President-Elect Donald Trump has said he wants to face economic challenges to improve the economy, but there are already economic shifts underway that are undermining confidence, especially among younger people.
A new survey from Pew Research indicates a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with their current pay, especially among the 18-to-29 age group.
While there are a number of reasons for this, one of the most obvious is the recent de-emphasis on specialty college degrees.
Lone Star College economics professor Hank Lewis said, "There's a lot of students that are graduating with degrees that are not as in demand as they may have been a few years ago.
"There's also been some shifts in the workforce that's been happening and we've been dealing with some really high housing prices and high food prices and so forth, and a lot of the wages and salaries have not kept up with that.
"As a result, you have a student who might be getting out of school and they might get a job offer that pays, say, $65,000 a year, which actually is pretty good pay, but then you see they're probably having to spend over $1,000 a month paying student loans or take a deferral and have the interest build," Professor Lewis added.
"Plus the rent is in the $1,300 range for a studio apartment, combine that with the cost of a cell phone, internet and so forth, and when you add that up and crunch the numbers, you're not going to have any money to save or do much else beyond just eat, sleep, go to work and pay your bills.
"And for a lot of people that's not living, that's just basically existing."
These are among the deep-seated problems that have resulted from several years of the White House mismanaging the U.S. economy that, in addition to high interest rates and inflation, have complicated the everyday lives of many Americans.
It seems as though the younger members of the U.S. workforce are noticing and feeling deeply the pain of this late Biden economy.