Saturday, March 8, 2014

To Be Millennial

The Pew Research Center has released a new poll of Millennial attitudes and beliefs; Millennials are young Americans between the ages of 18 and 33.  Pew summarizes its findings thusly:
They are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry— and optimistic about the future.

They are also America’s most racially diverse generation. In all of these dimensions, they are different from today’s older generations. And in many, they are also different from older adults back when they were the age Millennials are now.
Reading beyond the executive summary you discover that a major reason for their differences is that only 57% of them are white. On a number of topics, Millennials' views more closely agree with older members of their racial or ethnic group than with others of their age cohort. Two key findings:
White Millennials’ views of Obama are not substantially different from those of older whites. Some 34% of white Millennials approve of the job Obama is doing as president. (snip) By contrast 67% of non-white Millennials give Obama high marks for the job he’s doing as president.

White Millennials say they would prefer a smaller government that provides fewer services (52%). (snip) Non-white Millennials lean heavily toward a bigger government.