America, meet your alienated youth: ‘Gold standard’ Harvard survey reveals Gen Z’s anxiety and distrust, defined by economic insecurity

Gen Z has a message for America: We don’t trust you. A long-running poll conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School, considered the “gold standard” by many, offers up a disquieting conclusion. The 51st edition of the Harvard Youth Poll finds a generation defined by economic insecurity, deep anxiety about the future, and a corrosive distrust of the institutions that are supposed to help them thrive. For Gen Z and young millennials, instability is not a passing phase of early adulthood, but the organizing principle of daily life.

Young Americans in the fall edition of the poll report say their lives and futures feel unstable, marked by deep economic anxiety, eroding trust in institutions, and fraying social bonds. The survey of 2,040 young people, ages 18 to 29, depicts a cohort that is pessimistic about the country’s direction and skeptical that political leaders or systems are working for them.​​​

​Only a small share of young Americans think the country is headed in the right direction, while a clear majority say the United States is on the wrong track, or are unsure where it is going at all. Behind that pessimism is money: More than four in 10 young people (43%) say they are struggling or getting by with only limited financial security, echoing similar findings from Harvard’s spring survey earlier this year. High housing costs, rising prices, and student debt have turned what older generations once framed as a time of exploration into a period of relentless financial triage.

Economic unease also cuts across traditional political and cultural divides. Pollsters and outside analysts note that anxiety about making ends meet now serves as a rare unifying experience for young adults, whether they live in cities or small towns, or lean left or right. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has agreed about the economic struggles for young people, saying in September that “kids coming out of college and younger people, minorities, are having a hard time finding jobs.”

Economy, work, and AI

Economic insecurity is central: Many young adults worry about making ends meet, affording housing, and finding stable, meaningful work. Layered onto that economic fragility is a fear that the future of work itself is slipping away.

Large numbers of young respondents view artificial intelligence less as a tool and more as a looming threat to their job prospects and long-term careers. In the poll, concerns about AI’s impact on employment outrank worries about immigration and rival more traditional anxieties about trade or regulation.

That perspective represents a striking reversal of the usual generational script. Younger Americans are often assumed to be early adopters and natural optimists about new technology, but the Harvard findings suggest they increasingly associate innovation with precarity: unstable schedules, algorithmic layoffs, and work that feels less meaningful. For many, the question is no longer how technology will expand opportunity, but how long it will be before it makes them redundant.​

Trust in institutions and politics

The survey shows that this economic and technological uncertainty is feeding a broader collapse of faith in public life. Confidence in government, political parties, and the mainstream media is low, with many young Americans seeing these institutions as threats to their well-being rather than as sources of stability. Even institutions that fare relatively better, such as colleges, do so against a backdrop of skepticism that leaders of any kind will act in young people’s interests.

Trust in major institutions continues to erode, with colleges and immigrants seen relatively more positively while entities such as mainstream media, political parties, and other core institutions are often viewed as risks rather than assets. President Trump and both major political parties receive poor ratings from young Americans, and although Democrats hold an advantage for the 2026 elections, that edge reflects reluctance about alternatives more than genuine enthusiasm.

​​Donald Trump, now in his second term, fares poorly among this age group, but the poll also documents “deeply negative” views of both major parties. A plurality of respondents say they would prefer Democratic control of Congress in upcoming elections, yet that preference appears driven more by resignation than by genuine enthusiasm. Politics, in other words, feels less like a vehicle for change and more like an arena in which no one is truly on their side.

The poll may have a left-wing bias, as the Harvard Crimson reported on how it overestimated support for the Democratic president in both the 2020 and 2024 elections. The Harvard Youth Poll uses the Ipsos Knowledge Panel, a survey considered to be of high quality, indexed to probability, but these are built up over several years and can fail to catch rapidly shifting dynamics, such as a young-male shift to Trump in 2024. Still, this edition of the poll shows a disaffected youth, regardless of political affiliation.

Social trust, discourse, and vaccines

Harvard’s researchers warn that this distrust extends beyond institutions to the social fabric itself. Many young Americans report avoiding political conversations for fear of backlash and doubt that people who disagree with them still want what is best for the country. Social connection is thin: Earlier surveys in the same series found only a small minority feel deeply connected to their communities, and the new data suggest those patterns are hardening rather than easing.

Most young Americans reject political violence, but a nontrivial minority expresses conditional openness to it, linked more to financial strain, institutional distrust, and social alienation than to clear ideological extremism.​ This significant minority says it could be acceptable if the government violates individual rights—a view the report links less to ideology than to financial strain and alienation. Polling director John Della Volpe has described instability as the thread running through nearly every response, warning that a generation raised through crisis after crisis is now openly questioning whether American democracy and the economy can deliver for them at all.

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com