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" What do you do when you don&amp;#039;t have any money? For most people, eating out is usually one of the first things to disappear from the household budget. Generation Y, folks between the ages of 18 and 34, are struggling with an unemployment rate of 19.5 percent, a full ten points higher than the national figure. Consequently, restaurateurs have seen their own sales figures take a dive as their largest group of customers - those wacky kids - stop showing up at their favorite restaurants, according to marketing analysis firm, NPD Group.   Actually, it doesn&amp;#039;t look as if things are going to get any better for restaurants for the foreseeable future, according to another report by the same firm. As Baby Boomers continue to age \u2013 &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Trust Anyone Under 50&amp;quot; should be their new mantra \u2013 they&amp;#039;re eating out even less. Restaurant growth isn&amp;#039;t projected to grow much more than 8 percent over the next decade. That&amp;#039;s less than 1 percent a year.  Between one generation that can&amp;#039;t afford to eat out but would prefer to and another generation that simply isn&amp;#039;t as interested in eating out as they might once have been, to say nothing of the recession in general, the restaurant industry is taking a beating. Several restaurant chains, however, have found a new group of potential customers \u2013 in the frozen foods aisle at the grocery store. As it happens, Generation Y is eating up frozen entrees from chains like P.F. Chang&amp;#039;s and California Pizza Kitchen. Gen Y consumers &amp;quot;are seeking convenient, low-cost dining options, such as portable food and frozen entr\u00E9es,&amp;quot; NPD&amp;#039;s report states.  For much of the country, especially after the economic hit we took following Sept. 11, not going out to eat meant cooking at home. Remember all the stories about &amp;quot;nesting&amp;quot; and falling back on more home-based activities? Even the current recession \u2013 supposedly \u2013 began driving people back into their kitchens resulting in more people wanting to learn to cook. That doesn&amp;#039;t appear to be happening with Gen Y, however. Who needs to know how to roast a chicken or make a white sauce when everything you eat comes from behind a frozen glass door? (Though not all that comes from a microwave or toaster oven is so-so on the culinary scale.)  On the bright side, Gen Y is now consuming enough salt to preserve themselves well into retirement. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/news/a38234/gen-y-the-frozen-food-generation/?src=shelter_footer>