The generation of young people who entered the workforce in the late 1970s and early 1980s faced some difficult challenges. Recessions, competition for jobs among Baby Boomers, unemployment and the birth of mass incarceration are significant factors that made a generation (and especially many of its Black members) feel like they were close to the edge. Some never fully recovered.
Compounding their burdens were failed policies and an affordable housing crisis. These challenges are tied to increasing numbers of people falling over the edge into older adult homelessness.
Society failed many in this generation when they were young. We shouldn’t continue to fail them when they’re old.