Life Sucks if You're a Young Adult: Nearly Half Are Unemployed

Basil Gloo

They all just want to be your boss someday. No, make that yesterday. But they really do have it hard in this economy. It's not just a cliche, or hipsters crying wolf.

New research parsed by the Pew Research Center is jaw-dropping:

-Nearly one out of two people (46 percent) aged 18 to 24 is without a job. Really.

-The difference in the unemployment rate between that age group and elders (15 percent) is the largest since the U.S. started tracking these numbers, in 1948.

-Young adults have seen a bigger drop (6 percent) in weekly earnings than any other age group.

The rest of America seems to agree that things aren't so rosy for the young'n's. Pew:

More than eight-in-ten (82%) say finding a job is harder for young adults today than it was for their parents' generation. And at least seven-in-ten say it's harder now to save for the future (75%), pay for college (71%) or buy a home (69%).

How do kids cope? About one in three have gone back to school, nearly half have taken crappy jobs they don't want, about one in four have done unpaid work just for the experience, and another one in four have moved back in with their parents, according to Pew.

Interestingly, young adults are some of the most optimistic of any age group: 88 percent say they expect to make "enough" money to live right in the future.

Things can only get better.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]