And if headwinds are blowing across the United States, they can feel like gale-force squalls in New York, one of the world\u2019s most notoriously expensive cities.<\/p>\n
Mark Levine, the city comptroller, summed it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people are facing a triple whammy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018PLS HELP A GIRL OUT\u2019<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s allure is unmatched. The city attracted more college graduates<\/a> between 2021 and 2024 than Los Angeles and Chicago combined. About one in four New Yorkers<\/a> \u2014 or more than 2.1 million residents \u2014 are between 18 and 34 years old.<\/p>\n That popularity as a landing spot helps foster the city\u2019s competitive hiring market.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s job market is nowhere as rough for young adults as it was during the Great Recession in the late 2000s or the depths of the pandemic. But the city\u2019s unemployment rate<\/a> for 22- to 27-year-olds with a college degree has risen to about 7.3 percent, slightly higher than for peers with no degree \u2014 and higher than national rates for their age group.<\/p>\n Those numbers fail to capture those who are stuck in low-paying work that doesn\u2019t use their credentials \u2014 like Natalie Lui, a finance and marketing graduate who went from being an I.T. analyst at an investment bank to working part-time at a gym\u2019s front desk.<\/p>\n Ms. Lui estimated that she has applied to at least 300 full-time positions. She put a call-out on TikTok: \u201cplease comment literally ANY and most effective ways to get a job in NYC. PLS HELP A GIRL OUT.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt took a lot out of me to even post that online,\u201d said Ms. Lui, who turns 26 this summer and worries about affording health coverage after she\u2019s kicked off her family plan. \u201cBut it\u2019s come to that.\u201d<\/p>\n In interviews, many young adults said that they felt lost at a moment when the path to a comfortable life appears filled with fresh obstacles.<\/p>\n The traditional milestones of adulthood \u2014 marriage, financial independence, living without roommates \u2014 seem ever more distant<\/a>. And many young adults feel burned out by knowing that their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s may never be read by a person and that artificial intelligence could upend the skills needed to succeed.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to figure out what it is: Is it an experience thing?\u201d asked Mirko Mormile, 27, a Brooklyn College alumnus who was raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood and studied business. He is a full-time digital content creator \u2014 \u201cnot entirely by choice,\u201d he said \u2014 after applying to other work over the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it, am I not good enough?\u201d said Mr. Mormile, who is living with his grandfather, helping to care for him after a fall.<\/p>\n The growing angst among young adults has led to crowdfunding pleas on GoFundMe and inspired punchlines for stand-up routines.<\/p>\n \u201cI left my job this year, and I moved to New York cause I wanted to try unemployment on the most difficult level,\u201d one comedian, Josh Martier, quipped during a recent set<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me tell you, that city has not disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n One 22-year-old said that she arrived in New York last year with her cat and a suitcase, dog-sitting in exchange for housing. She couldn\u2019t find work in Chicago after dropping out of college.<\/p>\n She had applied to more than 1,000 jobs, from marketing openings to positions at Trader Joe\u2019s and Starbucks, but couldn\u2019t get in the door. She worked as a stripper, but business was slow. So she began sex work.<\/p>\n Many of her friends are unemployed. One joined the military because he couldn\u2019t find other work, and was recently deployed to Bahrain. \u201cThat\u2019s just what our generation is,\u201d she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss her sex work.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like no one cares.\u201d<\/p>\n $7 coffee and soaring rents<\/p>\n But let\u2019s say you succeed in finding a well-paying job. Congratulations: The reward is a cost of living crisis that devours your paychecks.<\/p>\n Utility bills are rising, and food prices in the New York City area surged by 56 percent<\/a> between 2012 and 2022, faster than in the rest of the nation. The cost of a Citi Bike membership jumped by 41 percent during the past six years.<\/p>\n And a large cup of coffee can push $7 after tax.<\/p>\n \u201cEven just the little things that young people find joy in aren\u2019t really affordable anymore,\u201d said Rosaury Valenzuela, 30, an alumna of City College of New York who lost her job with a nonprofit organization in October and has struggled to find listings that offer a living wage.<\/p>\n She misses simple conveniences, like buying food at a single grocery store. Now, she needs to visit four, shopping around for low prices. And she said that it feels like the cost of a night out in the city has tripled \u2014 or quadrupled.<\/p>\n For Ms. Valenzuela and many others, housing costs are also a burning issue<\/a> as rents rise quicker than wages.<\/p>\n The apartment hunt is especially suffocating in a city where \u2014 as Eric Kober, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, put it \u2014 \u201cthe system is very much stacked against young adults,\u201d with limited vacancies and few affordable options.<\/p>\n Carla Marie Davis, 34, a digital content creator born and raised in Brooklyn, has sometimes spent well over half her income on rent. She wanted to live alone but couldn\u2019t find a budget-friendly studio or one-bedroom rental in or near her neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant.<\/p>\n So she looked into homeownership through the city\u2019s affordable co-ops<\/a> for lower-income residents and discovered that she needed far more assets to qualify. It took two years to find a co-op in her price range.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t take the stars aligning perfectly and having all the luck in the world,\u201d she said, grateful for the newfound stability. Her parents had already moved to Atlanta<\/a> to live more comfortably, and she was \u201cnearly pushed to the point of leaving\u201d herself a few years ago.<\/p>\n Perhaps no American city is defined by its trade-offs quite like New York. Tight living quarters and eye-popping prices are the cost of living in a dynamic metropolis.<\/p>\n But some work force leaders fear that today\u2019s tribulations threaten to prevent young native New Yorkers from staying and dissuade all but the wealthiest transplants from settling.<\/p>\n They say it would be a blow to the city\u2019s culture and economy. Already, residents between 26 and 35 are twice as likely to move out<\/a> as the rest of the population.<\/p>\n Among them was Gabriel Perez Silva, a 29-year-old photographer who recently left for Burbank, Calif., after more than seven years in New York. He traded a Brooklyn apartment whose bathroom he said was \u201ccrashing in on itself\u201d for more work opportunities and better value. He\u2019s closer to a park and even has a hot tub.<\/p>\n \u201cMy quality of life has completely skyrocketed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Yet Mr. Perez Silva and other young adults still saw the city\u2019s charm.<\/p>\n Deanna Richards, 27, aspires to act on Broadway, but had to put her aspirations on hold and prioritize stability after facing two bouts of unemployment within six months last year. She shares a roughly $1,000-a-month rent-controlled apartment with her boyfriend, and said she would not be able to survive without it.<\/p>\n Still, she relishes the city\u2019s arts scene and industrious spirit: \u201cIt helps push me in moments where I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my gosh, what am I doing?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
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