This is big. The New Hustle big. 80 Million Strong For Young American Jobs, a collaboration of youth organizations around the U.S., is uniting a movement to strengthen the voice of the millennial generation. They have been featured on CNN (see video below). What is 80 million? Roughly the size of Generation Y (3 million more than Generation X).
This is The New Hustle at its finest. I stumbled across their page in search of ‘millennial generation blogs’. What I left with was a stronger belief in the integrity, industriousness and adaptability of our generation.
At this point, we have two options – keep complaining about the state of our economy and the bad cards we have been dealt (their site reports that recent college grads have amassed an average $27,000 in debt by the time they graduate – much in thanks to a combination of predatory lending and ‘college ingenuity’ – to put it nicely) – or we can choose to be the catalyst that starts to change things for the better by empowering ourselves to become the best we can be.
Either way, until we become the change we want to see, other generations continue to view us as the ‘narccisist, entitled generation’. I see so many negative comments on posts written by advocates of the millennial generation’s positive attributes – saying we’ve been looking through ‘mud colored glasses’ to think we have realized our mistakes and can extend outside of our ‘selfish’ minds to bring positive change.
See the comments on the following link to a June 2009 article in the Arizona Republic, aptly titled, ‘Millennials are driven, not entitled narcissists‘.
The coalition aims to ensure our government supports creation of progressive jobs – available to the younger generation that utilizes their technological savvy for companies’ benefit. This includes a focus on green jobs. There is a strong belief that we must also promote a new generation of entrepreneurs - advocating tax cuts and more credit towards ‘young jobs’ as they put it.
“We need investments in the entrepreneurial vision that will create the jobs we cannot yet imagine, generating new industries that are built to last in a 21st century environment.” -80 Million Strong dot org
This is really good stuff – you know, that fire burning in your belly kind of stuff. It’s what our generation needs and where we are headed if we want to turn things around. As more and more catch on to this movement we will be in awe at the massive influence we will have in shaping our own destiny – collectively.
I will be following the movement closely, as they will be convening in July in Washington D.C. Their website even allows you to submit your own idea to be considered for input. Be expecting more posts in the future on this. For now, watch the video below and do what you can to kick start this grass roots program. Share this post with as many people as you can to spread the word (see link below video).
