Date: 2025-08-24 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025618
US SOCIETY
US YOUTH ... GENERATION VEX
A generation of idle trophy kids
US YOUTH ... GENERATION VEX
A generation of idle trophy kids
Original article: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/11/04/idle-millennials-are-victims-their-parents-success/2rWDFWXQHo290FqUpz0HOO/story.html
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Boston Globe OPINION ... written by Jennifer Graham
November 4, 2013, 2:00 a.m. (Accessed October2013)
WORD THAT 6 million young people are not working or studying comes as no surprise to anyone with a millennial in the basement.
While their parents weren’t looking, Generation X gave way to Generation Vex, an amiable, tech-savvy, yet minimally employable crop of Americans who will ultimately need more subsidies than a dairy farmer. Staying on the family health insurance until age 26 is just the beginning.
“They just need a chance,” soothes Mark Edwards, executive director of the Boston-based Opportunity Nation. That’s the advocacy group that recently released the study showing that 15 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds are the new American idle.
This does mean that 85 percent of this age group is in school or working — albeit many in low-wage jobs. Six million, however, is not an insignificant number. And researchers say people who begin their adult lives without jobs are more likely to be unemployed in the future. Bodies at rest remain at rest, even when a portion of one’s idle time is dispatched at the neighborhood gym. Even more unnerving, this generation has contrived a new level of inertia, which the Japanese call “hikikomori.” It’s young people who don’t leave the house at all, not because they’re scared like agoraphobics, but because their needs are met and they’re content. BUSINESSPOLITICSOPINIONHEALTHNEW HAMPSHIRERHODE ISLANDCOVIDSPOTLIGHTLIFESTYLEARTSGLOBE MAGAZINETECHNOLOGYCLIMATEEDUCATIONCARSREAL ESTATEEVENTS