A couple of weeks ago, I wrote in these pages about the way senior citizens are being squeezed by rising costs for food and gasoline on the one hand, and reduced income from abysmally low interest rates on the other.
That "senior squeeze" is real enough, but seniors aren't the only ones being squeezed. At the other end of the demographic spectrum, young workers are having a dreadful time of it, too. Call that the "junior squeeze."
Young people younger than 30 are "desperate for jobs," as their cohort faces the worst unemployment prospects in decades. According to The Atlantic, last months' jobs report was an awful jobs report for young people because it demonstrated that new jobs just aren't being created at a sufficient rate to absorb all the young people entering the jobs market from high school and college. Wrote The Atlantic's Jordan Weissmann, "In short, there are a lot more young adults still sitting at their computers scrounging around jobs boards for work than there should be at this point in the year."
There are. And it gets worse. Because of the senior squeeze mentioned earlier, older "gray-collar" workers are staying in, or re-entering, the jobs market to make up for the income they're losing due to lower interest rates, and to offset higher costs of living. These older workers, because of their already established track records, might be out-competing younger workers even in such entry-level areas as food-service jobs.
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And a big part of Obamas election was from young people.
ReplyDeleteI can absulutely relate to that article. My husband and I fall in the middle category and are being stretched while we help our daughter and her family. She lost her job due to downsizing 2 weeks before giving birth, now 10 months later all she has been able to get is a job at a gas station and another stocking shelves. Everywhere employers are hiring the more experienced and with the economy the way it is and people so desperate for work employers are able to hire the more experienced for next to nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt's a vicious circle and one that needs to be broken.
Something has got to give soon. Even being considered "middle class" is a joke. My husband is on a fixed income & daughter is also. Trying to help her & keep our expenses down at the same time is a juggling act. A ball is going to fall eventually.
ReplyDeleteLol he wasn't saying he doesn't care he was saying that its what Obama has allowed this country to become....dependent.
ReplyDeleteUnemployment among the young is over 16%. That's why Obama supports forcing their heathcare under their parents insurance until age 26 so they can live at home longer and not worry about a job. At 26 I had already been working for 12 years!
ReplyDeleteYou have to consider soooo soooo many jobs from here in the States have been outsourced to foreign countries-----The rich get rich---the poor----poorer!
ReplyDeleteThis countries economic situation was caused by the elderly/baby boomers. 3 things: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
ReplyDeleteYou made this bed, now you have to lay in it.