Pinched (27 page)

1.
“I’m definitely seeing”
Steve Friess, “In Recession, Optimistic College Grads Turn Down Jobs,”
New York Times
, July 24, 2009.

2.
In one recent study
Lisa B. Kahn, “The Long-Term Labor Market Consequences of Graduating from College in a Bad Economy” (paper, Yale School of Management, 2009); Lisa Kahn, conversation with author, 2009.

3.
“Graduates’ first jobs”
Austan Goolsbee, “Hello Young Workers: One Way to Reach the Top Is to Start There,”
New York Times
, May 25, 2006.

4.
This job environment
National Association of Colleges and Employers, “Job Outlook 2011,” 2011,
http://www.naceweb.org/Research/Job_Outlook/Job_Outlook.aspx?referal=research&menuID=377
.

5.
Strong evidence suggests
Krysia Mossakowski, “The Influence of Past Unemployment Duration on Symptoms of Depression Among Young Women and Men in the United States,”
American Journal of Public Health
99: 1826–32; Krysia Mossakowski, conversation with author, 2009.

6.
Today in Japan
Kenji Hall and Ian Rowley, “Japan’s Lost Generation,”
BusinessWeek
, May 28, 2007; additional data from the Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development provided to author by Kenji Hall.

7.
poor health is prevalent
Till Von Wachter and Daniel Sullivan, “Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics
124, no. 3 (August 2009): 1265–1306; Till Von Wachter, conversation with author, 2009.

8.
various labels
Steven Greenhouse, “As Plants Close, Teenagers Focus More on College,”
New York Times
, June 25, 2009.

9.
today’s young adults
Jean Twenge,
Generation Me
(New York: Free Press, 2006); Jean Twenge, conversation with author, 2009.

10.
In her 2006 book
Twenge,
Generation Me
.

11.
Ron Alsop, a former reporter
Ron Alsop, “The ‘Trophy Kids’ Go to Work,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 21, 2008; Ron Alsop, conversation with author, 2009.

12.
In his 2009 commencement
Steve Friess, “In Recession, Optimistic.”

13.
According to a recent Pew survey
Sam Roberts, “Economy Is Forcing Young Adults Back Home in Big Numbers, Survey Finds,”
New York Times
, November 24, 2009.

14.
Aubrey Howell, who’d tweeted
Kimi Yoshino, “For the ‘Funemployed,’ Unemployment’s Welcomed,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 4, 2009; Aubrey Howell, conversation with author, 2009.

15.
rate the importance
Allstate
/National Journal
, “Heartland Monitor Poll Topline: Generation Y,” April 22–26, 2010, 8, 9.

16.
Overall, job tenure increased
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employee Tenure in 2010,” September 14, 2010,
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/tenure_09142010.htm
.

17.
These trends are dispiriting
Mike Mandel, “Where Young College Grads Are Finding Jobs: Government,”
Mandel on Innovation and Growth
(blog), October 5, 2010,
http://innovationandgrowth.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/where-young-college-grads-are-finding-jobs-government/
.

18.
The relationship between
“Heartland Monitor Poll,” 14. 76
Karen Fingerman indicates
Karen Fingerman et al., “Giving to the Good and the Needy: Parental Support of Grown Children,”
Journal of Marriage and Family
71, no. 5 (December 2009): 1220–33.

19.
A May 2010 “Shouts & Murmurs”
Simon Rich, “Your New College Graduate:
A Parents’ Guide” New Yorker
, May 24, 2010,
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/05/24/100524sh_shouts_rich
.

20.
family and financial consultants
Alina Tugend, “Full Nest Syndrome,”
National Journal
, May 8, 2010,
http://nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100508_2642.php
.

21.
instead living at home
For more on youth in Japan, see Michael Zielenziger,
Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Decade
(New York: Nan A. Talese, 2006); Kosugi Reiko, “Youth Employment in Japan’s Economic Recovery: Freeters and NEETs,”
Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
(May 2006),
http://japanfocus.org/-Kosugi-Reiko/2022
; Peggy Orenstein, “Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter,”
New York Times Magazine
, July 1, 2001; Kenji Hall and Ian Rowley, “Japan’s Lost Generation,”
Businessweek
, May 17, 2007; Maggie Jones, “Shutting Themselves In,”
New York Times Magazine
, January 15, 2006.

22.
What often gets lost
Pew Research Center, “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change,” February 2010, 16,
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1501/millennials-new-survey-generational-personality-upbeat-open-new-ideas-technology-bound
.

23.
But obligations
“Heartland Monitor Poll,” 12.

24.
12 percent of adults
Wendy Wang and Rich Morin, “Home for the Holidays … and Every Other Day,” Pew Research Center, November 24, 2009,
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1423/home-for-the-holidays-boomeranged-parents
.

25.
Millennials entered
“Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change,” 67–70.

26.
When asked whom
“Heartland Monitor Poll,” 4.

27.
A recent paper
Paolo Giuliano and Antonio Spilimbergo, “Growing Up in a Recession” (working paper 15321, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2009),
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15321
.

28.
The optimism
“Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change,” 21–22.

29.
college attendance has risen
Catherine Rampell, “College Enrollment Rate at Record High,”
Economix
(blog),
New York Times
, April 28, 2010,
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/college-enrollment-rate-at-record-high/
.

1.
Since the recession began
Shannon Behken, “Homeowner Fees ‘Like Extortion,’ Homeowner Says,”
Tampa Tribune
, September 5, 2010; Mark Spector, conversation with author, 2010.

2.
real home prices rose
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

3.
Home buyers
National Association of Realtors, conversation with author, 2010; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey.

4.
nearly one in four
Chris Arnold, “Economists Brace for Worsening Subprime Crisis,”
All Things Considered
, National Public Radio, August 7, 2007,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12561184
.

5.
20 percent of all new mortgages
Ben Bernanke, “Fostering Sustainable Homeownership” (speech, National Community Reinvestment Coalition Annual Meeting, March 14, 2008),
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20080314a.htm
.

6.
this kind of appreciation
Don Peck, “Pffffttt,”
Atlantic
, July/August 2005,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/07/pffffttt/6751/
.

7.
typical families saw
U.S. Census Bureau, “American Housing Survey,”
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs.html
; S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

8.
Many cashed out
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,
http://www2.fdic.gov/sdi/main.asp
.

9.
more than 12 million
U.S. Census Bureau, “American Housing Survey for the United States: 2007.”

10.
Nationwide, housing values
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

11.
the total housing vacancy rate
Alex Tabarrok, “Why Are So Many Homes Unemployed?”
Marginal Revolution
(blog), July 29, 2010,
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/why-are-so-many-homes-unemployed.html
.

12.
roughly one in four
CoreLogic, “New CoreLogic Data Shows 23 Percent of Borrowers Underwater With $750 Billion of Negative Equity,” March 8, 2011,
http://www.mbaa.org/ResearchandForecasts/ProductsandSurveys/
NationalDelinquencySurvey.htm
; Mortgage Bankers Association, “Delinquencies and Foreclosure Starts Decrease in Latest MBA National Delinquency Survey,” August 26, 2010.

13.
But a larger number
Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2010,” June 2010,
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/press-releases/sonh-2010
.

14.
“Disillusionment is”
Andrew Sullivan, “The View from Your Recession,”
Daily Dish
(blog),
Atlantic
, April 23, 2009,
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-view-from-your-recession-13.html#more
.

15.
This pattern
Richard Florida, “How the Crash Will Reshape America,”
Atlantic
, March 2009,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/03/how-the-crash-will-reshape-america/7293/
.

16.
So, too, have recent immigrants
Audrey Singer, “The State of Metropolitan America: Immigration,” Brookings Institution, 2010,
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/MetroAmericaChapters/immigration.aspx
.

17.
Christopher Leinberger argued
Christopher Leinberger, “The Next Slum?”
Atlantic
, March 2008,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/the-next-slum/6653/
.

18.
difficult compromises
Fannie Mae, “Fourth Quarter 2010,” National Housing Survey Fact Sheet,
http://www.fanniemae.com/about/housing-survey.html
.

19.
roughly 3.5 million Americans
Arianna Huffington,
Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Destroying the American Dream
(New York: Crown Publishers, 2010), 104.

20.
Related research shows
Robert Frank,
Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 88.

21.
Once suburban communities
Leinberger, “The Next Slum?”

22.
A 2010 Brookings Institution study
Singer, “The State of Metropolitan America,” 114, 133.

23.
crime, too, has migrated
Hanna Rosin, “American Murder Mystery,”
Atlantic
, July/August 2008,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american-murder-mystery/6872/
; Leinberger, “The Next Slum?”

24.
Detroit remained
Florida, “How the Crash Will Reshape America.”

25.
Today, after years of rapid growth
J. Patrick Coolican, “Las Vegas Population in Decline; Will It Reverse?”
Las Vegas Sun
, November 13, 2010.

26.
as Sin City beckoned
Alex Tabarrok, “Leaving Las Vegas (If They Can),”
Marginal Revolution
(blog), October 4, 2010,
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/10/leaving-las-vegas-if-they-can.html
.

27.
That’s no surprise
Adam Nagourney, “Las Vegas Faces Its Deepest Slide Since the 1940s,”
New York Times
, October 2, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/us/03vegas.html
.

28.
What’s surprising is
Jean Guerrero, “All Signs Point to Continuing Las Vegas Exodus,”
Las Vegas Sun
, September 2, 2010,
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep/02/moving-vegas-not-anymore/
.

29.
Anchored by houses
Haya El Nasser, “More Move, But Not Long Distance,”
USA Today
, May 11, 2010.

30.
surely this recession
Social & Demographic Trends Project, “How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America,” Pew Research Center (June 30, 2010), 7.

31.
the suburbs were never
Kenneth Jackson,
Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 272–76.

32.
In his 2008 book
Bill Bishop,
The Big Sort
(New York: Houghton Mifflin; 2008), esp. 49–54.

33.
middle-class status anxiety
Social & Demographic Trends Project, “How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America,” 36–51.

34.
But middle-class optimism
Ibid.

35.
According to Fannie Mae’s
“National Housing Survey,” Fannie Mae,
http://www.fanniemae.com/media/pdf/2010/National-Housing-Survey-112310.pdf
.

36.
In their analysis
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, “The Aftermath of Financial Crises” (paper prepared for presentation at American Economic Association meeting, San Francisco, January 3, 2009).

37.
In Japan
Information provided to author by the Japan Real Estate Institute, 2010.

38.
the
New York Times
has taken
For example, see Martin Fackler, “Take It from Japan: Bubbles Hurt,”
New York Times
, December 25, 2005; Martin Fackler, “Japan Goes from Dynamic to Disheartened,”
New York Times
, October, 16, 2010.

39.
Evidence of a growing
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Personal Savings Rate,”
http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/saving.htm
.

40.
As it relates to housing
Alex Kotlowitz, “All Boarded Up,”
New York Times Magazine
, March 4, 2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/magazine/08Foreclosure-t.html
.

41.
In Las Vegas and Phoenix
David Streitfeld, “Building Is Booming in a City of Empty Houses,”
New York Times
, May 15, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/business/16builder.html
.

42.
under a pilot program
Annie Lowrey, “The Return of the $1,000 Down Mortgage,”
Washington Independent
, August 5, 2010,
http://washingtonindependent.com/93795/the-return-of-the-1000-down-mortgage
.