--- title: Millennials' Political Views Baffle Baby Boomers description: Boomers just don’t understand what younger people are saying about politics and culture. canonical: https://time.com/2974185/millennials-poll-politics/ author: Nick Gillespie article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-11T04:01:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:33.511Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Millennials' Political Views Baffle Baby Boomers og:description: Boomers just don’t understand what younger people are saying about politics and culture. og:url: https://time.com/2974185/millennials-poll-politics/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c0e6c792b53aa72/69869b57e53aba86924d3887/crowd_millenials.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3290 og:image:height: 1851 og:image:alt: 187345382 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Millennials' Political Views Baffle Baby Boomers twitter:description: Boomers just don’t understand what younger people are saying about politics and culture. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4c0e6c792b53aa72/69869b57e53aba86924d3887/crowd_millenials.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Secret Language of Millennials > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Explaining Obamacare to Millenials [Watch (HLS stream): Explaining Obamacare to Millenials](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CK6s9zoJ.m3u8) (2:34)  _Published 2014-02-08. Why do young Americans in their 20s and 30s need to pay attention to the Affordable Care Act, and what do they need to know? TIME explains._ by [Nick Gillespie](https://time.com/author/nick-gillespie/) ## Nick Gillespie Jul 11, 2014 4:01 AM UTC  Concert crowd Concert crowd Getty Images/Vetta by [Nick Gillespie](https://time.com/author/nick-gillespie/) ## Nick Gillespie Jul 11, 2014 4:01 AM UTC Fifty years ago, baby boomers and their parents suffered through what was ubiquitously understood as “[the generation gap](http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Generation%5Fgap.html),” or the inability for different generations to speak clearly with one another. A new national poll of Americans ages 18 to 29 — the millennial generation — provides strong evidence of a new generation gap, this time with the boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) playing the role of uncomprehending parents. When millennials say they are _liberal,_ it means something very different than it did when Barack Obama was coming of age. When millennials say they are _socialists_, they’re not participating in _ostalgie_ for the old German Democratic Republic. And their strong belief in economic _fairness_ shouldn’t be confused with the attitudes of the Occupy movement. The poll of millennials was conducted by the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit publisher of [Reason.com](http://reason.com), the website and video platform I edit) and the Rupe Foundation earlier this spring. It engaged nearly 2,400 representative 18-to-29-year-olds on a wide variety of topics. This new generation gap certainly helps explain why millennials are far less partisan than folks 30 and older. Just 22% of millennials identify as Republican or Republican-leaning, compared with 40% of older voters. After splitting their votes for George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 (each candidate got about 48%), millennials have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections. Forty-three percent of millennials call themselves Democrats or lean that way. Yet that’s still a smaller percentage than it is for older Americans, 49% of whom are Democrats or lean Democrat. Most strikingly, 34% of millennials call themselves true independents, meaning they don’t lean toward either party. For older Americans, it’s just 10%. Millennials use language differently than boomers and Gen X-ers (those born from 1965 to 1980). In the Reason-Rupe poll, about 62% of millennials call themselves liberal. By that, they mean they favor gay marriage and pot legalization, but those views hold little or no implication for their views on government spending. To millennials, being socially liberal is being liberal, period. For most older Americans, calling yourself a liberal means you want to increase the size, scope and spending of the government. (It may not even mean you support legal pot and marriage equality.) Despite the strong liberal tilt among millennials, 53% say they would support a candidate who was socially liberal and fiscally conservative. (Are you listening, major parties?) There are other areas in which language doesn’t track neatly with boomer and Gen X definitions. Millennials have no firsthand memories of the Soviet Union or the Cold War. Forty-two percent say they prefer socialism as a means of organizing society, but only 16% can define the term properly as government ownership of the means of production. In fact, when asked whether they want an economy managed by the free market or by the government, 64% want the former and just 32% want the latter. Scratch a millennial “socialist” and you are likely to find a budding entrepreneur (55% say they want to start their own business someday). Although they support a government-provided social safety net, two-thirds of millennials agree that “government is usually inefficient and wasteful,” and they are highly skeptical toward government with regards to privacy and nanny-state regulations about e-cigarettes, soda sizes and the like. For all the attention lavished on the youthful, anticapitalist Occupy movement a few years ago, it turns out that millennials have strongly positive attitudes toward free markets. (Just don’t call it _capitalism._) Not surprisingly, they define _fairness_ in a way that is less about income disparity and more about getting your due. Almost 6 in 10 believe you can get ahead with hard work, and a similar number want a society in which wealth is parceled out according to your achievement, not via the tax code or government redistribution of income. Even though 70% favor guaranteed health care, housing and income, millennials have no problem with unequal outcomes. Like most older Americans, too, millennials are deeply worried about massive and growing federal budgets and debt, with 78% calling such things a major problem. It would be a real shame if we can’t have the sorts of conversations we need to address and remedy such issues because different generations are talking past each other. Millennials are different from boomers or Gen X-ers: culture comes first and politics second to them. They are less partisan, and they are less hung up about things such as pot use, gay marriage and immigration. But in many ways, they agree with older generations when it comes to the value and legitimacy of work, the role of government in helping the poor and the inefficiency of government to do that. Everyone agrees that there are crises everywhere: Social Security and Medicare are going bust, and the economy has been on life support for years. The best solutions will engage and involve Americans of all ages. The Reason-Rupe poll points to some places where generations are talking past each other and others where there is wide agreement. Giving its finding, a close read might just help narrow today’s generation gap so we can get on with improving all generations’ prospects. ## Transcript >> You've heard the talking points and you know all about the website glitches. >> So, this law is already making a difference for millions of young people. >> But now millions of Americans have had their coverage ripped from them. >> We were under the impression that it was ready to go. >> We're not to run a website, would you? >> Here's what you need to know. >> Let's get something out of the way first. Do young Americans even need to pay attention to the ACA or Affordable Care Act? The official name for what most refer to as simply ObamaCare. First, one of the reasons people need health insurance is, of course, a personal matter. It protects you from bankruptcy if you have an accident or unexpected illness and those crises can happen to anyone at any age. Just about everyone is required to have signed up for health insurance by the end of open enrollment in March or pay tax penalty. In 2014, that will run you $ 95 or 1 percent of your income, whichever is greater. Many Americans already have insurance through their employers. If you are one of them, you don't need to do anything differently because you're already covered. If you have insurance through your college or university, those plans have already been deemed fit to fulfill the laws requirements. Again, you don't have to do anything. And the same is true if you're on your parent's health plan. Under ObamaCare, you can stay on there until you're 26. But if you're not on your parent's or school's plan and your employer doesn't offer insurance, that's where the exchanges come in. So, if you don't have insurance or face cancellation of your existing plan, you can purchase insurance on an online marketplace by going to HealthCare. gov or you may live in one of the states that has its own exchange. So, as a young adult, maybe even a very healthy and optimistic one who doesn't have coverage, should you buy some? Well, according to the Obama administration and most healthcare professionals, yes, we can all get sick or injured and even you aren't immortal, sorry to break the news to you this way. Well, let's assume for a moment only, older or sicker Americans sign up for insurance through those health exchanges. That population is expensive to insure. Many were previously turned down for coverage or had to pay extremely high premiums. The ACA requires companies to cover these people and it intends to average out cost across the board by putting younger, healthier people into the same risk pool. To do that, the White House believes it needs young adults to make up 38 percent of the people on the health exchanges. A recent Harvard study found, however, a substantial majority of uninsured millennials are unlikely to enroll. To avoid having to pay a penalty, which could happen if you go more than three months without coverage, you'll need to enrol in some form of health insurance by March 31st, 2014. 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