Millennials In America

In 1789, in order to be eligible to vote, the requirements for Americans were they had to be white, a landowning male, and wealthy. Since then, through years of suffrage, all American citizens over the age of 18, regardless of race, sex, or economic status have been granted constitutional voting rights. Unfortunately, many Americans—specifically millennials—don’t exercise their right to vote. The lack of millennial voting occurs for many different reasons such as: lack of political education, millennials feel like they are unable to make a difference, or the fact that they simply have no interest in the election. Not only is not voting an insult and a waste of time for those who fought for the right to vote, but the lack of millennial voting

Right now, there are approximately 80 million millennials and 76 million baby boomers in the United States, making millennials the largest of all the living generations. Even though millennials are the largest generation, only about 18% of millennial voters turned out at the poles—which means only 14.4 million millennials voted. Millennials had the lowest voter turnout compared to all the other age brackets. (See graph A) There are a multitude of reasons for the lack of voting—some people don’t feel like they’re qualified to make a decision that could have potentially lasting effects because of their underwhelming political education, others feel that their vote won’t make a difference because they have the unpopular vote, and even more millennials just don’t care about the election because they aren’t interested in issues that they don’t perceive as having a direct effect on them. Despite the many excuses for not voting, all of them can be easily resolved. Millennials need to vote, because it’s their future being voted for. (Schawbel,

Currently, the United States has seen its worst economic depression (the recession of 2009) since the Great Depression, relationships with foreign countries are unstable, and climate change is worsening. Although many agencies and policies are working to eradicate these issues, the same politicians have been working on current issues for years with little to no improvement. If millennials were integrated more into congress, new and innovative ideas could be implemented to improve these major issues. In fact, many people believe that millennials would be very beneficial to congress because of their “entrepreneurial spirit”, which distinguishes millennials from older generations to drive change (Lovenheim). Unfortunately, millennials aren’t believed to take control over the House of Representatives until around 2035 and the Senate until around 2040. Even though many people want more millennials in congress, when given the opportunity to vote for millennials, they don’t. However, if more than just the 18% of millennials voted, it would be much easier for millennial candidates to be elected.