More Young Americans Out of High School Are Also Out of Work
Whatever the sob stories about recent college graduates spinning their wheels as baristas or clerks, the situation for their less-educated peers is far worse, according to a report from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University scheduled to be released on Wednesday. The data comes from a national survey of high school graduates who are not enrolled in college full time, a notoriously transient population that social scientists and other experts had been having trouble tracking. (In the two months since the survey was conducted, a large share of participants have had their phone numbers disconnected and could not be reached.)
For this group, finding work that pays a living wage and offers some sense of security has been elusive.
Yet another segment of the population that is not represented in the rosy economic improvement figures that are being reported. How can they count as unemployed if they’ve never been employed before? The economic recovery is a long way off in my opinion.