Despite bumps in the road, millennials persevere [Telegraph-Herald (Dubuque, IA)]

Katie Gillespie, age 29, is smiling.

She has a full-time job she loves. A nice place to live. Friends and family. A future.

Yet her path to adulthood, like that of virtually everyone she knows, has been uneven - more pothole than pavement.

The Great Recession got in the way.

"Getting to this place," she said, "was different than what I thought."

Gillespie's friends, gathered around a lunch table, nod in understanding.

Their relationships, their work, their lives unfolded in ways they might scarcely have imagined as they stepped onto the adulthood limb a decade ago.

For Gillespie and her peers - indeed, for an estimated 60 million "millennials" generally born between 1980 and 1995 - the 2008 economic collapse brought an often-volcanic disruption to life patterns their parents saw as immutable reality.

Careers have been delayed. Indeed, jobs of any kind have been tough to find, potentially costing millennials hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost lifetime earnings.

The past five years rearranged their American dream. Postponed and canceled home purchases will likely make it harder for millennials to build wealth, while significant retirement saving is out of reach. Unprecedented student debt hangs over recent graduates. Credit scores have dropped, and loans are harder to get.

"You want to be independent more than anything, but it's nearly impossible," said Bree Williams, a 25-year-old retail worker who teaches yoga part-time in a studio in Kansas City, Mo. "I don't know anyone my age who finances their life independently."

And now millennials are expected to buy health coverage they might not need, at high premiums, in order to keep insurance costs low for sicker baby boomers. Someday, millennials might be asked to pay higher Social Security taxes, even though their own retirements will almost certainly be delayed.

It's no surprise that some now call 20-somethings a lost generation, almost unique in the nation's history.

Most are anxious. Some are frustrated.

"Younger millennials are contemplating how exactly they're going to make livings and find their way in the world, while our leaders argue," University of Kansas graduate Alex Rausch recently wrote online.

But here's the most amazing fact of all: For all of those challenges, millennials seem supremely optimistic about their futures, more upbeat than baby boomers.

"We were the first generation raised to believe we were unique and beautiful snowflakes. The approach was, 'We can be whatever we want to be. Justice will prevail,'" one millennial said.

The Pew Research Center, in a major study of millennials, recently concluded: "Whatever toll a recession, a housing crisis, a financial meltdown and a pair of wars may have taken on the national psyche in the past few years, it appears to have hit the old harder than the young. Millennials (are) confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change."

Careers, they now know, will change. Friends will move in, move out, move on. Whatever.

"Millennials are not afraid to create their own jobs," said Jeff Fromm, a Kansas City-based advertiser and author of a book on the generation.

"Or their own world."

If he's right, millennials will outrace the Great Recession largely because they'll define their lives in ways their parents and grandparents may not recognize.

The 2008 economic collapse rocketed through the job market, forcing millions out of work. At its height in October 2009, the national unemployment rate hit 10 percent.

Yet millennials, particularly those who entered the workforce as the recession hit its peak, suffered more than any other age group. In 2010, 37 percent of 18- to-29-year-olds were unemployed, the highest rate in three decades.

Baby boomers faced employment challenges, too. But many simply dropped from the workforce, living off admittedly thinner nest eggs that millennials didn't have.

The picture has improved since the depths of the Great Recession, even for millennials. Some jobs have opened, and career paths have been restored.

But the problems of out-of-work millennials might echo through the national economy for years. When quality entry-level jobs are scarce, it takes longer for inexperienced workers to land the training and advancement their parents took for granted.

"Young people who graduate from college in a bad economy typically suffer long-term consequences," concluded Pew, "with effects on their careers and earnings that linger as long as 15 years."

Some economists, though not all, say the problem is made worse by boomers who didn't leave the workforce, clogging the pipeline for entry-level positions and advancement.

Such trends suppress potential earnings growth, perhaps for decades.

"Anything that's extreme and lasts for a while at that age is permanent, one way or another," said nationally known demographer and author Neil Howe.

Problems were particularly pronounced for millennials in their mid-20s who tried to enter the workforce in the teeth of the recession. For some, the answer was a return to college.

"I have a lot of friends coming out of school right behind me who said, 'I hear the job market's bad, so I'm going to stay for my master's,'" said Jessica Best, 31, of Kansas City.

While those decisions give millennials additional skills, though, they leave many with astonishing levels of educational debt.

Since 2004, total student debt tripled to more than $1.2 trillion - now second only to mortgage debt on the nation's balance sheet.

And repaying that debt from lower salaries has proved difficult. The delinquency rate on student debt, a recent Fed study suggested, is close to 30 percent. The average student loan debt is more than $26,000.

Not every millennial facing job struggles decided to go back to school. Some entered the workforce by taking the few jobs that were available - often low-paid, low-benefit, part-time. Some took unpaid internships.

While that helped the balance sheet, it left many millennials frustrated at a world that had changed in ways they didn't expect.

"I was very confused," Gillespie said. "I'm like, 'Why am I doing this? Why is this happening to me? I went to school and got my degree, now where's my job?'"

One study suggests millennials will change employers an average of seven times before age 30.

Stephon Jones, 22, took several lower-wage gigs over the past several years, waiting for a break. He got one this summer when Ford offered him a job.

"There were a couple of times I was going to give up, for sure," he said. "I got tired of bouncing around. But you can't. You've got to keep on trying."