Youth unemployment remains one of the most prevalent problems of the industrial world today. In countries across the globe, the youth jobless rate is in double-digits and the reasons vary based on who you’re speaking with: one person will cite the lack of job skills, another person will point to the minimum wage has hurting young adults.
Whatever the case, the United States appears to be one of the worst places for millennials – those who are born between 1981 and 2000 – because 40 percent of all unemployed workers are millennials, according to analysis of U.S. Census data by Georgetown University.
This means that 4.6 million millennials are unemployed, nearly half of that is long-term joblessness. In fact, millennial unemployment is higher than Generation X (37 percent; 4.2 million) and Baby Boomers (23 percent; 2.5 million).
Despite the official unemployment rate dipping to 6.1 percent – the real jobless rate is likely to be in the low-20s – youth unemployment continues to be the underlying problem that isn’t being addressed or talked about in the general public.
“I was surprised by how high that number is for millennials,” Andrew Hanson, research analyst at Georgetown University, who conducted the analysis, told the Wall Street Journal. “Unemployment is becoming a youth problem.”
Millennials unable to find work also leads to them not being able to lead a “grown-up lifestyle.” What this means is that they can’t accumulate assets, they are unable to save for retirement, they suffer from tremendous levels of debt and they are even putting off starting a family (whether getting married and/or having children).
As we reported last month, millennial college graduates are still relying on their parents to pay for their daily expenses.
“These people started college during the boom period, then the market fell apart and they came out of college into a very different environment,” said Ted Beck, president of the National Endowment for Financial Education, in an interview with CNNMoney. “There’s been a deferral of those things we would traditionally think people would start to do at this age. People are not willing to make those commitments until they’re on more solid ground.”
Yet, for some reason or another, studies have found that millennials are more in favor of big government than previous generations.
Leave a Comment