LOST
GENERATION
HUFFINGTON
10.20.13
“TO GROW AS A PERSON, YOU HAVE TO
HAVE A JOB. BEFORE, I TALKED ABOUT MY
WORK WITH THE PEOPLE CLOSE TO ME,
AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.”
those who managed to graduate
from college yet still find themselves jobless. The costs of this disappointment are crushing for the
young graduates themselves, particularly those bearing student loan
debt. But it’s society that bears the
full costs: From the United States
to Spain, experts warn that the
side-lining of millions of would-be
consumers is placing a substantial
drag on economic growth, diminishing prosperity for all.
In the United States, in the Pacific Northwest city of Portland,
Oregon, 23-year-old Brette Jackson grapples with downgraded
expectations. She and her parents
accepted $50,000 in debt as the
price of a program that gained her
a degree in fashion design. It was
supposed be the launchpad of a
rewarding career. Instead, she’s
subsisting on her latest part-time
job — manning a supermarket deli
counter — while relying on government-furnished food stamps.
“I don’t think the economy is
going to be able to continue to
function as it has been, with this
becoming the norm,” she tells
The Huffington Post. “It used to
be that college graduates were
the ones who were buying new
cars and new homes, taking out
mortgages. Now it’s completely
reversed itself, and we can’t afford
to do those things any more.”
Six years have passed since
Italy’s then-Minister of Economy
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa provoked a controversy by speaking of
the “bamboccioni