The Really Lost Generation

If the raccoon coat-wearing youth of the 1920s really were the lost generation, what would you call millennials? Generation Opportunity, “a national, non-partisan youth advocacy organization,” crunched the employment and unemployment data for March in its Millennial Jobs Report for March 2015” and found that:

• “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 13.9 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 1.842 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 20.2 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 16 percent (NSA).

• “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29-year-old Hispanics is 14.3 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 9.4 percent (NSA).

• “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29-year-old women is 11.8 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 8.1 percent (NSA).”

Editor’s Note: NSA = national statistical average

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