The 2016 election cycle has sparked a familiar conversation about which demographics will be the most decisive in November. Stalwarts like blacks, women, and organized labor continue to factor heavily into electoral wrangling. But in the first presidential election to include a search for a Democratic Party nominee since 2008, a relatively new voter bloc has come to prominence: Millennials.

As Americans born between roughly the mid 1980s and the early 2000s, not all of us are old enough to vote. But those of us who are have become the focus of a growing conversation that calls attention to three decades of wealth stratification, shrinking social entitlements, and the devastating effects of neoliberal austerity measures.

In this way, Millennials have become a stand-in for something bigger. Conversations about the specific problems experienced by Millennials — debt, underemployment, economic insecurity — are really about the bigger issue of how resources are allocated in capitalism today.