It is often too easy to disregard the debates surrounding economic and financial reform taking place in the country. While this recession has been dubbed the worst since the Great Depression and given the title the Great Recession, much of the policy debates about how to fix the problems seem to be taking place in a foreign language.

And it may be that many young people feel personally disconnected from these debates, as if financial regulation and mortgage restructuring have no bearing on their everyday lives.

Yet the truth is that young people have more to gain or lose in this economy than anyone else. The economy that young people will inherit very soon is being restructured and created anew. In fact, if you look at how young people are faring in this economic recession and how young people have fared in the economy over the last decade, it becomes increasingly clear that youth, for the most part, have gotten a raw deal.

There has been quite a bit of information produced recently examining the economic condition of young people in this recession and in years past. The conclusion: Youth are being economically and financially squeezed on many levels.

For example, only 31 percent of respondents in a recent AFL-CIO report said that they make enough money to cover their bills and put money aside. This is 22 percentage points fewer than in 1999. The same report found that more than one in three young workers are living at home with their parents and that overall, youth are increasingly less optimistic about their economic future.

Youth are earning less money and are saddled with more and more debt. A combination of student and credit-card debt has created one of the most heavily indebted generations ever. According to Demos, a progressive policy organization, the average student loan debt for the class of 2006 was $19,646. Iowa’s 2006 graduating class beat out the national average with $22,926 in debt.

These trends are likely to continue. This immense burden inhibits the ability to save and create wealth, which are especially needed in this economic climate.

Declining incomes and rising debt among youth is not a new phenomenon, nor is it only a byproduct of the economic recession. It is, however, the result of a rapidly changing economy and a lag in public policies that adequately meet the challenges that many youth face today. Yet even if we look at unemployment and underemployment in this recession, we see that young workers are feeling pinched.

According to the nonprofit organization Iowa Policy Project, Iowa’s 2008 unemployment rate for those aged 16-24 was at 8 percent, the highest among any age group. The underemployment rate — those working part-time for economic reasons and those unemployed who have stopped looking for work — stood at 14.1 percent. This in a state where the overall unemployment rate was at 4 percent in 2008.

Numbers alone can’t effectively tell this story, for the reality is that there are too many stories of young people overwhelmed with debt, uninsured, and struggling to find a suitable job after graduation. This is a bleak picture. Maybe too bleak, for we all know people doing quite well. And at the end of the day— despite how gloomy things may look now — we’ll all still forge ahead, optimistic about our life chances.

But my point is this: Your economic reality and the economic reality that you will soon face will be a challenging one.

And it’s not far removed from the public policy debates happening right now.