The Generation R Project

Each generation has its defining moment. For this current generation, the Great Recession might just be it.

As one young woman told a reporter recently, "our parents raised us to believe we could do anything, and now we're finding out that's not true."

There is little doubt that an economy hit this hard will transform the lives of young Americans. The question is how? The Generation R project (a name coined by New York Times Reporter Steve Greenhouse) will answer that question.

We will sit down for in-depth interviews with 150 young people from the high school class of 2006—now, four years later, on the cusp of adult life—and begin to understand how this recession is altering (if it is) their hopes, dreams and aspirations, in both big and small ways. We will survey hundreds more to get a big picture of who this generation is. And we will write a book and produce a documentary to tell their story.

The team working on this project has spent the last decade working with 20-somethings as part of the MacArthur Foundation's Network on Transitions to Adulthood.

Listen to Maria Kefalas discuss some early findings on Marketplace Morning Report.