MONEY AND CAREER
Which of the two New Yorks do you live in? While NYC twentysomethings outearn their national peers $28,267 to $21,971 per year on average, our city also suffers from one of the highest income disparities in the nation in this age group. Many earn nothing at all; New York's percentage of under-thirties in the workforce is below the national average. (The city's high number of students accounts for some of this, but not all.) Finally, don't believe all those I-banker horror stories of 120-hour weeks: According to Queens College sociology professor Andrew A. Beveridge, Ph.D., New York City's college graduates in their twenties work, on average, 40 hours per week.

LIVING AND COMMUTING
Next time you're bitching about your shoebox studio, consider this: About one quarter of New Yorkers in their twenties live with their parents, while about one third have to put up with roommates. And though our average commute is a seemingly reasonable 38 minutes, this is a high-enough figure to be the longest in the nation. (We lead all cities in percentage of commuters traveling 90 minutes or more, at 5.6 percent.) Census data shows that more than half of us take the subway, where we understandably feel squeezed. New York obliterates all other cities in population density. Our 26,403 people per square mile dwarfs the U.S. average of 80. In Manhattan, that figure spikes to 66,940.

SEX AND DATING
Forget that myth about disproportionate numbers of single women prowling the city (this disparity asserts itself only in older age groups). According to Susan Weber, SAS programmer in the social-research office at Queens College, the male-to-female ratio splits about 50/50 between the ages of 20 and 29, with women in the slight lead. However, the ratio of eligible women actually shrinks when you take into account that more women are married by the time they hit 30 (to older men, of course). This leaves single men in their twenties outnumbering same-age women. New Yorkers' seeming allergy to tying the knot is, on the other hand, absolutely real. Overall, about one fifth of city dwellers in their twenties are married, which significantly lags behind the national average of one third of youths who are hitched by 30. New York’s Health Department also reports that more than one fifth of NYC adults are engaging in risky sexual behavior, with the majority not consistently using condoms. With role models like the Luv Guv, can you really blame us?

HEALTH
Albeit healthier than the average American (hurray for rising life expectancies!), many New Yorkers continue to go without health insurance, including more than one quarter of adults under 30. Perhaps some of us are hoping that a trim figure will render this moot. Among white Manhattan residents, the average body mass index (a number that indicates whether one's weight falls within a healthy range) is 23, compared with a national average BMI of almost 27.

POLITICS
New York's young voters are neither indifferent nor particularly engaged, falling almost exactly at the national average in election turnout for citizens under 30: 21 percent in the 2002 midterms and 49 percent in 2004. In this year's presidential primaries, while Hillary Clinton won the state, 56 percent of New York's Democrats aged 18 to 29 picked Obama. And though Giuliani was no doubt being histrionic in calling NYC “the most liberal city” in 2007, 66 percent of us are registered Dems. Perhaps what makes us liberal are the issues we care about. According to The New York State Health Care Survey, New Yorkers are significantly more supportive than most of an activist state government for the purpose of reducing health-care iniquities. Immigration issues are also important to many, as 36 percent of our population is foreign-born.

See also:
Substitute parental advice | Poll: how old is too old? | Life of a late bloomer