Generation Debt

by Kamenetz, Anya

• ISBN13: 9781594489075
• ISBN10: 1594489076
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-02
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Summary

An emerging spokesperson for a new generation passionately and persuasively addresses the grim state of young people today-and tells us how we can, and must, save our future. The nature of youth is to question. So when twenty-four-year-old Anya Kamenetz started out as a journalist, she began asking hard questions about her generation for which no one seemed to have good answers. Why were college students nationwide graduating with an average of more than $20,000 in student loans? Why were her friends thousands of dollars in credit-card debt? Why did so many jobs for people under thirty-five involve a plastic name badge, last only for the short-term, and not include benefits? With record deficits and threats to Social Security, what kind of future was shaping up for the nation's kids? Kamenetz became one of the youngest ever columnists for The Village Voice, where she earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her reporting on the new economics of being young. In Generation Debt, she talks to experts in economics, labor markets, the health-care industry, and education, and amasses a startling array of evidence that building a secure life, let alone surviving, is harder for young people today than it was thirty years ago. Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Generation Debtis a compelling day-to-day look at the life experiences behind a massive economic shift. Like Naomi Klein's No Logo, it is a deeply researched, rousing manifesto that will get you thinking in new ways about American values-and about America's future.

Author Biography

Anya Kamenetz received her B.A. from Yale in 2002 and writes for New York magazine, Salon, The Nation, and The Village Voice, where she earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her contributions to the series "Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young." She has appeared on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as a spokesperson on the employment obstacles facing youth.

Table of Contents

Preface: Why I Wrote This Book	ix
About the Research	xvii
Why Generation Debt?	1	(14)
College on Credit	15	(40)
Low-Wage Jobs	55	(36)
Temp Gigs	91	(34)
Without Benefits	125	(26)
Federal Rip-offs: Deficits, Social Security, Medicare	151	(32)
Family Troubles: Love and Independence	183	(20)
Waking Up and Taking Charge	203	(38)
Acknowledgments	241	(2)
Notes	243	(7)
Bibliography	250