The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being "punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of the

The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being "punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of the facts. I don't think that's fair to the OP. They seem to me to just be describing what they see and feel. In a cold, utilitarian sense, the ripple effects from messing up a young life are many times more significant. If schooling, work, romance, and childbearing of young people are all disrupted, you can expect to see that in the economy for decades to come (just look at the name "baby boomers" for the opposite case). But, again in the cold utilitarian sense, if the life of someone with 10-20 years left is disrupted, that disruption doesn't last as long.