Young Greeks Find 'The Math Just Doesn't Work' Amid Crisis. Hide caption"In Europe, we're trying to save banks by sacrificing an entire generation — my generation," says Marios Kyriakou, 24. Joanna Kakissis/NPR "In Europe, we're trying to save banks by sacrificing an entire generation — my generation," says Marios Kyriakou, 24. The latest statistics show Greece and Spain with the highest unemployment rates in the eurozone, both at more than 26 percent. For young Greeks, the numbers are much worse: Nearly 60 percent of people under 25 are out of work, a figure that is expected to rise.
These aren't just numbers for 24-year-old Marios Kyriakou, who was recently sipping a sweet espresso freddo at an arty cafe in his neighborhood. "If you give every day 3 euros [for an espresso freddo], then at the end of the month, you will see that the cafe is something very expensive," Kyriakou says. He worries about money. "My family, until now, gives me money to have my food, to [get out] with my friends, with my girlfriend," he says.
US states cut higher education spending by nearly a third. By Zac Corrigan 1 April 2013 Since the recession began, state governments have cut funding to public higher education by 28 percent. This is the finding of a recent study published by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). What emerges is a devastating picture of the situation facing youth seeking an education, as over three quarters of undergraduate students in the US attend public colleges and universities. Titled “Recent Deep State Higher Education Cuts May Harm Students and the Economy for Years to Come,” the CBPP report describes the deep cuts in state spending and student aid and the resulting increases in tuition, cuts in jobs and infrastructure, and curtailment of services at the affected colleges and universities. Nationwide, states are spending $2,353 or 28 percent less per student on higher education in fiscal year 2013 when compared to 2008, just before the recession triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The author also recommends: The Horrible Youth Labor Market. One of my pet peeves about the coverage surrounding the plight of young people in America is that it focuses heavily, and at times exclusively, on how well recent college graduates are doing. Why people focus on this is a mystery to me. I suspect it is because the chattering classes are almost all college graduates, as are their friends.
To them, being a recent college graduate is simply what it means to be a young person in the labor market. The focus on college graduates is pernicious for a couple of reasons. First, most young people are not college graduates. So on a purely descriptive level, focusing on graduates fails to capture what the reality of being a young person looking for work actually looks like.
To my delight, Catherine Ruetschlin and Tamara Draut released a new Demos report yesterday about the job crisis afflicting young Americans, with a specific emphasis on the majority of youth who have no college degree. Advertisement. America is raising a generation of interns. David Paul: Inequality Is Not a Problem That Taxes Can Fix.
There is a debate raging of sorts in the economics community. Are we in a recession? On one side -- claiming that economic data does not suggest that we are in a recession -- is a large swath of the economics community. On the other side, feeling the slings and arrows of his colleagues derision, is Economic Cycle Research Institute founder Lakshman Achuthan. Achuthan suggests that the U.S. job growth is in decline, a stance that may be contradicted by official data but reflects the real world experience of many Americans. Debates within the dismal science are usually quiet affairs, but this one has gone public, complete with a YouTube Hitler parody of Achuthan.
The problem of measurement is most dramatically apparent in Europe, where the return to recession was generally recognized three months ago. If one looks at the performance of the U.S. economy over the past forty years, the record is not good for the average worker. This decline can be attributed to several factors. MILLENNIALS JUST AREN’T THAT INTO BUYING HOMES. BUT WHY? | OUR TIME. Millennials seem to prefer renting than buying homes. In 1980, 52% of people aged 25-34 owned homes but by 2010 the figure had dropped to 42%.College-educated Millennials earned a salary of $27,000 in their first jobs, compared to the $30,000 figure from 2007.Millennials are generally looking to live closer to the city, minimize their transportation costs, and find good jobs before making the move to home-ownership.
The recovery of the housing market is vital to re-invigorating our economy. We need to help the market adjust to meet the needs of our generation, or we could end up seeing more and more of America’s youth “living in the basement.” Why You Should Be Hiring Millennials [Infographic] Gimme, Gimme, Gimme -- Millennials in the Workplace. Why Millennial Workers Aren't As Useless As You Thought. How those spoiled millennials will make the workplace better for everyone. Now this pampered, over-praised, relentlessly self-confident generation (at age 30, I consider myself a sort of older sister to them) is flooding the workplace.
They’ll make up 75 percent of the American workforce by 2025 — and they’re trying to change everything. These are the kids, after all, who text their dads from meetings. They think “business casual” includes skinny jeans. And they expect the company president to listen to their “brilliant idea.” When will they adapt? They won’t. Few developed countries demand as much from their workers as the United States. All this hard work is done for less and less reward. Into this sorry situation strolls the self-esteem generation, printer-fresh diplomas in hand. The current corporate culture simply doesn’t make sense to much of middle-class Gen Y. And what the college-educated Gen Y-ers entering the workforce want is engaging, meaningful, flexible work that doesn’t take over their lives. These desires are not exactly radical. Peter S. Goodman: Structural Unemployment Talk Is Nonsense.
Remember that unemployment problem we used to have? The one that politicians, pundits and policymakers used to talk about on a regular basis, debating how we might fix it? Well, forget about all that, because the problem is structural, meaning nothing can be done. So sayeth a loud slice of the econo-pundit class. Rather than traditional cyclical unemployment, which reflects a weakness in demand for goods and services and can be goosed with additional government spending, structural unemployment is impervious to traditional economic solutions. It results from a mismatch between available workers and needed jobs. But skip the academic definitions. Structural unemployment is functionally a euphemism that allows its adherents to claim the imprimatur of professorial authority while condemning millions of people to long-term joblessness -- all this, without having to feel mean or heartless.
We do have structural problems, to be sure. That's all long-term stuff. This may not be a sexy story. College Graduates Flock to Unpaid Internships. Not leaving community for jobs. Millenials Shun Suburbs. Why Millennials Don't Want To Buy Stuff. Compared to previous generations, Millennials seem to have some very different habits that have taken both established companies and small businesses by surprise. One of these is that Generation Y doesn’t seem to enjoy purchasing things. The Atlantic‘s article “Why Don’t Young Americans Buy Cars?” Mused recently about Millennials’ tendency to not care about owning a vehicle. The subtitle: “Is this a generational shift, or just a lousy economy at work?” What if it’s not an “age thing” at all? What’s really causing this strange new behavior (or rather, lack of behavior)? So is technology the culprit, then? And there’s the culprit. Humanity is experiencing an evolution in consciousness. This new attitude toward ownership is occurring everywhere, and once we recognize this change, we can leverage it.
A New Form of Competitive Advantage Even in this strange new world, the economic laws of scarcity apply, and they are precisely what’s shifting. 1. 2. 3. Millennials: Young, Broke, and Spending on Luxury. Shaun Spellman, a 27-year-old owner of an Internet marketing firm, recently paid $300 for the newest Android cell phone the day it was released, even though he believes it will drop in price within a few months. But for Spellman, the benefit of having the latest technology is worth it. Though he's saving for an October wedding and a new home, "that doesn't stop me from making some purchases that I consider necessities. " He skimps in other areas, driving a 1997 Camry and eating out only when he has a daily deal coupon. RELATED: How Millennials Are Saving the Economy Spellman is part of a generation that represents the fastest-growing segment of luxury goods and services purchasers.
Though some millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, are launching promising careers, most are burdened with large student loans, and thousands are unemployed (millennials make up one of the highest unemployment rates in the country). Despite this, they are making luxury purchases a priority. Millennials struggle with financial literacy. Paralyzed. That's how Paige Worthy feels when she thinks about budgeting her money. "I freeze. I have no idea where to even start with this," the 29-year-old says. Worthy has held at least six jobs since graduating from college in 2005. She lives in Chicago, where she works as a publication director at a non-profit press association — but she plans to leave that job to do freelance content marketing starting next month. Over the past few years, she has "just scraped together," which she attributes to an unstable income and sporadic spending habits. "Part of me feels like I'm way too old to be flying by the seat of my pants like that," she says.
Worthy has plenty of company in her generation. Today's twentysomethings hold an average debt of about $45,000, which includes everything from cars to credit cards to student loans to mortgages, according to a PNC financial independence survey released last month. How bad is the problem? The problem has been a long time coming. More Cheery Millennial News: Economcally Screwed. The socioeconomic reasons for Generation Squeezed. Already, batteries of indicators depict the Great Recession’s damage. In a Pew survey last year, a quarter of 18-to-34-year-olds said they’d moved back with parents to save money.
Getting a job has been time-consuming and often futile. In July, the unemployment rate among 18-to-29-year-olds was 12.7 percent. Counting people who dropped out of the labor market raises that to 16.7 percent, says Generation Opportunity, an advocacy group for the young. Among recent high-school graduates, unemployment rates are near half for African Americans, a third for Hispanics and a quarter for whites, notes the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The weak labor market hurts even job holders. Of course, generalizations can be overdone. And then there are the costs of aging. It’s often said that today’s young will ultimately benefit from this lopsided tax-and-transfer system. As a parent, all this rattles me. But the calculus will be selective. Addressing Long-Term Unemployment for America’s Next Generation of Workers.
The labor market news this month has been impressive, with above-expected job creation numbers, a continued dip in the unemployment rate, and falling jobless claims all giving reason for optimism about the state of the economic recovery. However, the encouraging top-line figures mask persistent fragility in the labor market. Notably, long-term unemployment remains stubbornly high, particularly for young workers. Early jobs are critical for establishing future earnings and employment trajectories, thus the health of the labor market for younger workers may serve as a harbinger for the economy’s longer-term vibrancy.
Young jobseekers continue to face historically poor employment prospects, and the employment picture for these workers has not improved at the same pace as other age groups. While the conversation in Washington has focused on budget politics, policymakers who lose sight of the challenges facing young workers do so at great risk to the future health of the American economy.