conferences

Last Friday I attended the Better Deal Conference, a gathering of young activists to discuss the creation of a new progressive economic policy that addresses the issues facing our nation and our generation.

As Tamara Drout, one of the conference organizers noted in an article in the American Prospect, young Americans today are the first generation that may actually end up with a lower standard of living than their parents. On average, we graduate college with $20k of debt and enter into an outsourced, service-industry dominated economy in which health care has been decoupled from employment. For those of us who don't make it into college, it is becoming near impossible to earn a middle class living with just a high school diploma.

The issue is timely, to say the least.

Andy Stern (SEIU) and Katrina Vanden Heuvel (The Nation) delivered the keynote addresses (morning and afternoon, respectively), and there were some truly informative panels including:

• Paycheck Politics - covering the quality of jobs available to young people in the New Economy
• Getting a Life - affordability barriers to the necessities of a middle class life
• Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Destiny - exploring the intersection of race and class among Millennials.
• I myself sat on a panel entitled "We're Broke and We Vote - about youth GOTV efforts and the economy as an election issue for Millennials.

I won't sum up all the panels. CSpan was filming live all day and you can watch each panel by clicking the links above, or by going here. There were a few big takeaways from the day that I would like to mention:

• There was a lot of talk about recognizing that class is what divides us even more than race - particularly as a movement. Issues like green jobs, which can lift up poor Latinos and African Americans in inner cities, or poor rural whites equally, can create new ties and partnerships between traditionally disparate groups.
• tThe conference was full of college students and recent grads. Young people's debt burden is "pricing them out' of the nonprofit sector and traditional organizing jobs within the movement, but there are a variety of more professional roles that attendees can aspire to that will allow them to do well by doing good. The movement needs lawyers, researchers, economists and more just as much as good organizers. There needs to be a broader understanding of how this work will happen and where we can all fit in.
• Most importantly (at least to me since it came up numerous times during the voting panel), we need to think more about what happens on November 5th. All of our energies seem focused on getting out the vote. This is a good - and as I've noted a very new - thing. But the off year of the cycle (2009) is a very big open question. How will we shift gears from GOTV to policy? How will we make sure that the candidate fulfills their promises to young voters and institutes a Better Deal for "Generation Debt?" I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's pretty clear that we're going to need to have a large conference of some kind in which the issue orgs and the GOTV orgs all get in the same room and work out some kind of plan.

On this last point, I thought that the big elephant in the room that no one was really talking about was the Obama campaign, particularly in light of the recent post by Matt Stoller outlining how Obama is short-circuiting the influence partisan, "outside organizations" on the process and is in a position to rewire the Democratic Party in his own image.

Sen. Obama probably has a bigger "youth" list than all the youth vote and youth policy organizations out there combined. What does he plan to do with it after election day - win or lose? How will he keep his Millennial Movement engaged in effective action beyond his election towards the accomplishment of real progressive policy goals? We have no idea because his campaign won't tell us.

Clearly we need to start planning for "Day One" ourselves, and judging by the energy in the room there are lots of people itching to get started. When that time comes, hopefully Sen. Obama will join us and won't let all that energy and potential activism go to waste once the campaign reaches its end.

One final thought. A few weeks ago I attended a similar conference by the Roosevelt Institution called A New New Deal (again, the economy is the # 1 issue for young voters and reestablishing the kind of social safety net that gave our parents and grandparents a leg up into the middle class weighs heavily on everyone's mind). Despite the similar topics, these were two very different conferences. Roosevelt's conference felt very much an insider event. A number of stars from the Democratic economic policy apparatus were in attendance and the audience was composed of as many policy wonks as young, aspiring policy wonks. It was a networking event for young people to climb into the circles of Democratic public policy. Yesterday's event was a much more hands-on, learning experience for young activists whose constituents face economic hardships. With a 1 hour "Roots Camp" at the end of the day, it was very much a pragmatic conference. I suspect that both are needed if we are to create a leadership pipeline for young policy types and create quality organizing campaigns around the issues. But it is worth noting the difference between the two.

There's a lot of focus right now on the upcoming election - as their should be. But it's important to remember that elections aren't ends in themselves. They are vehicles the people use to usher in policy changes.

When Rock the Vote released their poll of Millennials (ppt) a few weeks ago, topping the list of concerns was the economy. Specifically, young people were concerned about their ability to obtain jobs that would allow them to climb out of debt and begin to build a life, whether that be supporting a child or buying a house (or both). This is the number one concern of Millennials, who on average graduate with $20k of debt and may be the first American generation to not do better financially than their parents.

What are the policies that could change this situation and provide economic security to our generation? These are the questions that Demos hopes to answer at their upcoming conference: A Better Deal - Reclaiming Economic Security for a New Generation.

The conference, scheduled for May 8th and 9th in DC, will feature an impressive array of speakers including Katrina vanden Heuval of The Nation, Andy Stern, President of SEIU, Andrea Batista Schlesinger, ED of the Drum Major Institute, as well as a number of youth organizing leaders. Panels include:

User-Generated Breakout Sessions
Registrants will have a chance to submit requests for topics or proposals to host a session during online registration. At the conference, these small group discussions or training sessions will allow participants to learn from each other and connect with other activists in their region or issue area.

Paycheck Politics
This panel will focus on the quality of jobs available to young adults in the New Economy, comparing wages, job security, unionization and benefits to the jobs that sustained previous generations. Speakers will also offer strategies for improving job quality, including living wage laws, career ladder and green job programs, traditional unionization and alternative organizing strategies including worker centers.

Higher and Higher Education
This panel will focus on issues of higher education access, affordability and debt. In this generation, the college degree is what the high school diploma was in the previous generation: an entry requirement for middle-class jobs. The panel will explore the attack on affirmative action amidst the widening racial gap in higher education, the drivers behind skyrocketing tuitions and student debt, and offer policy solutions.

Getting a Life: Housing, Health Care and Child Care
This panel will focus on affordability barriers to the necessities of middle-class life: housing, health care and child care. Panelists will describe why and how costs have risen, what public policies could help young adults and families, and how activists can play a role.

Generation Debt
This panel will focus on the rise of personal debt among young adults, explaining how culture, financial pressures and new lending industry practices have played a role. Panelists will discuss strategies to combat payday lending, abusive credit card practices, predatory home loans and other high-cost credit.

Young Elected Officials
This panel will showcase a group of young elected officials who have made the economic concerns of young adults and families central to their campaigns and agendas.

Race, Ethnicity and Economic Destiny
This panel will explore the connection between the millennial generation's two claims to fame: the most diverse generation in American history and the first that is widely predicted to not surpass their parents' standards of living. Panelists will discuss the economic status of immigrants and their children; the effect of the racial wealth gap; the economic contours of mass youth incarceration, and issues of political power and the challenges of winning broad government investments in a more diverse population.

We're Broke and We Vote
This panel will focus on strategies to build a movement for a better deal for young adults. Panelists will discuss the power of young voters, the obstacles to moving a young adult economic agenda and how to mobilize young adults around these issues.

Many of the topics that will be covered at the conference were written about in a recent special report by The American Prospect: Mobilizing Millennials. I highly recommend both the conference and the report for those looking to understand the economic concerns of young voters, and the policies young people will ask the next administration to implement.

I'll be at the conference live-blogging, as well as speaking on a panel. Hope to see you there.

Over at Left in the West, Matt Singer reminds me of my duties. I've neglected to mention that I'm going to be speaking on a number of panels at this year's Yearly Kos Convention.

• Building the Progressing Youth Movement: I'm the moderator for this panel, which will feature the aforementioned Matt Singer, founder and CEO of Forward Montana (who I'm sure will have more wisdom than misinformation), Shauna Thomas of Young People For, Alexis McGill of Citizen Change (aka "Vote or Die!"), Jane Flemming Kleeb of Young Voter PAC and formerly YDA, and Adam Conner, blogger, Roosevelt Institution co-founder, YP4 Fellow, and former member of CDA.
  
  It's a packed panel, but I'm hoping to keep everyone on task, talking about how their various organizations (and similar orgs) are linking up to form a coherent, strategic progressive youth movement, how they can better work together, and most importantly where our budding movement is still failing. Stop by if you are at the convention.
• Framing From the Top: Some how I ended up as a participant in the framing panel. I think maybe it's because I slipped something into Jeff Feldman's drink at RootsCamp NYC. Featuring giants like George Lakoff and Rick Perlstein, my main objective will be to not look dumb.
• Technology and Politics: The Next Generation: Finally, I'll be on a panel where we gaze into our techno-crystal ball to see what's in store for technology and politics in the year 2012. It's kinda like that old Conan O'Brian skit, only dorkier. Should be a lot of fun.

After a redonkulous Friday filled with three panels and what will surely be large amounts of drinking (courtesy of the Drinking Liberally folks), I'm taking a day of vacation and spending my Saturday at Lollapalooza. It's been a while since I've been to a big outdoor festival like that, so I'll be chillin', listing to some music, and maybe checking out the merch/booth area to see if there's any kind of music activism going down. Right now I know I'll be checking out Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, The Hold Steady, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Spoon. Don't know who else. Maybe the Roots, but I've already seen them like three times. I'll be the guy in the old-school Music for America T-shirt.