Media Downplays Youth Unemployment

Recent college graduates contemplating their post-graduation job prospects might find that the media are as inaccurate a source of information as their university career services department is.

The Washington Post reported on June 5, 2015 that the “U.S. economy added 280,000 jobs in May; unemployment rate at 5.5%.” Generation Opportunity took a closer look at those numbers and found them wanting:

• “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 13.6 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 9.1 percent (NSA).*

• “The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.791 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

• “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 19.2 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 16.5 percent (NSA).

• “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics is 13.9 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 10.3 percent (NSA).

• “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old women is 11.6 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 8.6 percent (NSA).”

*NSA-national statistical average.

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