Free Republic

Late last year, Fortune magazine announced a major milestone due in 2024 – the year when Gen Zers will outnumber Baby Boomers in the workplace. This doesn't signal a changing of the guard: according to the story, "Millennials will still reign supreme (even if some of their corporate relics like WeWork and Glossier are losing favor) for the next couple of decades." Boomers, Fortune tells us, dominated the workplace until 2011. Their successors in Gen X only managed to have "a brief time in the sun until 2018" and Millennials took over after that and are expected to dominate the...

Interesting analysis this morning from Axios in a “Deep Dive: Inside the Mind of Gen Z.” The piece pulls together a bunch of data points and quotes from experts to provide a snapshot of a generation that, at least in my humble opinion, is in deep trouble.Here’s the key data from the Axios analysis: “By the numbers: Gen Z (defined as people roughly ages 12 to 27) reports the poorest mental health of any generation, according to a Gallup and Walton Family Foundation report.“Just 44% of Gen Zers say they feel prepared for the future. “The big picture: They dodged...

One of the most well-established patterns in measuring public opinion is that every generation tends to move as one in terms of its politics and general ideology. Its members share the same formative experiences, reach life’s big milestones at the same time and intermingle in the same spaces. So how should we make sense of reports that Gen Z is hyper-progressive on certain issues, but surprisingly conservative on others? The answer, in the words of Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and one of the leading researchers on the topic, is that today’s under-thirties are undergoing a great...

If 30% of the population was gay by birth, they we would see that number in all animals. That we don’t, is proof that homosexuality is not a natural occurrence. The natural occurrence of homosexuality would be a defective mutation that would take that animal’s DNA out of the gene pool. Fun Fact: Did you know they justify promoting homosexuality to children because it will reduce the birthrate and thereby change the weather?

Eligible employees would have access to mental health resources, SoFi’s educational financial wellness program, credit-building help, and the ability to save for retirement when making student loan payments. Eligible employees can receive a 401(k) match of up to 4% of their salary if they make student loan payments. The chain told Business Insider that private and federal loans are eligible for the student loan match. The company will also introduce a Visa card by Cred.ai. Employees can make purchases and build credit with the card, with no fees or interest.

Over 25% of Americans born between 1997 and 2012 identify as LGBTQ, significantly higher than previous generations, according to a Tuesday poll from the Public Religion Research Institute. The poll found that nearly 50% of Gen Z are more likely to identify as liberal and tend to be less religious than their millennial, Gen X or baby boomer counterparts. Meanwhile, 28% of Gen Z consider themselves LGBTQ, compared to only 16% of millennials, 7% of Gen X and a mere 4% of baby boomers. Gen Z was also more likely to identify as “liberal” at 43%, with one out of...

A generation that wanted for nothing grows up to hate everything. It’s not news that children have always enjoyed rebelling against their parents. It’s hardwired in kids, maybe as an evolutionary defense mechanism so that even helicopter parents are inspired to help baby pack and get the hell out at 18. Each of the last few generations has developed its own quirky spin on the perennial teenage impulse to rebel. Millennials rebelled by delaying “adulting” as long as they could—dressing like four-year-olds as they approached 40 in cargo shorts and superhero t-shirts, chomping edibles, and channeling repressed biological instincts into...

The rising cost of housing is keeping many Gen Zers from living on their own. A recent Credit Karma survey of 1,249 U.S. adults found that 31 percent of Gen Z live at home with a parent or other family member. And this number could go up. Among Gen Zers that have left the nest, 27 percent told Credit Karma that they can no longer afford their rent. The struggle to make rent is causing some to reconsider their living arrangements, with 25 percent of Gen Z and millennial renters saying they are thinking about moving in with family or...

Recent college graduates are failing at job interviews, according to a new study. Developmental setbacks from various factors have appeared to delay communication skills among Gen Z grads — and employers are taking notice. In a Dec. 2023 study, the New Jersey-based research group Intelligent surveyed 800 U.S. managers, directors and executives who are involved in hiring. One in five employers reported that recent college grads are generally unprepared when it comes to interviewing for a job. More than half of employers surveyed said Gen Z candidates struggle the most with eye contact during interviews. Candidates in this age group...

Jodie Foster took a humorous jab at Gen Z during a recent interview with The Guardian, saying they’re especially annoying to work with. Gen Z, the generation directly proceeding millennials, comprises those born after 1996 and through 2010. “They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace,” Foster told the publication. “They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m.’ Or, like, in emails, I’ll tell them this is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling? And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?’” This isn’t to say that...

Our society is in the midst of a massive cultural shift. According to the Barna Group, “rates of church attendance, religious affiliation, belief in God, prayer and Bible-reading have been dropping for decades. Americans’ beliefs are becoming more post-Christian and, concurrently, religious identity is changing.”This is the environment in which Generation Z is growing up.

A real estate agent on social media has given some stats comparing the costs of housing (ownership and rent), college education and gas vs. the income in years 1970 and 2023. It sure looks like the American Dream is unattainable for a substantial portion of the Gen Z generation. www.youtube.com

More Generation Z candidates are lining up to run for office this year amid frustration over the country’s aging political class. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) became Congress’s first member belonging to Gen Z — the age bracket considered to begin with people born in 1997 or later — after 2022’s midterms. Now, at least two fellow Gen Z Democrats are vying to join Frost this year as they look to broaden their generation’s presence in the House, where the median age of voting members is around 58 years.

The Gen Z college grad who made headlines after tearfully sharing her struggles adjusting to a nine-to-five job on TikTok has recently been laid off with no emergency fund. Brielle Asero, who lives in New Jersey, revealed that she lost her first post-grad job, a position that took her five months to secure, in a recent video that has garnered over 500,000 views. 'I got laid off from my first post-grad job - the one that took me five months to find, and for which I moved to New York City,' she said, adding that it's not her fault. The...

The US Army is facing a TikTok mutiny as Gen Z recruits are taking to social media to whine about low pay, 'sh***y' food and fitness tests. The brazen posts - by uniformed troops on US bases - represent an audacious challenge to top brass amid a recruitment crisis. The Army fell short of its target by 25 percent last year. One of the posts by military influencer Anthony Laster slams Army life for having 'No Privacy, The Pay Sucks, Sh***y Food, Disrespectful Leadership, NO SLEEP!' and has been viewed more than 600,000 times. Laster, from Chicago, has more than...

Gen Z's struggles with anxiety are affecting their dining habits with most admitting to dealing with "menu anxiety" in restaurants, a new survey finds. British restaurant chain Prezzo, which serves Italian cuisine, surveyed over 2,000 people in the UK about how at ease they felt when they ate out and it found that 86% of Gen Z had been impacted by "menu anxiety" when dining in restaurants compared to 67% of all respondents. Menu anxiety was largely trigged by the cost of the meal, not being able to find something they like on the menu, and regretting what they ordered....

Nearly 5,000 voters in seven swing states all prefer Donald Trump over President Joe Biden in a damning new survey that shows the ex-president could re-flip states that went against him in 2020. On average, 47 percent of voters in the battleground states would cast their ballot for Trump if a general election against Biden were held today compared to the president's 42 percent support, according to a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll released on Thursday. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Nevada were included in the poll, which only has a margin of error of 1 percentage point when...

The younger generations seem increasingly crazed. A worrying proportion of the young sympathises with those who launch terror attacks against Israel, supports the immediate elimination of fossil fuels or demands the wiping out of gender distinctions. All these positions are troubling in themselves, but they also reflect a deeper malady – a mostly apolitical breakdown of social norms, personal interaction, literacy and logical thinking. No single issue has catalysed Gen Z, as the Vietnam War did for the Baby Boomer generation. Boomers were angry but did not generally despair about their futures, which turned out reasonably well, buoyed by the...

Every election cycle, Republicans dutifully recite platitudes about winning "the youth vote" and bringing younger voters into the GOP fold. And in every election, Republicans fail to deliver on that. Part of the problem is that young voters tend to live in the here and now — they want their student loans forgiven, they want cheaper homes, they want everything handed to them on a silver platter, even as they vote for Democrats who have caused most of the problems they're complaining about. (Note: That by no means includes all young voters. Many of them are bright, well-informed, and understand...

Most students in the Cal State Chico library were silently poring over books or computers one recent afternoon. But one group was tucked into a corner peppering the university’s president, Stephen Perez, with questions. What’s the world’s smallest mountain range? The Sutter Buttes, about an hour south of Chico. The only incorporated city in Modoc County? Alturas. The biggest lake in Plumas County? Lake Almanor. The students were testing Perez’s knowledge of the largely rural swath of the state served by his campus. Because that’s where all of them are from, towns such as Williams, MacArthur and Graeagle. This mostly...