Obama To Millennials Stuck Living At Home: I've Got Nothing For You

statigr.am/kimbo_ks13President Barack Obama fielded questions today from Americans in an interview organized by Zillow's CEO Spencer Rascoff.

His answer to a question from a recent college graduate should be gut churning for Millennials to listen to.

The question of interest was from a recent grad who is still stuck living with his parents, a situation endured by one in three Millennials. He wanted to know what the president planned to do to help his generation.

"We need more affordable, quality rental housing," said the President. "Renting is an option, especially if you're young."

Then, he correctly said "What for their parents was the down payment on a home is going to student loan debt service," an observation that I can personally attest to.

Great, one might think. So what do we do now?

The president then pivoted to his suggestions for student loan reform, and, even more perplexedly, immigration reform.

"If we get immigration reform done, we get all kinds of families coming out of the shadows," which the President argued would help to raise the cost of real estate.

Which, by the way, is the opposite of what our Millennial questioner really wants. How, precisely, does more expensive real estate aid young renters screwed over by student loans seeking affordable housing?

But let's first look at the student loan proposal that the President said should give that young professional faith.

You can read the whole proposal here. It would limit payments to 10% of income, forgive debt that remains after 20 years (10 years for nurses, teachers and military folks), and give out more Pell grants.

Sounds awesome.

But here's the thing. None of that affects the people who already have student loan debt.

The key caveat is that it only effects students enrolling in 2014 or later.

Are you in college or recently out of college? Are you one of the many, many millennials who retreated into grad schools instead of braving a failing or mediocre economy? Well, you're out of luck then.

This isn't a small segment of the economy, either.

Roughly 10 % of the country is in the age bracket of a recent college graduate, according to the Census. These are people aged 21-26 years old, with college graduation years somewhere between the economic wasteland the 2009 graduating class walked into and the economic "meh" the forthcoming 2014 graduating class is about to join.

So when the president is asked by a member of this huge segment of the American people what he hopes to do with them goes on to acknowledge the fact that this is a problem, then states his proposals to fix two other problems that don't help this 10% in any way, shape, or form, that cuts somewhat deep.

And the striking answer is the President doesn't actually have a solution for this problem at all.

It's understandable that he wants to fix the problem — crippling student loan debt — at the source, which I imagine is potentially great for my younger sister, someone currently looking at schools.

But what does the President plan to do about the major problems 21-26 year olds are facing, exactly? This is the generation that watched people from his generation crash the economy. This group is still reeling from its effects.

But the most galling part of all of this is how the president handled a question asking about that. He's proposed helping everyone older than Millennials (through his HARP proposal) and everyone younger than Millennials (through student loan reform) but not, precisely, Millennials. The president hopes to see housing prices rise as a result of immigration, which also screws Millennials.

It's to be expected that the President dodged the question. That's what politicians do. But he didn't have to rub it in.