Youth News

On a secret March 8th conference call, Roy Beck, executive director of the anti-immigration group Numbers USA, says their claim that America is against immigration reform is “not about reality, it’s all about perception.”

In what is some bad news for the Democratic candidates in November's midterm elections, young people simply aren't that excited to vote.

According to Gallup daily tracking poll data from March 1 - March 7, 18-29 year olds were the age group with the highest lack of enthusiasm toward voting, with 44 percent of respondents noting that they were "not enthusiastic" about voting in 2010.

One potential problem for Democrats is the lower enthusiasm about voting among young Americans. Twenty percent of registered voters aged 18 to 29 say they are very enthusiastic about voting this November. That compares with 31% to 39% of older age groups who are very enthusiastic.

Younger Americans are decidedly more Democratic than the national average. Thus, their apparent lack of motivation to vote -- if it continues until Election Day -- could deprive Democrats of the full benefit they could in theory derive if all 18- to 29-year-olds were to vote.

Democrats need to knock this number down quickly if they want to have anything resembling success this November. One way of doing that would be to pass comprehensive health care reform legislation. Young people want to see their politics made up of officeholders who are strong, problem-solving leaders, instead of weak, timid politicians.

While David Plouffe and Barack Obama drew praise with his outside-the-box approach in the 2008 election, including the amazing mobilization of thousands of new young voters, 2010 will be a different story for Democrats across the country unless something significantly changes. While it is only March, this is still very disappointing.

UPDATE: From Political Wire:

A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18 to 29 year-olds finds young Republicans are showing more enthusiasm than young Democrats for participating in the upcoming midterm elections with 41% of Republicans planning on voting, compared to 35% of Democrats and 13% of Independents.

In the face of a rapidly changing industry, two books offer bold visions of what the future of media could look like.

This weekend Craig countered a Wall Street Journal article that falsely claimed the minimum wage increase is the main factor leading to increased youth unemployment. Unfortunately, Republicans in Arizona are running with this false argument in an attempt to drastically reduce the minimum wage for young adults.

This attempt is AZ House Bill 2639:

Legislation approved by the House Commerce Committee would set the minimum wage for anyone younger than 22 at 75 percent of what those 22 and older are required to be paid. With the state minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, that translates to $5.44.

Rep. Laurin Hendrix, the author of the bill, makes the following argument about how this is good for young people:

But that’s not all. Hendrix said once they have jobs — even jobs that don’t pay the full minimum wage — it will “get them in the habit of going to work and developing a work ethic that will be useful to them later in their lives.”

Translation: we are going to get these kids in the lifelong habit of working their asses off for scraps.

This measure is the handiwork of Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and Barry Aarons, one of Norquist's lobbyists, was the only one to testify in favor of the bill.

In 2006 Arizona voters approved the creation of a state minimum wage tied to inflation despite the attempts of Norquist's organization.

Even if the state legislature fails to pass this discriminatory policy, it won't yet be dead:

Hendrix does have a backup plan. He convinced committee members to also approve HCR2043, which would send the question to voters in November.

The Young Democrats of Arizona sent out an action alert to their membership encouraging members to take action against the GOP effort:

Subject: Make Less Money?

That's exactly what will happen if the Republican legislature has its way. House Bill 2639; introduced by a Republican Representative from Gilbert may be up for a vote next week. This Bill if passed and signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer will cut the minimum wage for workers under the age of 22 by 25%.

Yes, this is a serious proposal. Republicans in the state legislature don't think its hard enough for young Arizonans to pay their bills already.

Take action!

There is still time. You can make a difference, and hopefully stop this law from passing. Here is what you can do:

1. Write a letter to the editor of a local paper. We need to get the message out. Too many times bad legislation gets through because people don't realize what is happening.

2. Call your legislators and make sure they know you oppose this bill.

3. Sign up to join a small group to meet with legislators. Legislators take meetings with lobbyists all the time; now they need to hear from everyday Arizonans!

Together we can make a difference. Take action today!

This measure, if passed, would be devastating to young Arizonans attempting to work their way through college as they face huge tuition and fee increases and even worse for those students entering the workforce immediately after high school.

Though all homelessness is troubling, the problem’s disproportionate effect on LGBT young people of color is especially worrisome.

The other day in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Salena Zito penned a piece headlined "Young Voters Increasingly Identify with Conservative Politics." Not surprisingly (especially considering the paper's conservative editorial page), that conclusion is flawed.

The headline writer seems to base his or her conclusion on this:

Civic involvement among politically aware young people is growing, based on attendance at the Feb. 18-20 Conservative Political Action Conference in the nation's capital.

Elementary, high school and college students who pre-registered for the conference accounted for 60 percent of the crowd, up 10 percent from 2009, said the event's director, Lisa De Pasquale. They wore business attire, but many could be seen connecting to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook while mingling.

Yes, young people are engaged in politics at a higher rate -- even at conservative political conferences. But I am still waiting for something to prove the headline hypothesis.

Zito next moves to the recent Pew Research Center study on the Millennial generation. The report found that youth job approval of President Barack Obama is decreasing.

In Pew Research’s February 2010 survey, 57% of Millennials approved of the way Obama was handling his job as president, down from 73% in February 2009. Moreover, Millennials have become much more critical of Obama’s handling of several major issues, especially the war in Afghanistan. In January, Millennials were the only age group in which more disapproved than approved of Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

Also, the Democratic Party's appeal among Millennials has taken a hit as well. This has resulted in an increase in the number of Millennials identifying with the Republican Party.

Between the 2004 and 2008 presidential election years, the Democratic Party opened a substantial advantage nationwide in party identification. In 2004, Democrats held a slim 47% to 44% advantage in leaned party identification among registered voters. By 2008, this lead had expanded to 51% to 39%.

But the Democrats’ advantage peaked in 2008 and early 2009, and it has decreased over the past year. In the first quarter of 2009, 53% of registered voters identified with or leaned to the Democratic Party, compared with 38% who identified with or leaned to the Republican Party. But in the final quarter, Democrats had only a 49% to 42% advantage over Republicans among
voters.

This overall shift has taken place within most age groups. The share of Millennial voters who identified or leaned Democratic fell from 60% at the beginning of 2009 to 54% at the end of the year, while the share who identified or leaned Republican rose from 31% to 40%. While the Democratic Party still maintained an advantage among Millennials at the end of 2009, the margin had shrunk substantially.

So, yes, the Republican Party has attracted Millennials over the past year. And while one could fairly question whether or not young people are becoming more conservative, one cannot credibly conflate the phenomenon of more young people attending CPAC and the report that Millennials are becoming disenchanted with Democrats and gradually identifying with the Republican Party to make that case. Both are faulty generalizations. The first one doesn't allow for better recruitment efforts, better weather, or better economics that also could have enabled more young people to attend CPAC. The second seems to equate the Republican Party with "conservative." Ask some Texas Republicans about Kay Bailey Hutchison and they'll let you know that the two terms are mutually exclusive.

Indeed, the subtitle of the very same Pew Research report Zito cites labels Millennials "a pro-government, socially liberal generation." The data reveal that Millennials still hold on to pro-government values. More than half (the only generation that can claim this) of youth favor government intervention and an activist government.

Millennials are significantly less critical of government on a number of dimensions than are other age cohorts. This tendency has been seen on a variety of individual survey questions as well as on a three-question index of items from the political values survey; this index covers opinions about government’s effectiveness, government regulation of business and whether the government has too much control over people’s lives.

What does it take for us to get better journalism in this country? I would assume a headline writer or editor constructed the headline in this case, but Zito still was trying to conflate the two examples above to seemingly make some kind of faulty conclusion that youth are more conservative. As long as our citizens continue to read misinformation, our democracy and trust in institutions like the press suffers.

One of the more refreshing events over the past couple weeks has been the formation of a new party, perhaps a movement, in the United States. A big welcome to the Coffee Party, an interesting reaction to the media's recent focus on the Tea Party's rise in 2009.

Annabel Park, the founder of the The Coffee Party started the organization out of frustration about the nature of our political discourse these days. The health care debate is a perfect example of the kind of gridlock that frustrated Annabel and restricts us from pursuing the common good. In her description of the party, Annabel is sure to state the organization's aversion to pundits, advisers, and lobbyists, explaining that the recent surge in popularity is simply a spontaneous event created by Americans tired of solutions being left unsolved.

One way the Coffee Party is moving forward is in the planning of "Coffee Parties," a caffeine-fueled play on meetups organized throughout the nation. As of now, the Coffee Party has encouraged its followers to hold their parties on Saturday, March 13 to sustain its rising national momentum. You can check for a party already planned for your area or plan one yourself here.

I am looking forward to seeing how the Coffee Party might be able to sustain this momentum and restore some sane, level-headed discussion to our politics. Most of all, I am curious as to how young people feel about this organization. Might it entice them to get involved despite their frustration? Is it a non-factor?

As of now (Saturday morning) there are nearly 100,000 "fans" of this effort on Facebook. The number is steadily rising.

Catherine Rampell, from the New York Times blog Economix, suggests an alternative to the conventional wisdom that youth aren't insured (and don't care about reform) due to their invincibility.

Rampell constructs her argument using some Gallup data released last week. First, she confronts the idea that young people, assumed to be healthier than the rest of the population, would rather risk not buying health insurance, thus leading to higher costs for the rest of the pool. In fact, Rampell finds that young people are actually less willing to take risks than you might think:

Three-quarters of those 18-29 year-olds describing themselves as healthy still purchased health insurance. As Rampell explains, one can dig deeper into this data, inquiring about variables like income. Rampell does that and finds something.

Perhaps people who are likely to have health insurance are also likely to be healthy for an independent reason: It costs money to buy health insurance, and it costs money to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In other words, perhaps it is money, not perceived risk of getting sick, that determines whether young people get insurance.

As it turns out, people who can afford health insurance are much, much more likely to get it:

Among young adults, 86 percent of those in the top third of the income distribution (people earning $48,000 or more annually) have health insurance. In the middle third (those earning between $24,000 and $48,000), 72 percent have health insurance. And in the bottom third (those making less than $24,000), just 58 percent are on a health plan.

It appears to be affordability, not recklessness (or even rational cost-benefit analysis of health risk), that is driving young people away from insurance policies.

Though reporters and pundits might think something is true, that doesn't mean there aren't other unseen or unmentioned possibilities or factors affecting the phenomenon. Thanks to Catherine Rampell for digging deeper.

I want to start today by pointing to a post by Jonathan Chait at The New Republic. Chait attempts to refute the suggestion the Wall Street Journal put forth in an editorial claiming that the minimum wage increase was to blame for rising youth unemployment numbers. The chart to the left appeared in the Journal to augment the editorial board's argument.

Chait draws on analysis from University of Michigan political scientist Brendan Nyhan explaining that the unemployment increase in ALL age demographics undoes the Journal's argument. The Journal can't seem to distinguish between correlation and causation, Nyhan writes.

While it's certainly plausible that the increases in the minimum wage over the last three years have worsened teen unemployment, correlation doesn't prove causation. Any variable that trended in one direction during the current economic downturn will be correlated with the unemployment rate among teens or any other group.

More importantly, unemployment is rising across the board, which cuts against the WSJ's hypothesis that the minimum wage is having a particularly devastating effect on teens.

Though the Wall Street Journal might like to think they can downplay youth unemployment by practicing amateur science, they've made their ignorance quite apparent. It's another example of a contribution to our political dialogue that misleads citizens in an attempt to assist the right-wing conspiracy.

Fed up with Internet censorship in China, World of Warcraft players are fighting back online.

Over the last year or so, there have been more and more groups claiming that they work with noncollege youth. This is sort of bitter sweet for me. While the need in this community is tremendous and there is more than enough work to go around, the truth is that not all groups are created equal.

Many of the groups claiming to serve noncollege youth have absolutely no business mobilizing poor communities. But because of their positional power, or because of their relationship to beltway insiders, they often times get resources to do this very tough and often times unrewarding work, when they should be deferring to other organizations.

So, in an effort to clear the air, and serve low income communities, I have a decided to drop this list of the "Top 5 Ways to Know You're Not Really Working With Noncollege Youth."

#1 You don't have a hood or barrio pass!

Let's keep it real, not every group has what it takes to canvass in low income communities. There is a real art and science to mobilizing voters in low income neighborhoods. Trust me, you can't just pop up in a neighborhood and get respect. You have to earn it. And word to John Mayer, hood passes aren't earned easily.

#2 You are more about promoting your organization than the community!

Lot's of groups spend way more of their resources on branding and visibility than mobilizing their constituents. That works for some constituencies, but to really get folks from noncollege communities to turn out, you have to really be about organizing. Low income communities only respond when they see a real commitment to organizing and local leadership development. You can't move folks with a bumper sticker or t-shirt.

#3 You skip town when the election is over!

It's okay, most organizations do it. Heck, LYVEF has even had to close up a shop or two when money has gotten tight. But that can't be your M.O. Noncollege communities need deep, long term investments. You can't get the respect you need to really mobilize people if you are only in town every other year. Community folks know when organizations aren't in it for the long haul.

#4 Your whole strategy focuses on online work!

Word to the New Organizing Institute, I LOVE online organizers. But there is no way that you can mobilize noncollege folks if you only use an online strategy. (Well, unless you are Worldstarhiphop.com.) Low income folks need to be able to look you in your eyes to see if you are legitimate. Online organizing is a great tactic, but it CANNOT be the end all be all of your strategy.

#5 You're feeling a little intimidated by this post.

It's ok. I'm here to help. As I said above, there is more than enough work to be done in this community. If you really want to serve low income communities, come holla at me. I am more than willing to connect you to a group in your city or region that is doing amazing work. Trust me, they exist.

BTW, here's a link to our Number's Don't Lie--Census 2010 mixtape. Check it out, and download it for free!!!

This year, almost 100 students from the United States are studying abroad in Cuba. What they’re learning—in classrooms and bread lines—will probably surprise you.

Recent protests are raging again at the University of California and other universities, but what about the first wave of protesters from November?

One of my favorite organizations in the 2008 Election was 18 in 08 which featured young people across the country who were not only voting for the first time but also getting involved for the first time.

Now 18 in 08 has announced a new project Generation18 Speaks which will distribute flip-cams to young people across the country in effort to show the nation what issues matter to youth and the ways in which young people are making an impact in politics on the national, state, and local level.

Here’s how it works, we have 24 flip cameras that we’ll give to 24 young people from around the country between the ages of 17 and 25. Apply on or before April 12, if you are selected, you’ll have a camera until July 12 to film short video pieces (3-5 minutes) about issues that matter to you, and to film young people taking action from marches to group meetings and from handing out fliers to storming city hall and everything in between. Anything that has to do with youth and politics is fair game. We’ll ask you to submit footage to Generation18 at least once a week, but more if you like. Then over the summer we’ll be putting the content online individually to let your voices speak to the country about our generation. Finally, Generation18 will release a documentary in fall 2010 that brings all of these short videos together.

Sign up to get your video camera and start shooting today! Show everyone what you're doing to impact the world.

I just received an urgent call to action from Demos announcing this week as THE week we must call our Senators to urge them to protect us against the abuses that led to the financial crisis.

How You Can Help

The toll-free number, 866-544-7573 , will ask you to dial-in your zip code. You will automatically be connected to your Senator's office. Once connected, tell your Senator's Office that:

"I want you to support financial reform that holds the big Wall Street Banks accountable and creates a strong and independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA)."

"American families need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to rein in financial products like the deceptive mortgages, credit cards and overdraft fees that are drowning families in debt."

"We need a truly independent consumer agency. Weak reform that subjects the consumer protection agency to the control of another bank regulator is not real reform. Bank regulators got us into this mess by failing to stand up for consumers."

The call-in days are focused on a prioritized list of Senators on the Banking and Agriculture Committees, who will be the first to take up this critical legislation: Sen. Lincoln (AR), Sen. Bennet (CO), Sen. Dodd (CT), Sen. Bayh (IN), Sen. Tester (MT), Sen. Menendez (NJ), Sen. Schumer & Sen. Gillibrand (NY), Sen. Reed (RI), Sen. Johnson (SD), and Sen. Warner (VA). However, the toll-free number will work in all 50 states, and generating calls all around the country is encouraged.

For more information check out their website.

Google is doing an interesting experiment by offering free super high speed internet to select cities across the US. One such city that is lobbying pretty hard is Topeka, Kansas.

In a CNN interview Mayor Bunten said his priority is to keep young people in the city.

He "believes so firmly that younger residents of Kansas' capital city will benefit from faster Internet connections that he wants Topeka -- which he describes as a place of many lakes and the site of a burgeoning market for animal-food research -- to change its name for a month."

As a result, the city is renaming itself Google for the month of March in efforts to raise awareness about the competition. Think Big Topeka, a grassroots group has made videos, facebook, twitter, and online outreach to get The Google to the city.

"Bunten hopes the proclamation, which he read at a special City Council meeting on Monday, will catch Google's attention and make the Internet company decide to use Topeka as its guinea pig. The document renames Topeka as "Google, Kansas -- the capital city of fiber optics."

Google declined to comment on whether it's taking the whole "Google, Kansas" thing seriously.

The mayor believes that faster Internet connections would inspire young people to stay in the city and would encourage business development."

It's interesting to see a city recognize the importance of retaining young people and take such great strides to ensure youth are invested in their local cities.

The Mayor is "the first to say outsiders probably view Topeka as "another Midwestern town with not a lot going on," but he's been making efforts to change that. He trying to revitalize downtown with a bar and music scene.

Google would add to all that, making the city more attractive to youngsters, he said.

"To have this high-speed where people can sit down and have lunch and still keep working is a positive for young people," he said. "The young people are the ones that caught onto this and go to the Internet and asked people in the city to sign on as supporting Google coming to Topeka."

Last week I was able to meet NFL All-Pro Safety Roy Williams and learn about his work with young people in Uganda and his work with single mothers.

With fellow players Tommie Harris, Mark Clayton, and Adrian Peterson, Williams is giving back in every way he can. Next month the players along with a team of doctors will travel to Uganda to feed thousands, set up clinics and build wells in villages desperate for clean water.

The team says that with basic necessities they can bring hope and healing to innocent Ugandan children who have become the victims and weapons at the center of one of Africa’s longest running wars.

Twenty-nine year old Williams began his personal foundation aimed to help single mothers in 2004 after being inspired by his sister's work to manage work and family alone. The Roy Williams Safety Net Foundation gives support, guidance, and assistance to low to moderate income single mothers in effort to help their daily lives.

Williams said:

"I've seen first-hand the many challenges she and other women like her with children face on a daily basis. I want to do what I can to provide a safety net to help catch those families who are struggling."

Like many Millennials, Williams and his colleagues volunteer and work to give back to those most desperately in need. When the going gets tough, our generation gets going to help.