Young Invincibles (YI) was founded by a group of students in the summer of 2009, motivated by the recognition that young people’s voices were not being heard in the debate over health care reform. We began providing the facts about barriers young adults face in affording quality health insurance and by asking our peers to share their stories. We believed in our generation’s capacity to stand up and make itself heard, and as our work expanded the opportunity became more apparent. It turned out young people had even more to share. They were eager to organize friends, educate the public about new health insurance options, and develop real solutions to the challenges we face.
In the years since, YI has expanded from a group run out of a school cafeteria to a national organization with offices across the country. We take on issues related to health care, higher education, and economic security. We are committed to expanding economic opportunity for young adults ages 18 to 34 and making sure that our perspective is heard wherever decisions about our collective future are being made. Young people are a historically underrepresented constituency, and our focus is on ensuring young communities with the least access to political and economic power have a say. We do this through building a community of young leaders to take action for social change, sharing the stories of young adults, cutting-edge policy research and analysis, providing tools for our generation to make smart economic choices, and mission- driven social enterprise ventures.
So far, we have educated tens of thousands of young adults about their financial options and achieved numerous policy victories along the way. These include implementing strong consumer protections for health insurance plans for millions of college students and protecting funding for the federal Pell grant program. Our regional offices from California to New York have increased grant aid for low-income college students, expanded funding for community colleges, and ensured undocumented students can access in-state tuition.
