Wednesday Special Report by Angie Rauscher

The Great Recession has been difficult for everyone, and different for each generation.  The Baby Boomers had their retirement funds decimated, Gen Xers are underwater on their mortgages, and Gen Ys are wondering if they’ll ever be able to afford to have an apartment without a room mate.

I’m part of GenY.  I’m just shy of 30, and a quarter of my friends from college are unemployed or underemployed, not including the ones who decided to go to grad school to pursue a masters or even a PhD because they couldn’t find a job.  Most of us have between $10,000 and $100,000 of student loans, few own homes, and even fewer have children.  We’re not irresponsible Peter Pans holding tightly to our adolescence, we’re just broke.

In many ways we’re lucky- we’re still close enough to our broke student years that it’s relatively easy to revert to the budgeting tactics of college students.  We don’t have huge mortgages, don’t have a boat or vacation house to offload, haven’t grown accustomed to a two week Caribbean vacation each summer.  On the other hand, our professional networks are still growing, we have shorter resumes, and don’t generally have a IRA to drain if things get bad enough.

We won’t know for years what the widespread, long-term effect of the Great Recession will be, but the effects on Gen Y are clear.  It means we’re missing out on some key retirement savings years, and the loss of the compounded interest on early savings means we’ll need to save more in the future if we hope to retire comfortably.  It means that everyone I know is on a tight budget, pinching pennies and closely tracking our finances.  A recent article in the Atlantic demonstrated almost 20 years after the end of the 1982 recession, that those who entered the workforce during that time were earning 10% less than those who started working during better times, so we can look forward to reduced earnings for the rest of our working lives.  It means we’re not earning credits toward collecting Social Security.  It means we’re delaying buying homes and having kids because we simply can’t afford them, or living with our parents because they need help paying the mortgage. It means that not only have we not reached the American Dream, I’m not even sure what it is anymore.

From that angle things look pretty terrible, but I’m writing this post in a cafe in Avignon, France and the view is pretty great from here.  After years of hopping from job to seasonal job I stumbled into my current position.  I’m able to do my job because of, not in spite of, the wide and seemingly random range of skills I’d gained as a stage manager, actress, tax preparer, special needs care worker, and camp counselor.  Now I’m traveling the world, telecommuting, and living more cheaply than I was in Pennsylvania.  I’m not an aberration- I have friends teaching English in China and doing AmeriCorps in California, studying the life-cycles of newts in the Pacific Northwest and learning to teach yoga in India.  Being unable to get a break in the job market makes us more willing to travel the world, take interesting and non-traditional jobs, pursue

So what happens to Gen Y in 10 or 20 years?  Probably nothing earth-shaking.  As the economy recovers most of us will find steady jobs, buy homes, and have babies.  For me personally, it means that I’ll never look at my home as an investment, that I’ll maintain a frugal budget and keep a serious emergency fund, and that my kids will remember hearing me talk about the Great Recession as clearly as I remember my grandfather talking about the Great Depression.  I’m not grateful for the recession, but I am grateful for the lessons it’s taught me.

About Angie Rauscher Angie usually blogs about her travels and her job at over at Moneydance’s blog.  In addition to blogging she’s a support tech for Moneydance, a cross platform personal finance program, and is a frugal living and personal finance blog junkie.