General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Democrats' Move to the Right Profoundly Affects our Young People and Our Future. [View all]LittleGirl
(8,292 posts)I'll give you my niece's perspective. She's 28, makes less than 9 bucks an hour and has a college degree that she paid for with help from her parents and the two jobs she had in college. She was on the dean's list every semester. She has no insurance and a life long pre-existing condition that will need to be treated on a regular basis. She can't save a dime even living with her boyfriend and drives a beater. I asked her if she was going to vote last November and she said, I'm not even registered! She doesn't think that politics matters to her but she's starting to realize that it does. She has girlfriends that had kids because they thought they could live on welfare to pay their living expenses and found out the hard way, how untrue that was. She thinks they are fools because now they are trying to raise a kid with no education and no liveable wage. She is living in a dead end Midwestern town that has no jobs. It was once booming with manufacturing jobs that my parents had with a pension, health care and a livable wage. But not anymore! Those jobs left in the 80s to the southern states with no unions and then in the 90s to NAFTA. Those companies were General Motors, Bendix, Honeywell, Singer and Motorola and they are gone. Empty shells of buildings that need to be torn down and the city has lost 50% of their population because there are no jobs. Crime is rampant.
That's her reality. I told her to leave that godforsaken town with her 32 yr old boyfriend (who also has a degree) and don't look back. They know that they will never be able to start a family without livable wages, health insurance for her maternity someday and job security. They are just trying to survive.