Young Americans' job optimism plummets to Great Recession levels

Something has shifted in how young Americans see their economic future, and the numbers tell a story that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. For decades, teenagers and twenty-somethings have been more hopeful about finding work than their parents and grandparents—even during the 2008 financial crisis, when older workers were losing jobs and homes. But that pattern has inverted. A Gallup poll released this week found that only 43 percent of Americans aged 15 to 34 believe now is a good time to find a job where they live. Among those 55 and older, 64 percent say the same. The gap is the widest of any country Gallup has surveyed among 141 nations.

The collapse happened fast. Young Americans' confidence dropped 27 percentage points between 2023 and 2025—a decline comparable to what happened during the worst of the Great Recession. Every age group saw their optimism fall after 2023, but the young bore the steepest loss. Older Americans, by contrast, have barely wavered. Their views of the job market have remained relatively stable even as younger people have grown increasingly doubtful. Benedict Vigers, an analyst at Gallup, called the phenomenon "incredibly new." Last year marked the first time in Gallup's decades of polling that young Americans were more pessimistic about job prospects than their counterparts in other developed nations—a historic reversal for a generation that has long stood out globally for economic hopefulness.

The United States is now one of only five countries where young people are at least 10 percentage points more pessimistic than older ones. China, Hong Kong, Norway, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates are the others. Among all 141 countries surveyed, young Americans ranked 87th in job market expectations. That ranking itself is striking. Young people typically have advantages in the job market: fewer physical limitations, fewer family obligations, greater adaptability. They should be optimistic. Instead, they are increasingly not.

The timing matters. The pessimism began emerging at the end of 2024 and has continued into 2025, coinciding with President Donald Trump's second term and the accelerating rise of artificial intelligence. Many young people fear that AI will eliminate entry-level positions—the traditional first rung on the career ladder. The most frustrated groups are those seeking their first job, recent college graduates, and young women, though the gloom spreads across all subgroups of younger Americans, regardless of gender or education level.

The generational rift extends beyond job prospects. About 80 percent of adults under 35 describe the U.S. economy as very or somewhat poor, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. Only about 60 percent of those 55 and older say the same. John Della Volpe, a pollster at Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics who regularly surveys young Americans, noted that younger people are frequently frustrated by older generations' inability to grasp their current economic reality. "It's just another thing that drains their mental health," he said, describing how young people feel their parents' pathway to stability was far easier than their own.

Older Americans who remain upbeat about the job market tend to be retired and not actively job-hunting. They are also far more likely to own their homes—a cornerstone of American prosperity that has increasingly moved out of reach for younger people. Housing costs, along with broader affordability concerns, dominated younger voters' thinking in the 2024 election. Trump improved his performance among this group by running on a platform of economic prosperity and fighting inflation. But recent polling suggests some younger Americans have soured on the president as inflation persists. About 80 percent of adults under 35 now disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy and cost of living, compared with about 60 percent of older adults.

What makes this moment distinct is not merely that young Americans are pessimistic—it is that they have become more pessimistic than their peers in most other wealthy democracies, reversing a pattern that held even through the worst economic crisis in a generation. The question now is whether this pessimism will deepen the political and cultural divides already visible between age groups, or whether economic conditions will shift enough to restore some of the hope that once defined American youth.