YOUNG AMERICANS
WITHOUT FUTURE.
They are called the "Millennial Generation"
AMERICA’S 10 MILLION UNEMPLOYED
YOUTH SPELL DANGER FOR FUTURE ECONOMIC GROWTH
Young Americans are unemployed at about twice the rate of
older workers
As we have written before, America’s youth-unemployment
crisis will have serious, enduring costs for individuals, society, businesses,
and all levels of government. At 16.2 percent, the unemployment rate among
Americans ages 16 to 24 is more than twice the unemployment rate for people of
all ages. These young people are facing significantly higher rates of
unemployment than any other age group, as Figure 1 below shows.
Some of the negative impacts of high youth unemployment are
already clear: Young people are increasingly failing to make payments on their
student loans, delaying saving for retirement, and moving back home with their
parents. Other consequences will be felt long into the future. According to our
analysis, a young person who experiences a six-month period of unemployment can
expect to miss out on at least $45,000 in wages—about $23,000 for the period of
unemployment and an additional $22,000 in lagging wages over the next decade
due to their time spent unemployed.
Businesses will consequently suffer from reduced consumer
demand, and taxpayers will feel the impact in the form of lost revenues,
greater demand for more government-provided services such as health care,
increased crime, and more welfare payments.
2.5 MILLION TEENS ARE OUT OF WORK
OR UNDEREMPLOYED
There are 2.5 million Americans ages 16 to 19 who are out of
work or underemployed. This group includes teens who are employed part time
when they would rather be working full time, teens who are enrolled in school
while actively seeking employment, and teens who are neither working nor
enrolled in school. (see Figure 2)
Of these 2.5 million teenagers,
nearly 300,000 are employed part time but are seeking full-time work. This
means that they want a full-time job, but are not working full time because
their employer cut back their hours or they could only find part-time work.
This group is not included in the official unemployment rate, but because they
are not working to the full extent that they desire, it is also an indicator of
just how difficult the labor market is for teens today.
Another 728,000 teenagers are
enrolled in school but are unemployed and actively seeking employment.
Members of this group could include a 16-year-old high school student looking
for an afterschool job at the mall, or a 19-year-old single mother who needs a
full-time job during the day while attending community college at night.
Unemployment is clearly a problem for the latter because she would need to
provide for her family while also bolstering her education credentials, but it
is also a problem for the former because afterschool jobs can play an important
role in teens’ development. More than just providing teens with spending money,
afterschool jobs can also help teens develop soft skills such as interacting
with co-workers and time management, along with helping them explore career
options.
COLLEGE GRADUATES ARE
UNDEREMPLOYED AND IN DEBT
A college degree has long been viewed as the ticket to a
good job and social mobility, but many recent college graduates are finding
that their investments in education are not paying off. It is true that young
people with a bachelor’s degree are more likely to find a job than their
less-educated peers, but recent graduates today suffer from high unemployment
rates, declining wages, lower-quality jobs, and few opportunities for
advancement. At the same time, student debt in America has ballooned to more
than $1 trillion, and one in four student-loan borrowers is delinquent on their
loans.
In addition, unemployment rates among college graduates
under the age of 30 are high relative to older college graduates. The
unemployment rate for the youngest college graduates is 7.4 percent—twice the
unemployment rate for college graduates in their 30s and early 40s, who
experience an unemployment rate of 3.4 percent.
Moreover, the quality of the jobs available to recent
college graduates today is much lower than in the past. In a new analysis, the
Economic Policy Institute found that real wages for young college graduates
have declined by 8.5 percent since 2000, and the share of young college
graduates receiving employer-provided health insurance or pensions has also
dropped in recent years.
CONCLUSION
Four years after the official end of the Great Recession, the pace of job creation remains too slow, and too many
Americans are out of work. The slow economic recovery has hit America’s
youngest workers especially hard, and while the unemployment rate has fallen
from its peak, more than 10 million young people under the age of 25 are not
fully employed.
Due to the severity and long-term economic costs of youth-unemployment
—$20 billion in lost wages alone—of high youth unemployment, the United States
can ill afford to let an entire generation of young people lose out on the
earnings, wealth building, experience, and skills development that come from
working.
-----
By Sarah Ayre, Policy Analyst in the Economic Policy
department at the Center for American Progress.
-------
RELATED ARTICLES
The Last Nail In The Millennials' Coffin: A
Negative 2% Savings Rate Adults under age 35—the so-called millennial
generation
----
----
----
----
----
----
----
======
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario