This is the weekly column written by Blavity:Politics Senior Editor Kandist Mallett.  

I was in the Fall semester of my senior year of college when the 2008 Great Recession happened. I remember coming into class after the stock markets began crashing, and everyone was scared. As political science majors, we knew that we weren’t going to be graduating into a booming economy and that years of deregulation had finally caught up with us.

During my final year of college, I wanted to graduate early, so I took on a full course load each semester. As I was preparing to graduate into an economy where I’d compete with people who had more years of experience than me, I questioned why I was rushing to get out of college.

This is probably a reason why the U.S. saw a rise in graduate student enrollment after the Great Recession. Students dealing with the PTSD of seeing the economy tank and job market dry up decided to stay in the safety of academia. Why not delay those student loans just a little longer? The $60,000 entry-level jobs we thought were waiting for us were nowhere to be found. 


It’s been ten years. Many of us are still paying off our student debt and the cost of rent has gone up, but we’re living comfortably enough to afford a gym membership, pay to have someone drive us around, and order food from an app when we’re feeling lazy. It’s not the middle class dreams our parents may had, but it’s something. 

That was, until news that another recession might be on its way. Michelle Meyer, lead analyst for Bank of America, said they think there is a 1-in-3 chance that a recession will happen in 2020. What sort of system is so fickle that it crashes every ten years? This is probably why millennials, in general, tend to lean more toward the left when it comes to political issues.

In a weekly poll conducted by Chegg Election Tracker, the two highest-ranking candidates with college students were Sen. Bernie Sanders, at 29%, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 22%. Vice President Joe Biden came in third with 10%, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg was narrowly behind him with 9%. 

It shouldn’t be shocking that the two candidates in favor of eradicating student debt were polled highest among college students. Student loan debt in the U.S. is currently around $1.5 trillion, according to Forbes

If a recession does hit America’s economy, it would likely occur before the 2020 presidential election. Similar to the 2008 presidential election, a recession in 2020 would have a great impact on the presidential race and could direct votes toward the Democratic challenger. 

While climate change may be the top issue among millennials leading up to the presidential election, a recession would likely make the economy a more pressing concern. The gig economy, which has created a financial bubble and an economic haven for millennials, would bust under an economic recession. Rideshares, food deliveries, Netflix and chilling and impulsive buying are all expenses we indulge in, but they're not necessities.

Leading up to the Democratic primary, it’s crucial that candidates lay out what their economic plan will be to regenerate the economy if a recession were to happen, as well as, how they plan to deal with the long-term economic inequality that has continued to increase within the last hundred years. Although some candidates have endorsed raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, that still does not do enough to deal with the wealth gap in more expensive parts of the country.

The 2020 Democratic nominee needs to be willing to take bold steps to address the financial problems of this country. Cyclical recessions are not acceptable and shouldn’t be acceptable to a country that wants to consider itself as "great".