Law and Policy.

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karin.agness@aei.org

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Agness: Young People After Four Years of President Obama

Obama inauguration January 2009 (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

On Monday, young people across the country will watch, cheer and tweet as they celebrate the inauguration of the man they helped reelect president of the United States. The enthusiasm will be reminiscent of the excitement four years ago when President Obama was sworn in as the 44^th president.

Only this time, we know what young people get after four years of Obama’s policies. He no longer has the luxury of being judged just on the promise of hope and change. After four years of Obama, young people now face high unemployment and underemployment, increased health care costs and most recently, less take home pay compared to last year due to higher payroll taxes.

Obama’s policies have weakened our economy, and the opportunities for graduating seniors are not getting better. Ask today’s college senior who voted for Obama in 2008 how strong their job prospects are, and their answer will be virtually unchanged to a college senior’s answer four years ago—not strong at all.

College seniors faced a tough job market in January 2009 as unemployment for adults ages 20-24 was 12.4 percent and rose to 15 percent by the May 2009 graduation season.

The high school seniors who watched Obama’s inauguration four years ago are now college seniors who will enter an economy that remains sluggish. For today’s adults ages 20-24, the unemployment rate stands at 13.7 percent.

This doesn’t give much hope to the young voter who assumed that four years of Obama would make their job prospects better.

Some young people are starting to realize they assumed too much. Today’s college senior likely voted for Obama in 2008, but the president’s margin of support over his Republican challengers among 18-29 year olds dropped 11 points from 2008 levels, based on the 2012 presidential exit poll. What caused this shift in enthusiasm? Perhaps it’s the growing sentiment that opportunity is shrinking for today’s young adults.

Throughout our nation’s history, each generation of Americans has boasted a better standard of living than the proceeding generation. That is a source of pride. About a month before the 2009 inauguration, Gallup asked the following question: “How likely do you think it is that today’s youth will have a better life than their parents – very likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely, or very unlikely?”

At that time, 56 percent of Americans believed it very or somewhat likely that America’s youth would have a better life than their parents.

Under Obama, this number hit an all-time low of 44 percent in April 2011—the lowest level of optimism in decades. Last month, the number rose to 49 percent, which is still lower than when Obama took office.

Why the pessimism about the future of the next generation? The high unemployment rate and a sluggish economy translate into difficult personal realities for many of those high school seniors who supported Obama in 2008. Those students are now looking forward to another graduation—but after this graduation, many will move from their college dorms back to their high school homes, sending out resume after resume with no success.

While we should watch each new class of graduates walk across the stage, diploma in hand, moving into a new phase of life with a sense of boundless opportunities ahead, instead opportunities seem quite limited for today’s college graduates.

Unless our elected officials fix our fiscal issues and create the conditions for a vibrant economy, I’m afraid today’s high school seniors will face a similar future on the next inauguration day.

Karin Agness is the director of academic programs at the American Enterprise Institute.

Learn more at www.aei.org/for-students

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Comments (9)

tacticalobserver.com
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 7:04pm
When it came to the re-election of President Obama, the young people didn’t have any idea what road lies ahead for them in the future. They will realize when they get older just how President Obama has screwed all of us. Our rights as American’s are being taken away. Unemployment rates continue to rise. National debt is outrageous. It just keeps going.

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ranepowel
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 3:40pm
Young people statistically vote for SOCIAL ISSUES first and ECONOMIC issues second, or even third.

It doesn’t really matter if Obama hasn’t had the best economic policy…they (young people) aren’t going to vote for someone who isn’t pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, etc.

This has been shown time and time again, in both right-wing and left-wing surveys. Younger voters care much, much more about the social issues than they do the economic issues, and they wouldn’t vote for anyone who was anti-gay marriage or anti-abortion — even if that person could guarantee them a decent-paying job.

This is what baffles many conservative talking-heads minds. “How can the young people still vote for Obama, even though the economy is sluggish?” Simple. He came out for gay rights. He openly respects a woman’s right to choose. The rest (economics, foreign policy) don’t matter near as much to younger voters.

You want to win younger voters, you drop the social issues they care about the most. There’s another article right here on the Blaze that shows support for abortion continues to increase year after year. Support for gay marriage gains traction, and will most likely be made Federally legal by the Supreme Court this year. Win younger voters by dropping the social and focusing on the economic. Don’t get caught saying gays shouldn’t marry, or a woman hasn’t the right to choose. That is, if you really want to get them to vote for you in 2014 and 2016.

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- FLfin
  Posted on January 20, 2013 at 7:32am
  Support for abortion has dropped. However, no thanks to hollywood protection of marriage has declined.
  
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The Third Archon
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 2:09pm
The problem with all the articles the Blaze does on American youth and their political motivations is that the analysis is couched in the worldview of the people writing the article, a conservative worldview, and a PRESUMPTION that the assumptions underlying the worldview are true, when the whole POINT is that the youth who by majority voted for Obama don’t SHARE that worldview OR those presumptions. Now of COURSE the Right holds a belief that the worldview they hold is true–it wouldn’t BE their worldview if they knew/thought it was false. But the point (from the perspective of gleaning an accurate understanding of the political motivations of American youth) isn’t whether or not it, or any particular part of it, or the other is true or false, but rather what is the subjective BELIEF about what is true or false that motivated the American youth politically. The Blaze’s articles are thus useless (for the purpose of insight into the cause of electoral patterns) because they engage in horribly flawed anthropological methodology, allowing their own beliefs to interfere with gaining and accurately presenting an understanding of WHAT the political motivations of the majority of American youth are and WHY.

Sure, having a fit about how dumb, naive and blah-blah-blah you think the youth are might make you feel better, but it doesn’t really TELL you anything you didn’t already know or think, and it isn’t persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already agree.

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- Mr. H.
  Posted on January 17, 2013 at 3:43pm
  Young college graduates have just spent 8 years imbued with the political rhetoric of the Democratic Party being good, just and fair, and the the Republican Party presented as evil. It takes a life of experience and lessons to really get the jest of reality in governance, economics, faith, and truth. Those that marry, buy homes, and start families come to this awareness in their late thirties or early forties. Of course there are many that make bad choices of all kinds, and never reach that awareness.
  
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- The Third Archon
  Posted on January 17, 2013 at 8:50pm
  I see you’ve completely missed the entire point of my post.
  
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Git-R-Done
Posted on January 17, 2013 at 12:35am
Why would young people care about getting a job when the government is going to take care of them from cradle to grave?

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merik59
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 3:52pm
Young people don’t know anything about real life & yet they seem to be making the decisions for our country. Does anyone else think this is backwards or insane? They aren’t the ones paying taxes or working or owning anything yet, what gives them the idea they know anything?

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shorelineliz
Posted on January 16, 2013 at 1:13pm
If these College students voted for Obama in 2008 then they graduated in 2012. Still not enough reality time for them to get a clue. They can always move back in with Mommy and Daddy and live off their money and credit cards. Wait another year. Just one more year. Of not finding a job. Maybe they will get a clue. But I doubt it as they sit around in their pajama pants, smoke weed, chat incessantly on line and surf the net for porn and other delights. Their parents paid for everything. They have no work ethic and they see no connection between voting for Obama and their high unemployment. That is because they are all drunk, stoned, high and worse.

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