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Millennials are giving Gen Z advice for their first potential recession

Many of the generation were young adults when the Great Recession began, and to this day, they struggle to buy homes and pay off student debt. Now these jaded millennials are sharing their wisdom with Gen Z on TikTok, posting preparation tips and no-buy lists to ease the minds of young people who could be entering their first major recession as adults.President Donald Trump’s whiplash-inducing policy changes have everyone warning about dire consequences for the US economy, from Fed Chair Jerome Powell to Goldman Sachs analysts. The Trump administration’s tit-for-tat escalation in the global trade war could lead to a recession for both the US and the world this year, JPMorgan said this month. It comes during an already unprecedented string of events for young people — people in their early 20s are earning less and have more debt, already battered by the Covid-19 pandemic and an onslaught of inflation.

So, the United States might not be in a recession right now, but its youngest working adults are still anxious — and seeking advice from their older peers. When scrolling through TikTok, Sasha Whitney, 37, noticed Gen Z users shared the same feelings over an impending recession: “downtrodden, frustrated, very bleak and hopeless about the future.” 

It’s a stark difference from when Whitney graduated from college in 2009 during the Great Recession, before social media became as pervasive and when Barack Obama, who ran his campaign on the concept of hope, just took office.

(https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/27/business/millennials-genz-recession-advice/index.html) 

Text 7A3-II 

    400 million people speak English as their first language; another 1.4 billion as a second tongue. Born 1,600 years ago among the Germanic tribes of northern Europe, English became global. A new exhibition at the British Library, named Evolving English, traces for the first time the incredible journey launched by the Frisians, Saxons, Angles and Jutes who sailed to southeast England, and whose descendants created the Vespasian Psalter in the eighth century. From the Vespasian Psalter the journey moves on through England’s early literary heroes, Beowulf, Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, and on to Jonathan Swift.

    The curators of Evolving English have been clever to focus not just on English at school and English at work, but English at play, from spoonerisms to malapropisms, puns and palindromes and the 1,800 words invented by William Shakespeare — among them “green-eyed”, “go-between”, “well-read” and “zany”. Not only was Shakespeare the greatest English writer, he could have been no other kind.

Internet: (<www.economist.com> (adapted).  

Text 7A3-I  

    As a science fiction writer, Octavia Butler forged a new path and envisioned bold possibilities. The future she wrote about is now our present moment. She wrote 12 novels and won each of science fiction’s highest honors. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. She is also, increasingly, a writer recognized as one of the most important voices and visionaries of the 20^th century, and now the 21^st. As a Black woman and a writer, Butler demolished walls that seemed impermeable, writing on themes that seemed uncategorizable. Her ideas and characters continue to resonate with new readers when so many are looking for, if not hope, then a map for a way forward.

    Her vision about the climate crisis, political and societal upheaval and the brutality and consequences of power hierarchies seems both sobering and prescient. However, as Butler often noted, being right was never the point. She didn’t want to be right — far from it. She wanted to give us time, and tools, to correct the course. 

 Lynell George. The Visions of Octavia Butler. Internet: <www.nytimes.com> (adapted).