How Do You Get Millennials Focused on the Issues Facing Americans Today?

Kasey Saeturn, a 20-year-old journalist, got the idea for her most recent reporting project while attempting to grab take-out in Oakland’s Chinatown. That summer afternoon, she and other reporters left the Youth Radio headquarters to find cheap eats. Most returned empty-handed, unable to find anything affordable in the gentrified neighborhood. The situation prompted Saeturn, a first-generation Mien-American whose family came from Laos, to think about urban renewal, wondering: Was a lack of affordable cuisine unique to the Easy Bay or did kids across the country choose between an empty stomach and an empty wallet?
To answer her question, Saeturn built a map and used Facebook and Twitter to collect responses from across the country to fill it. Last month, her story (which was produced by Youth Radio) appeared before a national audience on NPR’s website. “I wouldn’t have even found out if I liked [storytelling] if I didn’t join Youth Radio. I never saw myself as a journalist,” Saeturn, a college student with a second job at a ramen shop, says.
With kids manning the mics, Youth Radio, a public radio station, launched from Berkeley, Calif., in the 1990s. As shootings ravaged low-income neighborhoods, its founder, Ellin O’Leary, hoped to end the prevailing news narrative that all teens were violent gangbangers or victims by giving minority, low-income youths the opportunity to explain their lives for themselves. That mission continues today at bureaus in L.A., Atlanta and Washington, D.C., as Millennials — burdened with college debt and unemployment — create stories about living in a hashtag-centric world. Keeping up with the times, Youth Radio now also streams its content online and in 2009, started its Innovation Lab, a digital storytelling platform, where young people design interactive mobile apps that give a fresh take on the news in a format that’s relevant to their peers.
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“There’s multiple ways to tell a story,” says Asha Richardson, a Youth Radio alum who now manages the Innovation Lab. Richardson, the station’s former tech journalist, wanted her reporting to go beyond the reels and was intrigued how technology — video, music, graphic design, coding — and new platforms that appealed to her peers enhanced reach and storytelling impact. Students in the program (80 percent come from low-income homes) receive real-world tech skills, learning not only how to use a recording device, set levels and mix their audio, but also how to design and code, says Lissa Soep, a senior producer who cooked up the Innovation Lab with Richardson.
APPLY: Youth Radio is an NBCUniversal 21st Century Solutions grant winner. Apply to the 2016 program here.
Youth Radio’s apps transform the century-old two-minute radio story and make it better by allowing a reader to spend as much time with a story as she desires (the same way a listener could binge on Serial). A series of interviews about gentrification in five Oakland neighborhoods, for example, allows a visitor to turn about the city through an online map, visiting schools and playgrounds, a Disneyesque theme park, grand old hotels and new high-rise condos. Richardson’s Bucket Hustle app combines trivia questions about California’s drought with an arcade-style game of collecting falling water drops in a bucket. And another online interactive, Double Charged, lets a viewer follow three people through the juvenile justice system and watch as thousands of dollars in fees pile up throughout the process.
Youth Radio’s multi-platform approach extends young people’s voices far beyond their Twitter feeds and Tumblr accounts. So far, its stories have reached more than 28 million users and the digital tools created in its Innovation Lab have an active user base of more than 3 million people worldwide.
That ability to reach a diverse audience changed the way Saeturn thinks about her own life and how much she’s willing to share on the radio. When she sits down to brainstorm, she asks herself, “What’s going on in my life that other people can relate to?” Knowing her words will be shared justifies “putting all the thought and feeling and heart” into each story, hoping her experience helps another young person listening on the web.
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More than any hackathon or a media studies class, Youth Radio allows young people to express themselves and connect with listeners. By telling stories, Saeturn feels like she’s finally found her voice. Not in the sense that it gave her thoughts and opinions she didn’t hold before, but that it gives her a platform to stand on.
“A lot of adults, they don’t really care for what children have to say. To them, it’s whatever we say goes. They forget that the youth is our next generation. They forget that we have the same thoughts and opinions as you do. We have worries as well,” Saeturn says. “That’s the biggest thing: we’ve been silent for so long, forced to believe that nobody cares.” With Youth Radio as their outlet, they’re finding people that are willing to listen. Online, they’re able to reach more of them than ever before.
Youth Radio is a recipient of last year’s 21st Century Solutions grant powered by the NBCUniversal Foundation, in partnership with the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations. The grant celebrates nonprofits that are embracing innovative solutions to advance community-based programs in the areas of civic engagement, education, environment, jobs and economic empowerment, media, and technology for good. Apply here for a chance to be one of the 2016 winners!

What Are the Latest Farming Innovations in America? This Group Is Touring the Heartland to Find Out

“American farmers are a dying breed,” a Newsweek cover story tolled last spring. The splashy headline was eye-grabbing, but the narrative of aging farmers and agricultural decline is closer to myth than fact. More and more young people are joining the time-tested profession, bringing new technology, ideas and environmental consciousness to farming.
Just who are these millennials heading into the fields, and why are they doing it? It’s a question Young Invincibles, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit focused on youth engagement, along with Global Prairie, a digital media and marketing firm in Kansas City, will be asking on a nationwide listening tour, FarmNext: Giving Voice to the Next Generation of Food Producers. The group will host its first meeting at University of California, Davis today, followed by stops at Kansas State University, Virginia Tech and Iowa State University. It all culminates in a summit at the nation’s capital this fall.
NationSwell will be following the conference as it hops around the country, bringing you stories about young farmers’ perseverance and innovation in the face of challenges. We’ll focus on how we can incentivize young people to do the crucial work that stocks our markets with food; how drones, mapping and the latest inventions are changing the business of agriculture; and how America as a whole can bridge the divide between rural and urban communities.
“I think we’ve seen the millennial generation as a generation that has been let down by traditional institutions, whether that’s the real estate market, Wall Street, government,” Tom Allison, Young Invincible’s policy and research manager, tells NationSwell. For young people, “there’s a cultural search for something authentic, and you can’t get more authentic than reconnecting with the land, growing your own food and becoming part of the ecological system in a way that maybe has been lost in previous generations.”
These 80 million teens and twentysomethings — idealistic, socially, tech-savvy and penniless, if you believe what the media says — compose a growing share of the country’s workforce. Agriculture’s no different. While some indicators, like the average age of the “principal operator,” may appear to show farmers are getting older, those aren’t exactly accurate. “A lot of times a family might designate the oldest person in the family, out of respect and tradition, even if Grandpa isn’t necessarily doing as much work or making the business and ecological decisions of the farm,” notes Allison, whose family operates a small vineyard in Virginia.
Most other numbers reveal a millennial-driven business. The median age for non-management farmhands is 37.4 and for miscellaneous agricultural workers it’s 34.1 — both far younger than the median age for all occupations: 42.3. Another way of measuring the age of the workforce, the share of jobs held by millennials (16 to 34 years old), reveals that in fields like agriculture and food science, 41 percent of jobs are held by young adults.
Those figures are expected to grow. While the number of students majoring in agricultural studies remains low overall — 1.8 percent — its growth is skyrocketing, with a 39 percent increase over the past five years.
“There’s attributes that make us uniquely adapted to the agricultural industry,” Allison says. “We have collaborative approaches to work. Even though it is one person toiling in the soil, it really takes a whole network across the industry: the folks selling the equipment through the food chain pipeline to the buyer. Young people are also so adapted to technology. Agriculture relies more and more on predictive analytics to inform decisions on what to grow and when, GPS or drones to identify problems in the field that are too big or too small for one person or a crew to identify and big applications for food chemistry.”
Farming is not as easy or romantic as it sounds, as Allison can attest. It’s “not exactly Norman Rockwell,” he says. There’s days in late spring when you light a fire at the end of your row of vines to ward away a frost, tend it all night, then have one flock of birds eat your entire crop the next afternoon. There’s days in late summer when the salty sweat burns your eyes under 100-degree heat. But even for all the hardship, the rewards of harvesting something from the soil are attracting a new group.
“The numbers are there,” Allison adds. “Young people are getting into farming, both because they care about it and because there’s a lot of opportunities there.” Which is good news for the rest of us, since our dinner depends on it.

It’s Official. This Demographic Has Just About Eliminated the Wage Gap

Millennials are trying to change the world, especially when it comes to work. And according to new research by PayScale and Millennial Branding, it appears that Millennials are doing just that — this time, by reducing the gender pay gap.
The study, conducted by PayScale and Millennial Branding, assessed the pay difference for Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials (those born between 1982 and 2002). It found that the discrepancy among this generation is the lowest of all, though it increases as employees climb the career ladder.
For entry-level jobs, the salary difference for Millennials was 2.2 percent; Baby Boomers came in at 2.7 percent, while Generation X is highest at 3.6 percent, according to the National Journal. As employees rise in the ranks, though, the gap widens. Millennials now report a 4.9 percent difference while Baby Boomers are at 6.2 percent and Generation X is at 7.4 percent.
This change could be attributed to employers’ awareness and conviction that men and women are equal in the workforce.
“Employers are more aware and are trying to get ahead of any potential gender bias in terms of pay,” Lydia Frank of PayScale tells National Journal.
Despite, the larger numbers for higher-level jobs, entry-level positions are actually the best indicator for the future pay scale. Higher wages for entry-level jobs indicate future increased earnings. Therefore, if there is a smaller pay gap in the beginning, there’s a good chance that trend will continue as employees progress through their careers.
There are a few important things for Millennials to remember about the work environment, though. First, show your worth in the beginning and talk to your employer about what your salary because it will benefit you later in your career.
“If you don’t negotiate in that first job, it compounds over time,” Millennial workplace expert Lindsey Pollak says. “You won’t necessarily be able to make up for it later.”
Second, Millennials are also known as the boomerang generation because they switch from career to career.  While it’s important to find a job you like, employers will reward employees who are loyal and stay with the company, so it may be worth sticking it out for a few years.
“I’ve seen a lot of boomerang careers among younger workers,” Pollak explains to National Journal. “They think the grass is always greener, but that’s not always the case.”
MORE: These Organizations Are Empowering Female Workers

When Skiers Leave Behind Warm Clothing, These Teens Dole It Out to the Homeless

There’s more than a mountain of snow at ski resorts each season, as giant piles of winter coats, mittens, hats and scarves accumulate in the lost-and-found departments.
Back in 2011, two 11-year-old ski racers from the Bay Area, Corinne Hindes and Katherine Kirsebom, noticed these mountains of unclaimed winter wear at Lake Tahoe ski resorts and decided to use them to help less fortunate people.
They didn’t stop with just donating one batch of coats to homeless shelters and other charities, however. The girls founded the nonprofit Warm Winters, and to date, the organization has donated 5,000 pieces of warm clothing to help thousands of homeless people.
Even though Hindes and Kirsebom are still only teenagers, they plan to expand Warm Winters nationally with the help of a 2013 Jefferson Award, given by a foundation that describes itself as “the country’s longest standing and most prestigious organization dedicated to activating and celebrating public service.”
As part of the award, Hindes is studying leadership with the Jefferson Awards Globe Changers Leadership Program. She aims to expand Warm Winters to 10 ski-friendly states, while keeping the program a teen-led initiative as they work with the National Ski Area Association to get it off the ground at 50 or more ski resorts.
Hindes tells TalkingGood, “There was a time a few years back where I saw a homeless man in a T-shirt and jeans on a terribly cold day in winter and I was horrified by how cold he was, and the fact that he had no jacket to shield him from the cold broke my heart. That was a moment where I gained clarity about my purpose because I knew that I had to help him and others like him in any way that I could, and I had to do all that I could to make their situation better. When I gave my first coat to a homeless person, the smile on his face gave me the most rewarding feeling I had ever felt, and it still does today.”
MORE: How Does A Professional Skier Inspire Kids Toward Academic Achievement?

When the Elderly Need Help With Chores, This Concierge Service Does the Heavy Lifting

Who has time to launch a start-up while she’s still finishing her bachelor’s degree?
Somehow, 25-year-old Amanda Cavaleri of Denver, Colo. did, building on inspiration she received during a year off from school.
Six years ago, Cavaleri was torn about what to major in: classics or business? So she took some time off and worked as a server at The Academy, a Boulder, Colo. retirement community.
Cavaleri tells Claire Martin of the Denver Post that one woman at The Academy couldn’t communicate well, though she could indicate yes or no. “I was serving coffee and tea one day, and I noticed that she always had the same kind of tea. I wondered if she might be bored with it, and might want to try a new kind. So I brought over all the tea choices, so she could pick the tea she preferred. It made such a difference to her. Who knows how long she’d had to drink that same tea? And I knew I’d found my passion.”
Cavaleri began to dream up a business plan for a concierge service for the elderly — a company that would help clients with chores and errands, especially those who live far away from their family members, while connecting millennials with senior citizens.
Soon, she founded Capable Living, a start-up she runs while finishing her bachelor’s degree in business at Regis University.
Capable Living offers help to elders with day-to-day chores, post-surgery needs and travel. And Calaveri has become one of the leading lights of the eldercare industry.

As for her future plans, Calaveri tells Martin, “One of the problems we’re trying to solve is how to get high school and college grads to work with elders, at least for a couple of years, so the younger people can get the benefit of the elders’ experience…There’s such talent out there, and so much potential. How do we shift our attitude toward aging so that we, as a society, value elders’ experiences? We need a cultural paradigm shift.”

 MORE: These Startups Offer Sleek Technological Innovations for the Elderly

When It Comes to Helping Homeless Vets, Could Thinking Small Be The Answer?

You’d think Joseph Gotesman would have his hands full with studying. After all, he’s a 22-year-old second-year medical student at Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
But Gotesman finds the time to lead the small organization VetConnect that seeks out homeless veterans in the Bronx and keeps in touch with them until they find stable housing.
Since January, Gotesman and a handful of volunteers have been walking the streets, looking for homeless people holding cardboard signs saying they’re vets or just asking the people if they’ve served. When they find a homeless soldier, VetConnect works to verify his or her status and begins the process of applying for benefits and finding assistance programs.
So far, VetConnect has helped five veterans attain stable housing and assisted several others find employment.
Jacow W. Sotak of the New York Times asked Chris Miller of the New York City Department of Homeless Services whether such a small-scale effort helps given the magnitude of the city’s homelessness problem. It does, says Miller. “Many of our partners started out as small, neighborhood-focused organizations. We value every effort, however small, to reach out to a homeless man or woman and connect them to services. It makes a difference.”
Gotesman tells Sotak that he believes the strength of VetConnect is its focused, local nature. “You can’t get more local than community members reaching out to their own. And as we grow, it will be community members reaching out to their own as well. You won’t see me at a VetConnect excursion in an L.A. or a Boston community excursion.”
Still, Gotesman recognizes the VetConnect model could work well elsewhere, so he’s helping people in other states organize their own teams. “Helping a veteran is not a quick, simple feat,” he tells Sotak in an email. “It takes time and relationship and trust building.”
Having a local team of dedicated volunteers who can win the trust of homeless vets and keep checking on them until their situation improves is essential. And clearly, so is having some high-achieving millennials willing to pitch in.
MORE: This Veteran Literally Searches Through Shrubbery for Homeless Soldiers Needing Assistance

Can a Picture of Beautiful Scenery Get Out the Vote?

We’re about two decades from a climate change disaster, according to a new report from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Looking at how the world economies are measuring up to promises they made to curtail emissions, the report underscores that we’re on track to double the amount of global warming agreed upon at the 2009 United Nations summit on climate change. Clearly, it’s time to change course.
But part of that means voting the right people into power to address environmental urgency, which is why outdoor retailer Patagonia is teaming up with the art-driven, crowdsourcing platform Creative Action Network and the Canary Project (an art organization) on a campaign to encourage millennials to vote in the upcoming midterm election.
Patagonia is hoping the campaign, “Vote the Environment,” will help turn the tide this November. The initiative encourages artists to design environmentally-minded posters and screenprints, which raise money for both the project and artist as well as voting advocacy group HeadCount. Patagoina is also linking environmental records for candidates and voter registration information on the project site.

“We recognize that there’s an environmental crisis going on,” says Lisa Pike Sheehy, Patagonia’s global environmental initiatives director. “I feel like we’re at that tipping point, and that’s another reason why we decided to put resources behind the midterms and not just wait another two years.”

In fact, just 23 percent of that important demographic of millennials said they will “definitely be voting” in the midterm election, according to a recent poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics. But it’s this core group of voters that are most important and care more about the environment than their parents.

“Art can inspire people to remember why they care about the environment, memories of experiences they’ve had in the environment, things that reports and talking points and press releases don’t necessarily surface in the same way,” says Max Slavkin, co-founder and CEO of Creative Action Network.

“Especially young people who get so much information and news online by scrolling through images, rather than by reading articles,” he adds. “It’s a great way to reach a new generation of people who typically are under-involved in politics in general.”

MORE: 6 Common Environmental Culprits That Need Regulation

After Combat, These Veterans Are Trying to Fit in with Their Generation

Most millennials would probably agree that their generation has had a tough break. They are viewed by their elders as lazy, they face a limited workforce and they are on the precipice of adulthood wondering how to make a difference. However, there is one group of millennials often left out of this equation working through the same problems and more: Veterans.
When millennial veterans return home, they are left working through their past while at the same time, preparing for their future with a group of people to whom they can’t relate.
As any twenty-something can testify, stepping onto a college campus for the first time is a nerve-wracking situation. It’s easy to get roped into a stereotype based on a first encounter, and, for veterans, that happens almost automatically. According to their peers, former soldiers are either aimless and hipster or psychologically wounded and suffering from PTSD.
Most often, neither is the case. It’s simply that the two groups are at different stages of life with different experiences.
Professor Joseph Arnett distinguishes millennials from what he dubs emerging adults. While a millennial defines a generation, an emerging adult is someone oscillating on the brink of adulthood.  Most millennials are on that line, whereas veterans have usually passed into adulthood already.
“I would expect that when veterans come out of the military, they feel like they’re already there,” Arnett told The Atlantic. “They’re not in this in-between state that most emerging adults find themselves.”
Crossing that line mainly depends on responsibility — something that has been ingrained in millennial veterans.
While veterans have higher sense of responsibility, they also have a different understanding of stress. For them, upcoming finals just aren’t stressful compared to combat.
James Cetto was an infantry sergeant in the Marines Corps who deployed twice, was shot at and killed five men. Now, he studies business at Framingham State College in Massachusetts. For him, stress is something that his peers wouldn’t understand.
“When I talk to college kids about stress, I don’t try to put my service out there,” Cetto told The Atlantic. “But finals come by, and they lose their f*** minds about how stressed out there are, and I’m not saying they shouldn’t be nervous, but their lives won’t end if they get a B.”
Despite the differences, though, these millennials are all united by the same burning question: What is my place in the future? And that’s something that only time can answer.
MORE: This Veteran is Building Better Futures for Other Service Members

Ask the Experts: How Can We Solve the Young Adult Unemployment Crisis?

For young adults who entered the workforce between the start of the Great Recession in 2009 to the present, days spent searching for jobs — any jobs at all — have stretched into weeks, months and even years. This endless disappointment seems to be the new normal for a generation of young people who were once assured that if they graduated from high school, attended college and studied hard, they would enjoy gainful employment in the field of their choosing.
Instead, these millennials have become a generation-in-waiting — waiting to find a job that will pay more than minimum wage, waiting to be given a chance to earn the experience that employers seek in an employee, waiting to take the next steps into independent adulthood. This generation is in the midst of an unemployment crisis.
So how can we fix it? NationSwell convened a panel of experts to explain the severity of the young adult unemployment crisis, why it matters and what we can do to get this generation working again. Read on for their thoughts, and then join the conversation by leaving your own ideas in the comments box below.

How bad is the problem, really?

Young adult unemployment is a serious economic issue — and it’s not improving. According to Catherine Ruetschlin, policy analyst at Demos, a public policy organization dedicated to creating a more equal America, it’s not uncommon for young adults to have higher unemployment rates than the rest of the population. But it is unusual for these rates to persist as long as they have.
“Young people under 35 still hadn’t recovered from the recession in 2001 when the next recession began in December 2007,” Ruetschlin says. “So it’s been a long process for young people to finally catch up, even if the economy is moving forward.”
Millennials ages 18 to 34 have experienced double-digit unemployment rates for more than 70 months — or almost six years — according to a recent report called In This Together: The Hidden Costs of Young Adult Unemployment by the youth advocacy group Young Invincibles. Young people of color and those without college degrees are especially hardhit by the unemployment crisis. One in four black youths between the ages of 16 and 25 are unemployed. Young adults without a college education face an unemployment rate of 12.2 percent — double the national average. While young adult college grads have an overall unemployment rate of 3.8 percent,the statistics are higher for black college graduates. A recent report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that 12.4 percent of young black grads are unemployed.
MORE: Ask the Experts: How Can We Keep From Drowning in College Debt?
“Research shows that people who graduate from college during recessions — with the exact same skills and credentials as someone who graduates during a boom in the economy — take a financial hit over the course of their lifetimes,” Ruetschlin says. Even those lucky enough to get jobs don’t go through life unscathed. “They start at a lower salary, which means that for the rest of their career, they’re still earning less than someone who graduated during an economic peak.”

Why should American care about our unemployed youths?

Let’s face it: When one section of the labor market is struggling, the rest of society is dragged down with it. “In a time of tight budgets, everyone should be paying attention to the youth unemployment situation, because it’s directly costing us money right now,” says Tom Allison, policy and research manager at Young Invincibles.
In the group’s In This Together report, researchers estimate that unemployment for this age group costs state and federal governments around $8.9 billion per year in foregone tax revenue and social safety net benefits. Broken down by age group, an unemployed 18- to 24-year-old costs the government more than $4,100 annually. For an unemployed 25- to 34-year-old, that number rises to $9,900 annually.
“Another way to think of it is that, if that $8.9 billion [was passed directly to the taxpayer], it would add about $50 per year on top of each taxpayer’s federal tax bill,” Allison says.
Financial implications aside, there are other reasons that Americans should be concerned about young adult unemployment. “The immediate reason is that we’ve already made an investment in the skills training of our young people,” Ruetschlin says. “The longer those young people are shut out of the labor market, the more that investment deteriorates — we actually get less return on it — because skills deteriorate over time.”
WATCH: Why Millennials Are Taking Big Pay Cuts to Work at Small Companies
Young Americans between the ages of 20 and 24 will lose about $21.4 billion in earnings over the next 10 years, according to Young Invincibles. That’s roughly $22,000 per person — money that’s not being reinvested in the economy through the purchase of goods and services. As this demographic struggles to become financially stable, they are putting many of the traditional markers of adulthood — moving out, getting married, buying cars and homes, having children — on pause. “It ripples into so many different areas that it’s hard to ignore that young people’s economic situation is intricately tied into the success of the economy,” Ruetschlin says.

Why should companies invest in young adult workers?

It’s hard to ignore headlines that claim millennials are “lazy,”“narcissistic” or “entitled.” But this generation’s economic struggles make them different, in a positive way. This group is resilient and motivated, despite what one might read.
“These young people have been beaten down by the labor market,” Ruetschlin says. “It’s hard to look for a job. It’s especially hard to look for a job in an economy that thinks you don’t have the skills that it takes to be productive, or you’re only wanted in a job that has a low payoff. It’s demoralizing and frustrating.”
Ruetschlin says that employers should consider hiring young adults as an investment in the future of the nation’s economy. “What we see is that firms are very willing to invest in human capital at the top ends of the income spectrum, but not at the entry level,” she says. “That’s because the perception is that people change jobs so frequently that taking time to train someone won’t pay off. Well, in this labor market, there’s nowhere else to go. It’s actually a great time to invest in a person.”
ALSO: How This Nonprofit Uses Snapchat to Connect to Youths
Tom Allison of Young Invincibles says millennials bring unique skillsets to the workplace, which can be of benefit to employers. “We already know that our generation is quick to adopt new technologies, and that’s going to increase their importance in the workforce,” he says. “Our generation is instilled with a collaborative approach. We work well together. We’re also pretty creative. Lastly, we’re adaptable. We graduated high school and college right when the recession hit, and we’ve been able to demonstrate our flexibility and adaptability, and that’s exactly what companies are going to need in a changing global economy.”

So what are some ways to get young adults working?

We should examine both short-term and long-term solutions to the young adult unemployment crisis, according to Martha Ross, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. She says that “we need to do more to bridge the worlds of education and employment, and create stronger on-ramps into the labor market for young people.”
There are a number of ways to do this. We can encourage partnerships between high schools and private industries, which is the premise behind Alamo Academies in San Antonio, Texas. Here, students receive specialized job training in high-demand fields such as aerospace, manufacturing, information technology or health care, all while working toward a high school degree and earning college credits. “One long-term solution would be to take the Alamo Academies model and apply it across the country,” Ross says.
We can also create more registered apprenticeship programs, which give students hands-on training in a marketable skill, combined with classroom instruction, all the while getting paid. “There are 4 million job openings in the U.S. that require certain skills,” Allison says. “Apprenticeships can help develop those skills, while also giving young people their first work experiences.”
Young Invincibles is pushing to increase funding for AmeriCorps, an intensive national-service program that employs Americans to work at nonprofits, schools, public agencies and community groups across the country. According to Allison, more than a half million Americans apply for the 80,000 spots that the program offers every year. “AmeriCorps gives young people experience in serving our country and serving their communities. It’s often their first experience in the workforce,” Allison says. He points to studies that found that the economic multiplier effect of AmeriCorps is about $2.50 for every dollar invested.
And Ross says that we need to change the way that we think about education and work, focusing more on applied learning. “Today the model is, at age 18, after taking college-prep courses, you wave bye to Mom and Dad and go to school,” she says. “You study fulltime for four years, and then you graduate, and at that point you start looking for your first full-time job. That works relatively well for a subset of the population. But it doesn’t work at all for lots of people.”
According to Ross, schools should shift their focus from test scores and graduation rates to increasing project-based learning, placing students in valuable internships and supporting them as they look for jobs in the workforce. “It’s a cultural and institutional change that could make a big difference,” she says.
MORE: Ask the Experts—7 Ways to Improve K-12 Public Education
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Millennials: Changing The Look and Feel of the Workforce

Although the world did not end at the start of the new century, the new generation that emerged with it is giving the world a little shake.
Only 14 years in and their impact is already being felt with changes in politics and consumerism. This generation played a large role in electing the first black president and redefined how music is bought and sold. With the millennials becoming 75 percent of the workforce by 2025, America is only just beginning to hear their voice and needs to be prepared to adjust to their differing lifestyle.
The Brookings Institution recently conducted a study exploring the preferences and behaviors of the millennials. Their results showed that the business world will receive a shake up when these workers enter the workforce.
Already, their tastes indicate a swerve from the established norms, and fast food will be one of the first industries to feel this transition. For the past 60 years, Burger King and McDonalds maintained a stronghold over the tastes of consumers. But this will change as millennials have opted for different chains, such as Chipotle, Sweetgreen and Panera Bread.
Consumer preferences will further change as millennials will look for more than just a good bargain in their shopping. Social causes and innovation are important as well, making millennials more inclined to shop at places that are also involved in such activities.
Finances will be impacted due to this generation’s general distrust of big banks. When asked which banks with whom they would least like to do business, many of the biggest financial institutions in the country were named — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup, which is not a positive sign for the banking world.
Similar to where they will shop, millennials will prefer to work for a company that will have an impact on the world. At the top of the list was St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital, followed by the State Department at number 12, the NSA at number 17, the FBI, the CIA, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.
What can and should businesses learn from this study? First, they need to develop a more social and worldly view with regards to how they conduct business. (The shoe company TOMS exemplifies this in their policy of donating one pair of shoes to a child in need for every shoe purchased.) Second, companies will need to adapt their style of employee motivation. The age of big profits as a motivator is not as prevalent and is being replaced by social impact. More personal and individual contact is important as well, shown through PricewaterhouseCoopers’ decision to replace annual performance reviews with more frequent feedback.
Social impact and a personal touch are the big indicators of this new generation. America may have 11 more years before the millennials completely dominate the workforce, but it’s in the country’s best interest to start paving the way for their integration now.
MORE: Why Millennials Are Taking Big Pay Cuts to Work at Small Companies