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| ‘I Just Don’t Think We Have the Luxury to Have Dreams Anymore’ | ‘I Just Don’t Think We Have the Luxury to Have Dreams Anymore’ |
| (about 8 hours later) | |
| PLANO, Tex. — A month ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop with a friend, talking about how crazy it was to want to be a writer. At that point, the coronavirus had yet to factor into our summer plans or pop up in the predictive text on our smartphones. That day, our biggest concern was whether my friend should settle for a summer internship in a financially stable industry or take a chance on journalism. | |
| Now, like much of the world, my friend and I are in self-isolation. I called her on FaceTime from my childhood room in Texas last week. We worried about our diabetic parents getting infected; I asked her if she took the internship. | Now, like much of the world, my friend and I are in self-isolation. I called her on FaceTime from my childhood room in Texas last week. We worried about our diabetic parents getting infected; I asked her if she took the internship. |
| She was leaning toward it. “I’m not naïve enough to believe that I can pull myself through a post-recession world with a dream,” she told me. | She was leaning toward it. “I’m not naïve enough to believe that I can pull myself through a post-recession world with a dream,” she told me. |
| It’s clear to young people that now is a terrible time to enter the work force. Restaurants are frantically advertising on Facebook, my father is terrified to look at his bank account and I get a notification each time the Wall Street circuit breaker is triggered to prevent stocks from free-falling. On top of all that, economists have proclaimed that a recession will hit this year. | It’s clear to young people that now is a terrible time to enter the work force. Restaurants are frantically advertising on Facebook, my father is terrified to look at his bank account and I get a notification each time the Wall Street circuit breaker is triggered to prevent stocks from free-falling. On top of all that, economists have proclaimed that a recession will hit this year. |
| As a junior in college, I’ve watched this upend young people’s plans. One of my friends went from looking at job applications to graduate school applications, hoping to take refuge from the recession-to-come. A recent graduate, excited for his first day on the job, got his start date postponed as his company shifted to work-from-home. A friend of a friend found out that all of her job interviews had been canceled. | As a junior in college, I’ve watched this upend young people’s plans. One of my friends went from looking at job applications to graduate school applications, hoping to take refuge from the recession-to-come. A recent graduate, excited for his first day on the job, got his start date postponed as his company shifted to work-from-home. A friend of a friend found out that all of her job interviews had been canceled. |
| As the pandemic rages, companies are putting their summer internship programs on hold. For students who hope to work in nonprofits or the public sector, there’s added concern that these organizations will no longer be able to afford to hire them. Despite all this, I scroll through listings of New York City sublets each morning, messaging people that I’m a clean, responsible undergraduate who might be interning there this summer and would love to stay at their apartment, especially if utilities are included. I watch other young people do the same, posting their budgets and which area of the city their yet-uncanceled internship or first real job will be. | As the pandemic rages, companies are putting their summer internship programs on hold. For students who hope to work in nonprofits or the public sector, there’s added concern that these organizations will no longer be able to afford to hire them. Despite all this, I scroll through listings of New York City sublets each morning, messaging people that I’m a clean, responsible undergraduate who might be interning there this summer and would love to stay at their apartment, especially if utilities are included. I watch other young people do the same, posting their budgets and which area of the city their yet-uncanceled internship or first real job will be. |
| It’s as if we don’t want to acknowledge that we’re the next millennials, yet another generation that will be defined by economic insecurity. My portion of Generation Z, the cohort born right before the Sept. 11 attacks, is entering the work force amid the onset of a global recession. It will define us the same way 2008 did millennials, marking them with generational scars that we have just begun to understand. | It’s as if we don’t want to acknowledge that we’re the next millennials, yet another generation that will be defined by economic insecurity. My portion of Generation Z, the cohort born right before the Sept. 11 attacks, is entering the work force amid the onset of a global recession. It will define us the same way 2008 did millennials, marking them with generational scars that we have just begun to understand. |
| Millennials are worse off than their parents in terms of earnings, assets and wealth, despite being better educated; they graduated into the worst job market in 80 years. They have double the student loan burdens of Generation X, and are less likely to own a home or have children than previous generations. | Millennials are worse off than their parents in terms of earnings, assets and wealth, despite being better educated; they graduated into the worst job market in 80 years. They have double the student loan burdens of Generation X, and are less likely to own a home or have children than previous generations. |
| It’s not that they don’t want these things. It’s that they couldn’t afford to save while juggling three jobs, none of which had health insurance. As the writer Anne Helen Petersen put it, millennials “didn’t try to break the system, since that’s not how we’d been raised; we tried to win it.” | It’s not that they don’t want these things. It’s that they couldn’t afford to save while juggling three jobs, none of which had health insurance. As the writer Anne Helen Petersen put it, millennials “didn’t try to break the system, since that’s not how we’d been raised; we tried to win it.” |
| The question now is whether we want to put another generation through a failed system, or finally fix the longstanding problems in our society that the coronavirus has exposed. This pandemic has laid bare our deepest inequalities. We live in a society where workers work even though they’re ill because the government doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave, where Americans who are already used to forgoing health care because of its costs would be hesitant to get tested for the coronavirus even if tests were available. | The question now is whether we want to put another generation through a failed system, or finally fix the longstanding problems in our society that the coronavirus has exposed. This pandemic has laid bare our deepest inequalities. We live in a society where workers work even though they’re ill because the government doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave, where Americans who are already used to forgoing health care because of its costs would be hesitant to get tested for the coronavirus even if tests were available. |
| Some may argue that this is an unprecedented situation, that “radical” solutions like halting evictions or creating a federal sick-leave program are acceptable only in a crisis. And sure, none of us saw this virus coming. But many Americans are one crisis away from financial ruin — any catastrophic event, virus or not, could have put us in the same situation we’re in now. America has always been a country of haves and have-nots. But increasingly, to have is to survive. | Some may argue that this is an unprecedented situation, that “radical” solutions like halting evictions or creating a federal sick-leave program are acceptable only in a crisis. And sure, none of us saw this virus coming. But many Americans are one crisis away from financial ruin — any catastrophic event, virus or not, could have put us in the same situation we’re in now. America has always been a country of haves and have-nots. But increasingly, to have is to survive. |
| That’s why we should seize this moment to change course — while we can’t avoid a recession, we can prevent it from being a life-or-death situation. A society where people turn to GoFundMe to finance lifesaving treatment and diabetics travel to Mexico to buy insulin needs a “radical” solution like universal health care. A society where encampments for the homeless proliferate in major cities needs a “radical” investment in affordable housing. | That’s why we should seize this moment to change course — while we can’t avoid a recession, we can prevent it from being a life-or-death situation. A society where people turn to GoFundMe to finance lifesaving treatment and diabetics travel to Mexico to buy insulin needs a “radical” solution like universal health care. A society where encampments for the homeless proliferate in major cities needs a “radical” investment in affordable housing. |
| A world in which the Australian bush fires are followed by home-destroying floods needs “radical” action to prevent climate disaster. The world of the coronavirus, with its doom and gloom, is the world young people have been trying to tell their elders about, one where a single unexpected medical bill can destroy a family’s finances and climate change leads to empty shelves at your local Target. More than any other generation, we realize that any of us could be next — that tomorrow, we could be the person making a desperate plea on GoFundMe. | A world in which the Australian bush fires are followed by home-destroying floods needs “radical” action to prevent climate disaster. The world of the coronavirus, with its doom and gloom, is the world young people have been trying to tell their elders about, one where a single unexpected medical bill can destroy a family’s finances and climate change leads to empty shelves at your local Target. More than any other generation, we realize that any of us could be next — that tomorrow, we could be the person making a desperate plea on GoFundMe. |
| Young people are frustrated because we understand that there isn’t a way to “win” this system — it’s simply too broken. My generation drafted up four-year plans as millennials fell face first, as they turned to the benefit-less, security-less gig economy to pay the bills. In the years since, we have become young adults who finally have the power to demand a radical alternative to the present course. | Young people are frustrated because we understand that there isn’t a way to “win” this system — it’s simply too broken. My generation drafted up four-year plans as millennials fell face first, as they turned to the benefit-less, security-less gig economy to pay the bills. In the years since, we have become young adults who finally have the power to demand a radical alternative to the present course. |
| This isn’t to say that we understand everything. But I think my generation’s deep desire for radical change springs from our ability to see, more clearly than anyone else, the broken path ahead. We doubt whether voting can really change the world, whether America’s political and economic systems will act quickly enough to create a society where I don’t have to worry ceaselessly about my parents’ health and start saving for retirement at 18 and wonder if it’s ethical to have children. | This isn’t to say that we understand everything. But I think my generation’s deep desire for radical change springs from our ability to see, more clearly than anyone else, the broken path ahead. We doubt whether voting can really change the world, whether America’s political and economic systems will act quickly enough to create a society where I don’t have to worry ceaselessly about my parents’ health and start saving for retirement at 18 and wonder if it’s ethical to have children. |
| I don’t know what will happen in the next few years. All I know is that next fall, I’ll be a senior preparing to search for her first job amid a global recession. As my friend put it when we called each other from self-isolation, “I just don’t think we have the luxury to have dreams anymore.” My hope, however foolish, is that we will. | I don’t know what will happen in the next few years. All I know is that next fall, I’ll be a senior preparing to search for her first job amid a global recession. As my friend put it when we called each other from self-isolation, “I just don’t think we have the luxury to have dreams anymore.” My hope, however foolish, is that we will. |
| Katherine Hu, a junior at Yale, was the opinion editor of The Yale Daily News. | Katherine Hu, a junior at Yale, was the opinion editor of The Yale Daily News. |
| The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. | The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. |
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