USA Today reports that the economic recession is leading more people to downsize their cars and homes and seek higher professional degrees to remain marketable; fewer people are likely to move or to marry young.
“People are cautious because they don't know when the economy will improve, says Robert Lang, an urban sociologist at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. ‘They're risk-averse,’ he says. ‘It's a short-term crisis but it's changing long-term expectations. Just like the Great Depression haunted the postwar years, this recession is so deep, its impact may alter the first several decades of this century.’”
The Washington Post reports that three out of ten children in Washington, DC are living in poverty, according to Census Bureau data:
“Among black children in the city, childhood poverty shot up to 43 percent, from 36 percent in 2008 and 31 percent in 2007. That was a much sharper increase than the two percentage-point jump, to 36 percent, among poor black children nationwide last year. […]
“But the District, where unemployment has risen to nearly 30 percent in Ward 8, had the most sobering rise. Last year, there were more than 30,000 black children living in poverty in the city, almost 7,000 more than two years before, according to Census Bureau data.
“In contrast, the poverty rate for Hispanic children increased only two percentage points in the same period, to 13 percent, and the rate for white children increased one percentage point, to 3 percent.”
While cautioning that no single voter group demonstrates unanimity, the Los Angeles Times said a new poll shows that Latino voters in California are reluctant to embrace Republican candidates in the November general elections:
“Registered voters who identified themselves as Latino backed Democrat Jerry Brown by a 19-point margin over Republican Meg Whitman in the race for governor, despite Whitman's multiple appeals to Latino voters during the general election campaign. Registered voters who identified themselves as white gave Brown a slim 2-point margin.
“In the race for U.S. Senate, incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer held a 38-point lead over Republican Carly Fiorina among registered Latino voters, five times the lead she held among white voters.
“Latino views are keenly watched by political candidates and campaigns because of the state's demographic march. A 2009 study by the Field Poll found that white voters had declined from 83% to 65% of the electorate in the previous three decades. At the same time, the percentage of Latino voters had almost tripled, to 21%.”
The New York Times writes that President Obama urged young people to keep fighting for change and asked them to “stick with [him]” in a speech broadcast to 200 college campuses:
‘‘’Change is going to come for this generation—if we work for it, if we fight for it, if we believe in it!’ Mr. Obama thundered. ‘The biggest mistake we can make is to let disappointment or frustration lead to apathy and indifference.’
“The high-energy appearance, broadcast to 200 campuses around the country, was designed to stir memories of the final days of Mr. Obama’s presidential run, when more than 17,000 turned out to see him in this overwhelmingly liberal town.
“Now, though, with his political clout diminished and voters increasingly dissatisfied with his stewardship of the economy, Mr. Obama must pick his audiences carefully. So Democratic strategists have settled on a strategy of trying to recapture the enthusiasm of 2008 by having Mr. Obama reach out to young people, especially the first-time voters who turned out in droves for him—and who may be apathetic, but have not soured on the president as older voters have.”