Are Millennials Lowering Their Expectations Amid Coronavirus And Recession Fears?
Boomers have been repackaging our financial instability and joblessness as a lifestyle choice for years and selling it as Millennial Entitlement™. But has the current state of affairs led Millennials to lower their expectations, or has it just amplified the fact that society has been conditioning us for an uncertain future long before the coronavirus?
Let’s start with the entitlement thing. Part of this generational gaslighting comes from their assumption that young people demand more than they yet deserve in the workplace and in life in general. On the flip side, maybe boomers are simply holding a grudge as they continue to blame our entire age group for their failing industries like cereal, napkins, and homeownership. But it’s possible that as a group, we just entered the economy at a time where some businesses were dying off naturally, as research, technology, and taste continued to evolve. Maybe, some of these industries were past their prime for reasons much more complex than our spending habits and gentle egos.
We Were Broke Before The Coronavirus.
If boomers are right about anything — it’s that we’re broke as shit. Perhaps that’s partly because of our unwavering love for music festivals where we sit on strangers’ shoulders, pay $8 for an average beer, and sing Frank Ocean songs into the void. Or maybe we’re broke because our bills are stacking up faster than the cost of rent in Toronto. Not to mention, our boomer parents managed to score a decent job with a high-school diploma and a pack of Belmonts, while we’re out here bragging about our master's degrees in hopes that some hiring manager is going to think we’re worthy of earning a living wage.
And despite our financial desperation, we still dream about buying homes. In fact, many young people, particularly women, fantasize about eclectic interiors more than they fantasize about their weddings. But, while we’re juggling our unpaid internships, crippling debt, and our 17 side hustles just to stay afloat — we’re also tasked with cleaning up the economic aftermath of Boomer mistakes that led to the novel recession in 2008. So, cheers! The home-buying thing will have to wait.
And to top it all off, this coronavirus won’t make things any easier. So, even though Millennials have been judged for their “entitlement”, I don’t think our expectations have ever been lower.
Let’s look at the facts.
According to a recent Statistics Canada report, employment of youth aged 15 to 24 decreased by -15.4% in March, the fastest drop across all major age groups. And in March 2020, the number of post-secondary working students, aged 15–29, dropped by 28% from February 2020. And while the lower range of this age group aligns closer with Gen Z, a lot of the younger Millennials find themselves in the same boat — especially if they’re working wage jobs to offset some of their graduate or professional schooling costs.
When I first saw this statistic I thought, “well yeah, no shit.” Next to temp and contract workers, many young people were the first to get the boot because they occupy a great portion of the service industry, which had the greatest rate of decline in employment overall. And while the Canadian government was quick to offer the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in response to the financial support gaps left by EI, some young people are still slipping through the cracks.
Basically, getting a decent job as a young person was already a tough bounce, and this global lockdown is just pushing us further behind. And in the interim, we are spending our free time making memes and curating digital debates about what the fuck happened to Carol Baskin’s husband — instead of living in a constant state of financial panic. Could it be that we’re not freaking out because we’ve just never had high expectations for the future?
How Do We Recover From Back-to-Back Global Crises?
Every generation will probably experience a different financial plot-twist caused by the coronavirus. Most of our parents’ retirement plans and portfolios are taking a major hit, shifting their plans immensely. Gen Z is relying heavily on financial relief programs offered by the Canadian government to stay afloat, as they graduate into a fat question mark of a hiring climate. And for millennials, we’re just in financial limbo — but when were we not?
We’ve survived the aftermath of one shit-storm, so we’ll probably just pivot and find a way to survive this one too. We’ll probably have to live with roommates or parents for a bit longer, delay the whole kid-having thing, and we’ll probably have to pick up a couple more side hustles — wherever we can find them. Even if the coronavirus is the start of a global recession, the world will have no choice but to adapt — a skill that Millennials have mastered unsolicitedly. Plus, our “new normal” might even spark employers to create more remote work opportunities, and the gig economy will probably become increasingly popular as corporate budgets continue to tighten.
The point is that for most of us, we never expected to own a home as an essential means of acquiring wealth. We don’t expect to build huge portfolios where we can maximize our savings. For the most part, we’ve accepted that our future will probably rely on one paycheque to the next. If we get a parking ticket we don’t expect to fight it, we just pay it off to avoid the headache. We don’t expect the education system to become fairer, the workplace to become easier, or people to become nicer. And while we work endlessly for it, we don’t expect a future where we can take our eyes off our drinks and still feel safe, or a future where we can walk confidently to our cars at night without having a key wedged between our knuckles.
As far as we’re concerned, there was no real reason to believe that our safety, in any sense, would be protected in the future — with or without the coronavirus. But we’ve gotten this far, which means we do have every reason to believe it’s survivable. So to us, what’s one more avocado toast for the road while we descend into the limitless vortex of uncertainty?
