One of my favorite songs is “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?” by Jimmy Ruffin. I started thinking about the song after reading about how the effects of long-term unemployment are crippling my generation. Albeit the song is talking about love rather than joblessness, I think the lyrics can serve as the somber anthem for this generation, nonetheless.
“As I walk this land of broken dreams. I have visions of many things. Love’s happiness is just an illusion. Filled with sadness and confusion.”
All you have to do is replace the word “love” with “employment,” and you have accurately described the current predicament of many young Americans.
According to The New York Times, the United States economy showed signs of revival, “adding 216,000 jobs” in March, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.8 percent. But, last year around this time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report showing the unemployment numbers of the young (16-24 years old) were twice than the national rate.
Being I was born in 1992, that is my generation we’re talking about. I’m a part of Generation Z, anthropologists call us the Dreamer Generation. And now due to the long-term effects of unemployment, those same scholars are dubbing us “The Second Lost Generation.”
We’re lost, because the economy is still hemorrhaging resources. The economy needs to add hundreds of thousands of jobs a month simply to keep up with new workers entering the workforce, and the jobs lost in the recent downturn still have not been made up. Simply put, the arithmetic is against us, especially being young and mostly inexperienced.
Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, quoted in The Times article said “if the economy adds 200,000 jobs a month, it will be 2019 before it reaches the employment rate that preceded this recession.”
And according to economists like Paul Krugman, the conventional wisdom no longer applies. In a recent column “Degrees and Dollars,” Krugman said “It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success…. But what everyone knows is wrong.”
The article showed the “hollowing out” of the American economy. While the belief was more education is needed for the technical positions coming to the country, those very positions are actually being taken over by computers.
So it isn’t enough we’re busy earning degrees for the very work that will be taken over by machines, the opportunity cost of going to college versus entering the workforce straight out of high school is seeing its margin shrink.
According to Forbes magazine, the average graduate leaves school not only with a degree, but $22,700 in debt. And to compound the increasing costs of college—which has tripled compared to other consumer products—the austerity measures taken by our government have reduced to amount awarded in government scholarships and grants.
“Governor Snyder’s proposal for fiscal year 2012 would reduce EMU’s base funding by $14.7 million—19.3 percent—to $61.3 million,” according to a report by The Eastern Echo. And should you find yourself to be a college student who is also unemployed, the latest actions taken by Gov. Rick Snyder will not excite you.
In another article by The Times, it’s reported the governor “signed a law Monday that will lead the state to pay fewer weeks of unemployment benefits next year than any other state.”
The state of Michigan will stop paying aid to the jobless after only 20 weeks instead of 26 weeks.
“It turns the clock back 50 years at a time when unemployment is at historic highs since the Depression,” Congressman Sander M. Levin said.
It’s a bleak future for my generation, apparently, and as much as I wish I could provide some answers, I can’t. At best, we can hope for a change in the direction of policy. With all the talk of Social Security for Baby Boomers, who have already learned and lived, there doesn’t seem to be much discussion about the now.
What’s needed are investments in education and fixes to fiscal policy so the young are no longer considered last.
