Polls of millennials show consistently that economic issues, such as jobs and college debt, are their dominant concerns. Issues like transgender rights, or climate change, may motivate the media and denizens of university hothouses, but for most young people more critical are those that impact their lives in a more immediate way.
The current ruling oligarchy, centered on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, has no real program to address these concerns outside of occasional proposals to provide guaranteed incomes and subsidies for what they see as increasingly extraneous masses. But many millennials may not feel so positive about a dismal future as “gig economy” drones. They certainly show little signs of capitalist ardor. Relatively few are starting businesses and fully half, notes a Harvard study, believe “the American dream” is dead. Under these conditions promises of guaranteed jobs, free college and single-payer health care are far more attractive.
Similarly high rents and diminished prospects for home ownership naturally creates growing support for rent control and massive subsidies for housing. This is particularly true in the most overpriced markets (for young people especially) on the West Coast and in the Northeast. Even in Orange County, rent control has the support of nearly three in five voters, according to a recent Chapman University poll.
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