24. I know a man in Chicago who has cause to complain of the ingratitude of his stepsons. He slaved in a box factory, seldom earning more than forty dollars a week. He married a widow, and she persuaded him to borrow money and send her two grown sons to college. Out of his salary of forty dollars a week, he had to pay for food, rent, fuel, clothes, and also for the payments on his notes. He did this for four years, working like a coolie, and never complaining.

27. "Going it alone," "earning enough to be self-supporting" - these are awkward concepts for Scott Nicholson and his friends. Of the 20 college classmates with whom he keeps up, 12 are working, but only half are in jobs they "really like . " Three are entering law school this fall after frustrating experiences in the work force, "and five are looking for work just as I am, " he said.

26. In 2008, the first year of the recession, the percentage of the population living in households in which at least two generations were present rose nearly a percentage point, to 106 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. The high point , 24 . 7 percent, came in 1940, as the Depression ended, and the low point, 12 percent, in 1980. Striving for Independence

25. Many hard-pressed millennials are falling back on their parents, as Scott Nicholson has. While he has no college debt (his grandparents paid all his tuition and board) many others do, and that helps force them back home.

24. In a recent study, she found that those who graduated from college during the severe early'80s recession earned up to 30 percent less in their first three years than new graduates who landed their first jobs in a strong economy. Even 15 years later, their annual pay was 8 to 10 percent less.

23. "They are definitely more risk-averse," said Lisa B. Kahn, an economist at the Yale School of Management," and more likely to fall behind. "

22. The outlook this time is not so clear. Starved for jobs at adequate pay, the millennials tend to seek refuge in college and in the military and to put off marriage and child-bearing. Those who are working often stay with the jobs they have rather than jump to better paying but less secure ones, as young people seeking advancement normally do. And they are increasingly willing to forgo raises, or to settle for small ones.

21. Military service in World War Il , along with the G. I. Bill and a booming economy, restored well-being; by the 1970s, when Mr. Elder did his retrospective study, the hardships of the Depression were more a memory than an open sore. "They came out of the war with purpose in their lives, and by age 40 most of them were doing well, " he said, speaking of his study in a recent interview.

20. The Great Depression damaged the self-confidence of the young, and that is beginning to happen now, according to pollsters, sociologists and economists. Young men in particular lost a sense of direction, Glen H. Elder Jr. , a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, found in his study, " Children of the Great Depression. " In some cases they were forced into work they did not want —the issue for Scott Nicholson.

19. Scott Nicholson also has connections, of course, but no one in his network of family and friends has been able to steer him into marketing or finance or management training or any career-oriented opening at a big corporation, his goal. The jobs are simply not there.

18. While Scott has tried to make that happen, he has come under pressure from his parents to compromise: to take , if not the Hanover job, then one like it. " I am beginning to realize that refusal is going to have repercussions, " he said. " My parents are subtly pointing out that beyond room and board, they are also paying other expenses for me, like my cellphone charges and the premiums on a life insurance policy. "