 Hi, good morning everyone. I'm Southern. I'm from Mississippi, so I'm gonna say that again. Good morning everyone On behalf of the Millennials Initiative I want to warmly welcome y'all to New America and today's event the Millennial Public Policy Symposium New voices and ideas on care community technology and civic engagement My name is Melody Friarsen And I have the pleasure of serving as not only the project manager of the Millennial Public Policy Fellowship But also as today's if you need anything, let me help you representative Today's symposium is the result of months of hard work and planning from our fellows and support from colleagues across our organization To give a tiny bit of background one year ago We received nearly 500 applications from young people across the country and around the world Seeking to be a part of the Millennial Public Policy Fellowship program our goals for the fellowship Was to bring together a truly diverse cohort of young folks to work within New America's renowned policy programs and Also explain and also expand understandings of what a think tank looks like and how it operates Our 10 Millennial Fellows here in this room today Arrived at New America in late August 2017 and immediately impacted the organization and their respective programs We are indebted to our New America colleagues in better life lab Family-centered social policy education policy program political reform Resource security public interest technology the cyber security initiative and the open technology Institute as well as Our friends at the Institute for Policy Studies and the poor people's campaign for challenging Mentoring and lifting up our Millennial Fellows Before I hand things over to our next member of the welcoming committee. I want to do a quick bit of housekeeping Today's event will be live-streamed and we welcome folks in this room and those watching from elsewhere To join us in conversation on Twitter with the hashtag Millennial Public Policy don't forget the second end and Millennial is tricky All of our all of today's sessions will take place in this room our main event space Restrooms are located outside and towards the front desk Should you want to connect to Wi-Fi the information is located within the front page of your program Speaking of programs in it. You'll find today's schedule Short bios on all of our participants today descriptions of each Millennial Fellows policy research projects and excerpts from our blog the direct message Once we felt that we've welcomed y'all and sufficiently we'll move right into our four distinct sessions designed by the Millennial Fellows new perspectives on communities of care the promises and perils of technology and big data policy engagement and political activism and to round out the day Expanding the table in a generational activism and policy change In addition to engaging y'all through these sessions We hope to use our breaks lunch and closing reception to connect with each of you and have deeper connect conversations On the important and timely issues discussed today This symposium and its fellowship program would not be possible without the generous support of the city foundation Thank you for being committed to helping young people build an entrepreneurial Mindset acquire leadership Financial and workplace skills and begin to engage in the formal economy through a first job With all of that said please join me in welcoming city foundation program officer Julie Hodgson to the stage Morning, everyone. It's great to be here with you today. Thank you Melody for that warm welcome. I'm Julie Hodgson I'm a program officer at the city foundation and I oversee a lot of our youth programming in the United States And today's event is exciting for many many reasons But for those of us who've kind of worked behind the scenes I would say it's especially exciting because it's really the culmination of a two-year effort Led by new America with support from the city foundation to invest in future policy leaders and to identify and source a new set of policy ideas and The city foundation partnered with new America in 2016. I believe To create the Millennial Public Policy Fellowship Initiative, which complements our Pathways to Progress initiative Pathways to progress for those of you who don't know is the city foundation's philanthropic commitment to support programs that Help young people connect to job training programs and career readiness opportunities. It's a hundred million dollar philanthropic commitment Connecting 500,000 youth to those types of opportunities by 2020 and so the Millennial Public Policy Fellowship was designed to identify A diverse set of young people who could engage in a healthy robust public policy discourse As well as to support their professional development as critical thinkers as policy entrepreneurs And really just as leaders and I think kind of what the foundation found so unique about this is that it was giving a platform To Millennials to identify solutions to some of the country's most challenging issues And you know, I think it makes a lot of sense Especially for Millennials and the the issues that their generation is facing that we would engage them in helping us come Up with the answers since they're so close to these issues And I will tell you having met with the the fellows. They are a remarkable group I was humbled to say at least by their intelligence. They are extremely thoughtful and they're engaged in some really interesting Conversations a lot of which we'll hear today and I'm just thrilled to be here thrilled to listen I think they have a lot to tell us and I think that a lot of the solutions, you know are within them and Really excited to hear the conversation So with that I want to thank them because they're really kind of the driving force behind all of this for all of their effort And for embracing the fellowship. I mean, I think they've embraced it Beyond our expectations over the last eight months and then of course our partners at New America have been great in helping Us bring this vision to life. So thank you for hosting us and for all of your work and with that I believe I will turn it over to Tyra who's gonna give another welcome. So thank you Good morning, everyone My name is Tyra Mariani and I am the executive vice president here at New America as I was looking at the lineup I did kind of feel like the welcome committee. So for the third time, I will say welcome and particularly Our special welcome to those of you that are visiting us from externally I am really really excited about the symposium that's happening today as I was reflecting on The day and meetings that I had yesterday as well as today I was reminded that New America was started almost 20 years ago by four individuals who were of Millennial age, they were roughly young 30 some things and it is quite remarkable to Both think about where the organization is now and actually in our leadership team meeting yesterday We were starting to just recall some of the Accomplishments over the 20 years and so it feels really fitting that we're having this conversation today Both in the context in which we sit of what's happening in our country in our world But also in the context of an organization that is about to celebrate 20 years in existence And so I am personally excited not only because of the millennial cohort that I have engaged with but also The Millennials in general that in the room for those of you that aren't familiar New America is actually comprised of Majority 20 and 30 some things in fact 46 percent of our almost 200 person organization Is made up of people that are 20 something years in age and as an organization we deeply deeply believe and new voices new ideas and new tools and I know that today's conversation will be No departure whatsoever from that and I wondered what Would come to fruition What seeds would be planted? What would be our fruit that we will point back to today's conversation and said it started here There was an interesting idea that happened here Among the Millennials as well as just an intergenerational Conversation which is so so very critical that it's because it started here that we can say that it bore fruit Because of what happened today. So with that in mind I will close with Reed's closing line and his letter which is let's get on with the program. Have a great day Okay, I'm Reed Kramer I'm the director of the Millennials initiative here at New America and I'm I guess I don't have to welcome you But I can thank you for being here At the symposium and and with the support of many colleagues here at New America This program has been organized the symposium has been organized to facilitate a set of dynamic policy conversations and I'd actually like to thank Melody Friarsen who really is the extremely able manager of this project And also, thank you for your work and our events and communications team who've helped Get us to this day and and really a leadership of New America has been extremely supportive and a lot of our colleagues in the policy program So it's been a pleasure to work with everybody and it really has been a group effort I'm extremely grateful for Julie and her colleagues at the city foundation Both for their financial support of this endeavor this work, but also their their real engagement around promoting pathways to progress for a Diverse set of opportunity youth in the country across the country and also around the world It's very important work, and they've really been leaders in this field and it's it's been really grateful To engage with them. So the the initiative was created to acknowledge that today's youth really are coming of age in a time of uncertainty and there's a growing disconnect between the experience that they're they're living And the prevailing public policy that is is either providing support or not providing support And there's there's a misalignment between the social and economic conditions And it's creating a precariousness that is undermining the potential of an entire generation so there is an imperative to Develop a new set of ideas that can meet the moment that can create new pathways forward and ladders Upward for the rising generations, and that was the thinking behind creating that the fellowship opportunity Good policy should be aligned with prevailing attitudes and behaviors And if that's true, then we need the engagement of those impacted to help drive the ideas generation process And as Melody said we you know design the fellowship to identify this remarkable cohort of individuals who could contribute Constructively to policy conversations and then also to support their growth and their their professional development So it really is you'll see them today. They've organized this session Their work is available on our blog the DM which is on our website direct message for any of the non-millennials in the room And there's also selected pieces of each of them in the symposium program they've all been embedded in the different programs across the organization and Working together. They've organized the symposium really with the goals of elevating new voices and perspectives Addressing contemporary policy issues In cross-cutting ways, you know, they're all working on different things So we would come together as a group and bring some really unique Yeah perspectives to engage with with with each other and then to begin to identify what some potential solutions Could be to some of the most consequential issues of our time And before we dig in further. I did want to consider what some of the limits and and the The value are in using a generational lens and then offer some kind of foundational data to ground our conversation so the caveat to begin with is that Defining and naming a generation is is not a Science it's really more of an art And we have to figure out how it can be helpful and where it can obfuscate insight The Pew Research Center has been really helpful in kind of identifying a data-driven approach. So I've relied on a lot of their analysis they define Millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996 so the youngest are 21 and the oldest are 37 And that's obviously a pretty big spread that captures many different aspects of the life course but it does give us a cohort to work with analytically and Using pew's definition. We see that Millennials are now 22% of the total population 30% of potential voters and 38% of working age adults and they're clearly outpacing boomers more and more every day and by 2025 they're gonna comprise 75% of the labor force They do share Kind of historic and cultural experiences that are distinct from other generations You can see there were you know early memories of some confusing Social disruption with the Oklahoma City bombing for instance in 1995 the Columbine shooting in 1999 Political disputes associated with sharpening political polarization with the impeachment of Bill Clinton and his acquittal in 1998 Millennials were between 5 and 20 when 9-11 occurred and then they grew up during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan And certainly for me that the Great Recession looms large and particularly its aftermath, which has continued to have an impact Millennials were between the ages of 12 and 27 during the 2008 election when the force of the youth vote helped elect the first black president and then 2016 was a pretty memorable election as well a surprising result to say the least and And over the lifetime also note that a lot of socioeconomic indicators have gotten dramatically better Teen pregnancies down smokings down drinking hard liquor Violent crime has had a Deep sharp decline during their lifetime But if we look at the world with kind of generalizations, we do miss some of the diverse experiences and This generation is actually defined by its diversity. It's the most most ethnically diverse generation in American history 44% identify as something other than white non-Hispanic Minority shares are increasing across the board for for all groups especially Latinx who 21% identify of Millennials identify as a Latino or Hispanic and that's up from from eight nine percent for boomers and given this diversity We really have to be a pretty skeptical of claims of universal experiences Still there's some you know, these are just demographic realities and it's gonna impact society as a whole we've got older Whiter boomers that are kind of contrasted with Millennials who are more diverse and there's potentially a generational Reckoning that could be unfolding that's gonna play out in policy debates this this cultural gap between the the older wider Society and and and the more diverse Society and Millennials are really serving as this bridge to a much more diverse America This is gonna be the future of the country and it will remake institutions and will remake the country And if we acknowledge this diversity We're also acknowledging that the experience of Millennials of color is very distinct and actually quite perilous Black Latino other Millennials of color face a number of unique challenges unemployment is higher Living in poverty is more prevalent wealth holdings are dramatically lower Then for white counterparts and and violent crime more more likely to be experienced Involvement in the criminal justice system. These are some of the issues that we're gonna hear about today But the diversity of the generation Really should prompt us to look at where these disparities are You know needing to be examined more more closely looking for where policy is not responding to current conditions And and what are those conditions? You know, I'm gonna just provide a couple of notes here of things that We can look at the educational landscape has changed quite dramatically There are more degrees and credentials actually tripling since let's see Tripling since the 1960s But we've also seen higher tuition and higher student debt and our education policy program here in New America tracks a lot of these trends Quite ably they're they're producing a lot of great work. They document how students have taken on a lot more debt As tuition has gone up than their parents did actually 300 percent more debt than their parents and unfortunately it doesn't always lead to a degree which can be also pretty debilitating So this debt and finances generally Are changing behavior over the life course? We see marriage Changing millennials are less likely to marry when they do they marry older Having children is less prevalent The birth rate not a lot of attention to this in our discourse, but it's actually reached a record low five years in a row in 2016 Lower lower birth rate since the recession Young adults are half as likely to own homes as young adults were in 1975 so previous generations home ownership's Much less and rents are going up at the same time. So more than in the past Let's see 15 years the number of people that are spending more than half of their income on rent has gone up 50 percent And this is really through no fault of their own This is the the economy that they've inherited they've come of age in a stagnant wage Economy they're earning 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life and Let's see this Without This is the net worth slide without the home equity To bolster the balance sheet younger Americans are significantly behind Older generations in terms of wealth accumulation The median net worth is today 30 percent below its peak in 2007 But younger families families headed by someone under the age 35 Net worth is 41 percent lower Today than it was in 1995 and in contrast Households headed by someone 75 years and older seniors Their wealth has risen 32 percent in the last three years so there's actually a millennial wealth gap that's emerging and It's it should be quite quite alarming given how wealth is so important for for many aspects of stability and when we combine the millennial wealth gap with the Racial wealth gap which is Historic and it endures and it's growing. I think this is a terrible combination Throughout US history. We've seen how every means of wealth accumulation Whether it's access to higher ed home ownership access to credit It's been systematically denied to to minorities and therefore we have these kind of net worth disparities That are up there ten times Wealth holdings of white households versus African-American households in recent figures And so these are the new economic realities of the country It's certainly complicating how young people are making decisions about their life how they're assembling the building blocks of success and Making the the journey up the economic ladder much more difficult and and financial security has become the aspiration rather than the the traditional features of the American dream that that You know, we talk about as a society whether that's you know family buying a home moving into a community settling down So that's the the state of play right now. And is this a problem? Is this a chance to respond? I think it's both Increasingly millennials are going to lead shifts in public opinion that are kind of creating opportunities for large-scale policy change This we can look at this in a lot of different ways as a cohort They're also they're skeptical of political parties that they they want to be independent But also they lean liberal there. They're open to big ideas This is the the spread of those that are voting. So this is you know as a group They they're open to policy solution and big ideas. I think that's the point that the meta point I want to make to kind of close here is that all of this matters in a democracy what people think about current affairs and the issues of the day and The value there's a value in elevating kind of new generational voices and perspectives in a search for policy solutions So clearly we've got some challenges in the political moment today There's an undermining of norms that I think is making the system of governance much more challenging It's adding some significant stress points There's really value in thinking about the long game about what policies could work at scale over time And I think we need to be vigilant in looking out for these solutions that can work at scale We want to observe the world ask questions Search for effective and durable policy solutions. So that's the task today That's the spirit that we're convening this symposium in We're gonna stage a series of conversations that are gonna really try to elevate some of these consequential issues of the day And I'll just review some of the themes Quickly these are the featured Sessions where we're gonna ask some of these questions We've got changes in the economy Evolving gender roles Changing expectations of families and employers. So what does this mean for how we care for each other? What does this mean for how we support care and educate our diverse populations? What's our collective responsibilities for care so that the first panel is gonna dig into that second We're gonna navigate looking at how big data and technological innovation has changed the landscape of how we live And there's promise in peril ahead, which we're gonna explore How do we bounce these rights and social protections and how do we implement technological solutions that can be transformative and Then third there's political engagement that's required to make policy change. What's the civic space like? How do we govern it where policy and politics meet? What's the role of movement building and advocacy? How do we expand the table to get more more voices in a meaningful exchange? Looking for effective policy change. So those are the questions today Thanks for being here stick with us and we are going to get on with the program. Thank you So let's have Micah come up and bring on the next session