Where are we headed as a people? Apart from God's reviving spirit, the world system sits at the edge of a great cliff. Why? Because the next generation, here and abroad, have been so negatively effected by our worldwide economic policy.
One generation of hopelessness either leads to revival or it leads to anarchy, revolution, and revolt. Which option will happen? God only knows!
The following is an article I ran across on Zero Hedge today. Some good stats to ponder. What do you think?
Submitted
by Michael Snyder of The Economic
Collapse blog,
Why
are young people in America so frustrated these days? You are about to
find out.
Most young adults started out having faith in the system. They worked
hard, they got good grades, they stayed out of trouble and many of them went on
to college. But when their educations where over, they discovered that
the good jobs that they had been promised were not waiting for them at the end
of the rainbow. Even in the midst of this so-called "economic
recovery", the full-time employment rate for Americans under the age of 30
continues to fall. And incomes for that age group continue to fall as
well. At the same time, young adults are dealing with record levels of
student loan debt. As a result, more young Americans than ever are
putting off getting married and having families, and more of them than ever are
moving back in with their parents.
It
can be absolutely soul crushing when you discover that the "bright
future" that the system had been promising you for so many years turns out
to be a lie. A lot of young people ultimately give up on the system and
many of them end up just kind of drifting aimlessly through life. The
following is an example from a recent Wall Street Journal
article...
James
Roy, 26, has spent the past six years paying off $14,000 in student loans for
two years of college by skating from job to job. Now working as a supervisor
for a coffee shop in the Chicago suburb of St. Charles, Ill., Mr. Roy describes
his outlook as "kind of grim."
"It
seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to
be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job," said the
Colorado native, who majored in English before dropping out. "But now, for
people living in this economy and in our age group, it's a rough deal."
Young
adults as a group have been experiencing a tremendous amount of economic pain
in recent years. The following are 30 statistics about Americans under the
age of 30 that will blow your mind...
#1 The labor force
participation rate for men in the 18 to 24 year old age bracket is at an all-time low.
#2 The ratio of what men in
the 18 to 29 year old age bracket are earning compared to the general
population is at an all-time low.
#3 Only about a third
of all adults in their early 20s are working a full-time job.
#4 For the entire 18 to 29
year old age bracket, the full-time employment rate continues to fall. In
June 2012, 47 percent
of that entire age group had a full-time job. One year later, in June
2013, only 43.6 percent
of that entire age group had a full-time job.
#5 Back in the year 2000, 80
percent of men in their late 20s had a full-time job. Today, only 65 percent
do.
#6 In 2007, the unemployment
rate for the 20 to 29 year old age bracket was about 6.5 percent. Today,
the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.
#7 American families that
have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
#8 During 2012, young adults
under the age of 30 accounted for 23 percent of the workforce, but they
accounted for a whopping 36 percent
of the unemployed.
#9 During 2011, 53 percent
of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either
unemployed or underemployed.
#10 At this point about half
of all recent college graduates are working jobs that do not even require a
college degree.
#11 The number of Americans
in the 16 to 29 year old age bracket with a job declined by 18 percent
between 2000 and 2010.
#12 According to one survey, 82 percent
of all Americans believe that it is harder for young adults to find jobs today
than it was for their parents to find jobs.
#13 Incomes for U.S.
households led by someone between the ages of 25 and 34 have fallen by about 12
percent after you adjust for inflation since the year 2000.
#14 In 1984, the median net
worth of households led by someone 65 or older was 10 times
larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or
younger. Today, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or
older is 47 times
larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger.
#15 In 2011, SAT scores for
young men were the worst that they had been in 40 years.
#16 Incredibly, approximately
two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.
#17 According to the Federal
Reserve, the total amount of student loan debt has risen by 275 percent
since 2003.
#18 In America today, 40 percent of all households that are led
by someone under the age of 35 are paying off student loan debt. Back in
1989, that figure was below 20 percent.
#19 The total amount of
student loan debt in the United States now exceeds
the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.
#20 According to the U.S.
Department of Education, 11 percent
of all student loans are at least 90 days delinquent.
#21 The student loan default
rate in the United States has nearly
doubled since 2005.
#22 One survey found that 70% of all
college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for
the "real world" while they were still in college.
#23 In the United States
today, there are more than
100,000 janitors that have college degrees.
#24 In the United States
today, 317,000 waiters
and waitresses have college degrees.
#25 Today, an all-time low 44.2 percent
of all Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 are married.
#26 According to the Pew
Research Center, 57 percent
of all Americans in the 18 to 24 year old age bracket lived with their parents
during 2012.
#27 One poll discovered that 29 percent
of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are still living with
their parents.
#28 Young men are nearly twice
as likely to live with their parents as young women the same age
are.
#29 Overall, approximately 25 million
American adults are living with their parents according to Time Magazine.
#30 Young Americans are
becoming increasingly frustrated that previous generations have saddled them
with a nearly 17 trillion dollar national debt
that they are expected to make payments on for the rest of their lives.
And
this trend is not just limited to the United States. As I have written
about frequently, unemployment rates for young adults throughout
Europe have been soaring to unprecedented heights. For
example, the unemployment rate for those under the age of 25 in Italy has now
reached 40.1 percent.
Simon Black of
the Sovereign Man blog discussed this global trend in a recent
article on his website...
Youth unemployment rates
in these countries are upwards of 40% to nearly 70%. The most recent figures
published by the Italian government show yet another record high in youth
unemployment.
An entire generation is
now coming of age without being able to leave the nest or have any prospect of
earning a decent wage in their home country.
This underscores an
important point that I’ve been writing about for a long time: young people in
particular get the sharp end of the stick.
They’re the last to be
hired, the first to be fired, the first to be sent off to fight and die in
foreign lands, and the first to have their benefits cut.
And if they’re ever lucky
enough to find meaningful employment, they can count on working their entire
lives to pay down the debts of previous generations through higher and higher
taxes.
But when it comes time to
collect… finally… those benefits won’t be there for them.
Meanwhile,
the overall economy continues to get even weaker.
In
the United States, Gallup's daily economic confidence index is now the lowest
that it has been in more than a
year.
For
young people that are in high school or college right now, the future does not
look bright. In fact, this is probably as good as the U.S. economy is
going to get. It is probably only going to be downhill from here.
The
system is failing, and young people are going to become even angrier and even
more frustrated.
So
what will that mean for our future?
It means our nice, comfortable, 1st World expectations and existence will end, and the hopelessness of life apart from/against Christ will be more transparent. Bad news for the entitled and worldly... good news for the cause of Christ.
ReplyDeleteBrett- I agree completely. At times I do wonder if revival is possible with our brand of worldliness. God can do anything, but this 1st world existence is a great hindrance to deep spirituality and missionary expansion. Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDelete