Nope, I don’t mean medieval torture, but I do mean something almost as bad: moving back in with your parents.

The LA Times ran a pretty good article about the economic situation of young people, especially as it relates to the current recession.

The gist - young people are facing some tough economic times as they enter the job market, forcing many to move in or borrow money from their folks, as well as cut back on the lifestyle they are used to. Along with the steady trend towards higher student and credit card debt, the bursting economic bubbles have meant that young people are now more concerned with economic issues than, for example, ending the war in Iraq (although, of course, they are related issues - money spent on the war could help alleviate the crisis at home).

It also points out that increased unemployment and the housing crash may have disproportionally affected younger people:

In the last year, the unemployment rate for 25- to 34-year-olds rose from 4.3% to 5.4% -- nearly twice the increase for age groups above them. […] 

Although there are few reliable statistics on how many among younger home buyers are dealing with foreclosure, some economists believe they are bearing the brunt of the housing downturn. The explosion of sub-prime loans coincided with many first-time buyers with poorer credit histories entering the market.

Young people seem to be a good target for predatory lenders of all stripes. Check out a great report by the PIRGs about some naughty things that the credit card industry does to kick young people in the pants, among other things. Here is a short list:

…banks can squeeze their existing customers for greater profits in several ways:  including (1)  using a variety of rewards and tricks such as encouraging extremely low minimum payments to maintain highly-profitable high revolving card balances; (2) raising interest rates on those balances through a variety of traps including imposition of penalty interest rates for late payments and changing due dates to encourage more of those late payments; (3)  using misleading teaser rates and, (4) raising the rates of otherwise good customers by claiming that their credit score had declined or that they were late to another lender (called “universal default”)

There are a couple problems with the article – first and foremost, it seems to assume that all of Gen Y & X are middle class. For example:

Raised amid a long stretch of financial bounty and weaned on video games, cellphones, iPods and weekends at the mall, many Generation X and Y members have barely seen a time when they couldn't spend freely on the latest styles and gadgets.

This seems to be a symptom of a classic problem: the invisibility of (usually less-privileged) people outside of one’s own social milieu.