Which demographic do you think has the largest group of swing voters? If you said the good, old (uh, young) Millennials, those voters falling in the 18-29-year-old age bracket, then you win the grand prize.
Generation Opportunity, a non-partisan, political advocacy group for Millennials recently released data on the burgeoning demographic. First, let's take a look at the non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) unemployment data for Millennials for August 2012 to get a better snapshot of what they're going through at the moment:
- The youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds specifically for August 2012 is 12.7 percent (NSA).
- The youth unemployment rate for 18-29-year-old African-Americans for August 2012 is 22.4 percent (NSA); the youth unemployment rate for 18-29-year-old Hispanics for August 2012 is 13.7 percent (NSA); and the youth unemployment rate for 18–29-year-old women for August 2012 is 12.6 percent (NSA).
- The declining labor participation rate has created an additional 1.715 million young adults that are not counted as "unemployed" by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
- If the labor force participation rate were factored into the 18-29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18-29-year-old unemployment rate would rise to 16.7 percent (NSA).
In addition, Generation Opportunity looked at polling information among Millennials that could certainly see the needle move based on the first debate.
- 89 percent of young people ages 18-29 say the current state of the economy is impacting their day-to-day lives.
- 84 percent of young people ages 18-29 had planned to but now might delay or not make at all a major life change or move forward on a major purchase due to the current state of the economy.
- Just 38 percent believe that today's political leaders reflect the interests of young Americans.
- 76 percent of Millennials plan to vote in the election for President this year.
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