America, meet alienated Gen Z: Harvard survey reveals anxiety, distrust, economic insecurity

In the fall edition of the poll, young Americans say their lives and futures feel unstable, marked by deep economic anxiety, eroding trust in institutions, and eroding social connections. The survey, which included 2,040 young people, between the ages of 18 and 29, depicts a group that is pessimistic about the country’s direction and skeptical that political leaders or political systems are working in their favor.​​​

Only a small percentage of young Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, while a clear majority say the United States is on the wrong track, or they are not sure where it is headed at all. Behind this pessimism lies money: More than four in 10 young adults (43%) say they are struggling or living with only limited financial security, echoing similar findings from Harvard University’s spring survey earlier this year. High housing costs, rising prices, and student debt have turned what older generations once described as a time of exploration into a period of relentless financial sorting.

Economic anxiety also transcends traditional political and cultural divisions. Pollsters and outside analysts point out that worrying about making ends meet is now a rare unifying experience for young people, whether they live in cities or small towns, or lean left or right. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged the economic struggles of young people, Saying in September “Children graduating from college, young adults, and minorities have difficulty finding jobs.”

Economics, work and artificial intelligence

Economic insecurity is key: many young people worry about making ends meet, affording housing, and finding stable, meaningful work. Added to this economic fragility is the fear that the future of work itself is slipping away from our hands.

Large numbers of young participants view AI as an imminent threat to their long-term job and career prospects, less as a tool. In the survey, concerns about the impact of AI on employment outweighed concerns about immigration and rivaled traditional concerns about trade or regulation.

This perspective represents a stark reversal of the usual generational script. It is often assumed that younger Americans They tend to be early adopters and innately optimistic about new technology, but Harvard’s findings suggest they increasingly associate innovation with instability: unstable schedules, algorithmic layoffs, and work that feels less important. For many, the question is no longer how technology will expand opportunities, but how long it will take before it makes them redundant.​

Donald Trump, now serving his second term, performed poorly among this age group, but the poll also documents “very negative” views of both major parties. A large number of respondents say they prefer Democratic control of Congress in the upcoming elections, but this preference appears to be driven more by capitulation than by genuine enthusiasm. In other words, politics seems less like a vehicle for change and more like an arena in which no one is truly on their side.

The poll may be biased to the left, as… Harvard crimson I mentioned On how support for the Democratic president is overestimated in the 2020 and 2024 elections. The Harvard Youth Survey uses the Ipsos Knowledge Survey, a poll considered high-quality and probability-indexed, but which has been accumulated over several years and could fail to capture rapidly changing dynamics, such as young males turning to Trump in 2024. However, this edition of the poll shows disaffected young men, regardless of their political affiliations.

Social trust, discourse, and vaccines

Harvard researchers warn that this mistrust extends beyond institutions to the social fabric itself. Many young Americans report that they avoid political conversations for fear of backlash and suspicion that people who disagree with them still want what is best for the country. Social connection is weak: Previous surveys in the same series found that only a small minority feel deeply connected to their communities, and new data suggest these patterns are solidifying rather than declining.

Most young Americans reject political violence, but a non-insignificant minority express a conditional openness to it, which is linked more to financial pressures, institutional distrust, and social alienation than to clear ideological extremism. This large minority says it would be acceptable if the government violated individual rights — a view the report links less to ideology than to financial pressures and alienation. Pollster John Della Volpe has described instability as the thread that runs through almost every reaction, warning that a generation that has grown up through one crisis after another now openly questions whether American democracy and the economy can meet their needs at all.

For this story, luck Journalists have used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publication.