Good news for all the Chazz Reinholds out there! A recent study conducted at Penn by Assistant Professor of Economics Greg Kaplan shows that Generation Y men who live with their parents earn more than lone rangers who opt out of returning to their racecar beds with Star Wars sheets.

According to the UPenn study, young men don’t even have to physically relocate Chez Mom & Dad to reap the economic benefits. Just having the option to move back home provided enough of a psychological security net to allow them to be more discriminating about the kind of jobs they accepted, which translates to holding out for positions with higher long-term earning potential. At 23, men who had the option to return to the nest were earning 5% more a month than those who didn’t.

This new research is refreshing because it not only casts our generation in a more positive light—slowly chipping away at our lazy, bucket-of-excuses iMage—but it’s finally a study about millennials conducted by a millennial himself ! While these two factors might be strongly correlated, we applaud Kaplan for stepping up to the plate to defend us against all the “kids these days” finger-waggers.

You might by now have heard of Occupy Wall Street, an anonymous movement in New York City meant to put an end to the corrupt relationship between government and Wall Street.

Although OWS was initially dismissed by major publications as juvenile and disorganized, the demonstration has quickly gained publicity, mostly stemming from reports of police brutality. An estimated 100 people have been arrested in the last week, including a handful of Columbia students.

In the past few days, the movement has garnered many supporters, among them Michael Moore and Penn alum Noam Chomsky. Some have gone so far as to compare this protest with those of Greece and Arab nations. As much as we all love to joke about that red tower of greed that casts its long shadow over the rest of campus, the OWS movement has serious implications for us, as Penn students and millennials. Read the rest of this entry »