7 Things To Help Millennials Survive This Economy

As President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union, our economy is improving and America is benefiting from 58 straight months of job growth. But young people who are stuck on their parents’ couches are still struggling. The youth unemployment rate is too high. Wages are stagnant. College is increasingly expensive, and the mountain of student debt keeps getting larger.

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It's time for a new economic playbook that will revive the American Dream. That's why the AFL-CIO's Young Workers Advisory Council came up with the Youth Economic Platform, a list of policy proposals that would help young people overcome our significant economic challenges. Here are seven of the best ideas:

1. Free, high-quality public higher education

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Affordable high-quality higher education is an economic necessity, a moral imperative and a fundamental civil right. It's time we started treating it as such. That's why labor unions are calling for a fully funded universal public education system.

2. Expanded apprenticeship programs

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Union apprenticeship and technical training certificate programs set young workers up for success by teaching them valuable skills, while paying them to learn while they earn. Every year, the labor movement trains more than 450,000 workers. Learn more here: http://www.aflcio.org/Learn-About-Unions/Training-and-Apprenticeships

3. Jobs that pay a living wage

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We need to do more than just raise the minimum wage. No one should work for a living but struggle to feed their family. Higher wages correspond with more productive employees and reduced turnover.

4. Ending workplace discrimination

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The workplace should be a safe place for all, and no one should worry about their job security, personal safety or well-being on the job because of who they are. Let’s strengthen our laws to protect against workplace discrimination based on age, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, ability, national origin and immigration status.

5. Strong union rights

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Unions help workers get access to the kinds of workplace resources they need, from paid sick days to gender-neutral restrooms, to quality child care facilities to multilingual support at work. And unions are a great megaphone to amplify workers’ voices in Washington, D.C., and statehouses around the country. We need to defend and strengthen the collective bargaining rights of workers if we want to ensure millenials have a pathway into the middle class.

6. Increased government investment

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It’s past time our government invested in young people by creating well-paying jobs through education assistance, infrastructure spending and support for research and innovation.

7. Expanding our safety net

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At a time of increased economic insecurity, we should be strengthening—not cutting—the safety net that keeps millions of families out of poverty. That means defending Social Security, Medicare and other earned benefit programs from cuts and advocating for a stronger safety net that prevents anyone from falling through the cracks.

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It’s time we chart a new course and increase our investment in our nation’s future. Labor unions are ready to take up that charge. After all, that’s why unions exist: to ensure that no worker has the deck stacked against them.