President Barack Obama’s State of the Union on Tuesday night was filled with rhetoric promoting his agenda for 2014. But Obama’s annual address fell flat when it came to reforms targeted toward the demographic that landed him in the White House not once, but twice.
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The president’s speech hit all of the expected points, from Obamacare to expanding college opportunity for low-income students. But the president failed to offer reforms to help young Americans facing rising tuition costs, more than $1 trillion in student loan debt and an unemployment rate more than double that of the national rate.
“Once again tonight we heard the President throw a couple paragraphs of his speech to try and woo Millennials, but the problem is it’s all empty rhetoric,” Raffi Williams, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, told Red Alert Politics in an emailed statement.
The president wasted no time before touting the “lowest unemployment rate in over five years.” But absent from Obama’s narrative was the 16.3 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds currently unemployed. In addition to facing little job opportunity, the underemployment rate for young Americans sat at 44 percent in 2012.
Capitalizing on the White House’s summit to expand college opportunity for low-income Americans, President Obama discussed efforts to “reduce inequality in access to higher education.” Obama outlined commitments from universities, businesses and nonprofits to provide scholarships, fee waivers and enrollment assistance. However, the president quickly moved from higher education reforms to changing the tax code and closing loopholes.
“I wish the government would step back and allow us to pursue our futures free of policies that are little more than generational theft schemes,” Corrie Whalen, spokesperson for Generation Opportunity, said in an emailed statement to Red Alert Politics. “Unfortunately, that’s not on the agenda because the President has chosen to promote politics over the needs of young people.”
The president did, however, recognize a need for more on-the-job training, specifically to “set a young worker on an upward trajectory for life.” In his speech, Obama announced he had tasked Vice President Joe Biden with leading reforms to ensure workers have skills attractive to employers. This, Obama said, includes “connecting companies to community colleges that can help design training to fill their specific needs.”
One of the major changes lauded by President Obama, and announced by the White House the morning of the State of the Union, was his executive action to raise the minimum wage for those working on federal contracts to $10.10. Obama said the increased wages would give customers more money to spend and called on Congress to “give America a raise.”
However, such an increase is likely to increase the cost of goods for consumers and cost jobs beneficial to Millennials.
“The President also pushed for a minimum wage increase to $10.10 per hour, a move that the Employment Policy Institute says will cost up to one million entry level jobs – jobs that would help young people enter the workforce and start their careers,” Whalen said.
Much to no avail, President Obama used his annual address to tout the benefits of his signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act. Though the law’s success relies heavily on the participation of Millennials, the law has caused an increase in the cost of premiums for 18- to 34-year-olds, some as much as 260 percent.
“Already, because of the Affordable Care Act, more than 3 million Americans under age 26 have gained coverage under their parents’ plans,” Obama said.
However, a new study proves it is financially advantageous for Millennials to forego coverage under the Affordable Care Act and instead pay the monetary penalty, $95 in 2014.
“In his State of the Union address, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to policies that harm young Americans,” Whalen said. “He claimed Obamacare has been successful, even though young people recognized a bad deal and overwhelmingly chose to opt out.”
According to recent data from the Department of Health and Human Services, only 24 percent of those who selected plans on the Obamacare marketplace were between the ages of 18 and 34. But to prevent a death spiral from occurring, 2.7 million Millennials need to purchase plans under the law.
President Obama’s State of the Union, his sixth, targeted many issues facing not only Americans, but young Americans, specifically. However, the president failed to outline comprehensive reforms and policies geared toward helping the demographic that got him elected not once, but twice.
“The real state of the union that Obama neglected to mention is that young people are seriously hurting under this administration with over 6 million young people between the ages of 16 and 24 not working or in school, and with an alarming 16.3% youth unemployment rate,” Ashley Pratte, spokesperson for Young America’s Foundation, told Red Alert Politics in an emailed statement. “What Obama failed to do tonight was directly address our nation’s young people; he failed to apologize for misleading our nation’s youth when it came to healthcare and offered no plan just more empty rhetoric.”
