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

By Dennis Romero Fri., Feb. 10 2012 at 8:07 AM

Basil Gloo

Kids these days. We love to razz them for their iPhone-toting, Beats By Dre-overpriced-headphones-wearing, snarkier-and-smarter-than-you ways.

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]

Tags:

economy, Great Recession, jobs, Pew, unemployment, unemployment rate, young adult

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Bill1745

"Nearly one out of two people (46 percent) aged 18 to 24 is without a job. Really." How much of that is full time students?

Sarah Giles

Hi Dennis!My son and I read the Weekly together and we both really like your writing. My son is gifted (so his teachers say >especially in literature and english) & he is keen to start contributing/writing blogs to develop his skills in this regard. He is v sensitive & it seems to be quite hot in the kitchen with all the critics who say such horrible things about you and I would hate that people would say such things to him to if he can't write. What do you think?affectionatelySarah . Ben

Sarah Giles

PS Do they pay you or is it like an apprenticeship?

Fred Quintana

That 8.3% unemployment rate is known as U3. In my opinion, U3 is a less accurate figure than U6 which is about 15%. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment. I've heard economic experts claim the real rate is over 20% when you factor in people who have run out of unemployment benefits and are no longer being counted by the government. Also included in this +20% are people who have quit looking for work all together. Scary times. I'm fortunate to be financially stable work during this recession/depression. Two of my friends lost their jobs in 2011 and have not found work.

Christopher Neal

This sounds much more in line with reality; when Obama's minions insisted that in January, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent I had a hard time believing it.

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