by Jonathan Levine, Mic.com
When was the last time you decided to pitch in? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it probably wasn’t very recently. Data released last week shows that only 18.7% of 20- to 24-year-olds participated in volunteer work between September 2013 and September 2014, with those aged 25 to 34 not far behind at 22% participation. Percentages rose considerably among those aged 35 to 44 before tapering off among successively older groups. So what’s the deal? Are millennials lazy and selfish? That certainly appears to be the implication of a recent piece in Bloomberg Businessweek. In ~1@BODYURL[id=114jbcurl1271]@ Bloomberg reporter Akane Otani offers a stern chastisement to millennials, speculating that “maybe aging is the antidote to being self-absorbed.” While likely appealing to Bloomberg Businessweek’s more aged readership, the article fails to dig deeper into the numbers and consider much beyond the original data set. Even the title is misleading: Since no age group came close to surpassing 50% volunteering participation, the article could just as easily have been titled “Most People Can’t Do a Single Nice Thing for Someone Else.” But that’s not how volunteering organizations see it. “We don’t really see that trend so much,” Steve Streicher, director of communications and marketing at New York Cares, told Mic. According to its website, New York Cares is “the city’s largest volunteer management organization,” running volunteer programs for 1,300 nonprofits, city agencies and public schools throughout the New York area. Streicher expressed utter disbelief for the finding, at least based on New York Cares’ experience. “The 18-to-30 age group is one of our key age groups. Every year we have approximately 12,000 volunteers between 18 and 30 that come through our doors.” ~1@BODYURL[id=114jbcurl1272]@