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Young People Are Getting More Progressive

By Matt Zeitlin - Oct 7th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

The Center for American Progress Action Fund and Campus Progress Action just put out a big report (PDF) looking at the economic views of young people. The general finding is that despite the increased diversity of the so-called “millenials,” “they are more likely to hold similar views than previous generations of young adults.” In the realm of economic policy, what we’re seeing is that minority youths are still to the left of their white counterparts, but that “Young whites today are closing the progressive gap with minorities on most of the economic issues we examined.”

Here are some of the specific findings:

Over the past 20 years, an average of 86 percent of blacks aged 18 to 29 agreed that labor unions are necessary to protect workers, while 72 percent of young whites agreed—a 14 percentage-point progressive gap. Today the gap is just 2 percentage points.

An average of 85 percent of blacks, 72 percent of Hispanics, and 51 percent of whites aged 18 to 29 over the past two decades have supported increased federal spending for the poor—a gap of 34 percentage points between young blacks and young whites and 21 percentage points between young Hispanics and young whites. In the most recent survey, whites had reduced the gap with blacks by almost 10 percentage points and had cut it in half with Hispanics.

An average of 55 percent of young blacks and 54 percent of young Hispanics over the past 20 years have supported universal health care provided by the government, while 45 percent of young whites held this view. Today, young whites are slightly more supportive of universal government-provided health care than young Hispanics and nearly as supportive as young blacks.

The interesting thing going on here is that, according to the study authors, young whites are rejecting the conservative views of their parents, while young minorities are actually keeping the progressive views of their elders. If this trend can be maintained after these progressive kids turn, say, 30, then the future of conservatism as a popular ideology seems very much in doubt. And it should also be noted that this report only looks at economic issues, if it were to include social issues like gay marriage or foreign policy issues like the war in Iraq, things would look even better for progressives.

Matt Yglesias has more commentary on the study here.

Tags: economy, race, young voters