I’ve spent the past few months talking about Gen Z’s overwhelming sense of economic anxiety.
Icymi: A tough entry-level job market and continued inflation have contributed to my generation’s sense of financial gloom. We know this feeling is reshaping young people’s politics and where they choose to live.
But we’re now just weeks away from the midterm elections. And more than before, a sense that everything is just too damn expensive is impacting even their most routine spending habits.
Because I know this is coming… Yes, social media is crowded with examples of young people spending money on things that seem unnecessary – a $14 fro-yo, $25 trendy eye patches, or the $8 iced coffee they might even take into a job interview. But offline, where young people are not performatively posting their sweet treats, I’m hearing a different story.
Since June, we’ve asked our community where they’re feeling the biggest financial pinch. The results were concerning from the start — things like rent, gas, and tuition have crept up in costs, but so has the cost of travel and hanging out with friends (so much so that some young people are Klarna-maxxing their social lives).
Now there’s an even more alarming trend. Lately, I’ve been struck by how many respondents are telling us that groceries are their biggest financial concern. This isn’t a one-off thing. I’ve heard it from twenty-somethings across the country — in all phases of life.
The data backs this up.
A whopping 90% of students who had completed at least one year of college reported cutting back on buying food or skipping meals to afford something else, according to a recent survey by snack brand Nature’s Garden and Wired Research. And 20% of Gen Zers have either applied or thought about applying to food stamps, according to an Intuit Credit Karma survey from June.
And the fact that young people are struggling to afford their groceries is undoubtedly having a real effect on how they feel about the general state of things.
This week’s Fox News poll found that 43% of adults under 30 are “not at all” satisfied with the state of things in the country and 46% said their family’s financial situation is worse today than it was two years ago.
That’s surely related to why there’s been a surge in young people’s support for socialism. The same poll found that 47% of adults under 30 have a “strongly” or “somewhat” favorable view of socialism, while just 28% have a “strongly” or “somewhat” favorable view of capitalism.
As I’ve said before:
“When young voters support socialist candidates or say they favor socialism writ large, it’s really because the status quo isn’t working. Life feels totally unaffordable, but young people believe that it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Being unable to afford groceries is, perhaps, the most mundane example of this generational reality.
The jury’s still out on whether or not this will manifest into votes in November. If young people do vote, this general frustration with the status quo is a good sign for Democrats, who have the upper hand when it comes to issues of affordability, given that they’re *not* the party in power. But that’s not enough. And if young people don’t believe candidates can bring down costs, I’m not sure they’re going to vote at all.