Generational Swindle: How DC is Screwing over Millennials

People "want to frame this as a generational warfare issue, but I think it really isn't," says Jared Meyer of the Manhattan Institute and co-author of Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America's Young. "It's Washington versus America's young—not boomers and the Silent Generation."

In Disinherited, Meyer and his co-author Diana Furchtgott-Roth point blame at a wide range of government policies that threaten to leave millennials worse off than Gen Xers and previous generations. When the education system isn't failing kids in K-12, it's charging them exorbitant amounts for college degrees that confer less and less advantage. Fiscal policy, debt, and labor laws are squeezing out opportunities for go-getters and entrepreneurs. And then there's unsustainable old-age entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, that take money from the relatively young and poor Americans and give it to older, wealthier people.

"Politicians sold a false bill," Meyer tells Reason's Nick Gillespie. "They said: 'All these programs that you are paying for now, you're going to get the money you paid in later.' But they've made promises where they give benefits now and push the cost off to the future, which means current retirees are getting far more back then what they paid in."

About 6 minutes.

Camera by Todd Krainin and Joshua Swain; edited by Swain.

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