Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are very few options for young people today. College has become a complete rip-off for anyone who doesn't come from a filthy rich family. 60% of recent college grads can't find full-time work in their college educated fields of study. Another huge percentage of the small subset of college educated people who do find full-time career work end up making only $10 an hour without benefits. Two out of three college grads come out of school with 20k+ in debt; usually with no job to pay it off. Every new graduating class breaks a new student loan debt record. Kids who don't have any college education are statistically worse off in terms of employability.
What are the young people of today expected to do? Not everyone can be an engineer. Only 2% of the American population is employed as engineers, yet every high school student is expected to go to college and all over the internet, stupid people are telling every wet-behind-the-ears 18 year old to major in engineering. It doesn't help that more engineers are not even American born citizens but immigrants from China and India. Not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur either. Most people in America make a living through having a J-O-B. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg are grand exceptional successes and do not represent the face of the average 18-29 year old trying to make a living.
The truth is that unemployment is epidemic in young America. Only 55% of 16-29 year olds have jobs, period. Many of these jobs are low-paying part-time jobs. Prolonged unemployment has a scarring effect on young people entering a bad job market that can last for their entire working career.
One of the root causes of all of the problems are our out-of-control government and huge all-powerful corporations who have decimated the private sector and are murdering the middle class. These mega corporations don't give a damn about the American people. American-based mega-global corporations like Apple have only tens of thousands of workers in the U.S. but has over half a million workers in China. American workers cannot compete with slave wages in third world countries. With big government and big corporations dominating American society, kids today have very, very few options to say the least. Millions upon millions of jobs have been outsourced and aren't coming back. Illegal immigrants monopolize manual labor jobs that Americans once performed not too long ago in many major metro areas. There are way too many college grads and way too few good jobs for them across the nation. The federal government is currently the largest employer in America. Yet, it has becoming incredibly difficult to get a government job in recent years. The only place still hiring is the military. Scores of unemployed disillusioned young men and women are more likely to go to jail or prison than get good jobs. Unemployed people are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs and get in trouble with the law. Those who won't take or can't get the burger flipping or Wal-Mart greeter jobs will probably become addicted to drugs and or alcohol and end up in prison. After all, problem drinking is one of the only things many kids learn when they are away at school.
Despite what any out of touch person on the internet types, the message to our youth is clear: it sure as hell doesn't pay to be American anymore and you probably have a hard future ahead of you. Is there any way young America, as a whole, can avoid this fate? I didn't post this thread to read a bunch of exceptional anecdotes of your little Johnnies and Sarahs avoiding the economic collapse because young people, as a group, are faring very badly in this economic climate. Thoughts?
Last edited by goldenchild08; 04-04-2012 at 02:36 PM..
It's pretty disheartening. I graduated in '08 and was lucky to have some good resume builders that allowed me to find a good job. I have several friends however who are underemployed or not making enough to make ends meet. Not only are recent grads not finding decent wages, but the strength of the dollar is at an all time low. All of the extra expenses that weren't needed in the past are not allowing graduates to save and pay off student loans. Those kids who don't have parents in a position to help them out are really struggling right now.
I find it troubling how the public reacted to the Occupy crowd. A majority of the group was of this demographic and their cause, to end corporate greed and government corruption, was just. I don't feel strongly that we'll get out of this mess with any of the candidates running for the presidency. It's going to take some radical change to really get this country back on track. We're either going to change, or collapse, because our current economy is not sustainable.
Work is were you make it, a college education doesn't guarantee anything. You have to make yourself marketable. Nobody owes you a damn living, and until the crybaby youths of this country figure that out, good luck living on the government handouts.
What are the young people of today expected to do? Not everyone can be an engineer. Only 2% of the American population is employed as engineers, yet every high school student is expected to go to college and all over the internet, stupid people are telling every wet-behind-the-ears 18 year old to major in engineering. It doesn't help that more engineers are not even American born citizens but immigrants from China and India. Not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur either. Most people in America make a living through having a J-O-B. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg are grand exceptional successes and do not represent the face of the average 18-29 year old trying to make a living.
This paragraph in particular resonated the most in my opinion, because this is the readymade advice for a "solution" that most people *usually over the age of 45* reflexively spew. They tell just about every young person nowadays the same thing: "Shoulda became an engineer" -- while it sounds like solid advice on the surface, it fails to account for the most obvious of trends, which is that foreign born engineers, and outsourcing has widdled the number of viable engineering jobs down to a fraction of what they're believed to be by most people who regurgitate this line.
The second interesting suggestion in your paragraph is another post ex facto article of advice that people try to pass off as some incarnate tidbit of wisdom. They'll tell young people to just "Start your own business". Now, in my opinion, it doesnt take a genius to figure out that if 70% of recent grads are going to have to start their own business, who the hell is going to actually do the work? Where is the actual labor force/employee pool supposed to come from? Immigrants? All societies NEED a group of people to take orders. We dont need a society full of leaders. Ever heard of too many chiefs and not enough indians? Its a recipe for a volatile economy.
Failure, and then success is by default an intrinsic part of entrepreneurship. Not everyone succeeds in entrepreneurship, and nearly everyone fails on the first crack at it. So the most egregious, and obvious drawback to everyone rushing out to start their own business would be the number of young business owners whose lives would absolutely implode under the weight of excess of competition in the marketplace and compounded debt. You're essentially advising people to run out and IN ADDITION TO THE STUDENT LOAN DEBT THEY'VE ALREADY ACCRUED, to now take out ANOTHER loan to startup a business. (I know, I know, a few parrots will say: "but, it doesnt take a lot of money to start your own business at all!!"...but just remember, due to our pi5s poor economy, these recent grads couldnt even get hired at mcdonalds without experience, so they certainly dont already have any capital to fund their own startup). Can you imagine the fatal toll that compounding a small business loan on top of already crushing student loan debt, with no way to pay either back after a failed business venture would take on the young population?
People talk about getting a trade, but its going to take a good 20 more years of steering an entirely new generation toward that direction before our economy can capitalize on the employment market and the buying power that the skilled trades can provide. Thats IF every skilled trade hasnt become wholly consumed by illegal immigrant workers or legal immigrant workers who are willing to undercut those who demand a livable wage; which is already a near reality.
My biggest concern is morale. It gets nasty when the masses have no hope, particularly when the young and the restless have none. I foresee a very real apathy, despondence and overall morass setting in amongst the next generation. (not the current 18-34 year olds, but the ones AFTER them). The unemployment situation is going to create a scenario whereby those coming along behind this current generation of young people, will not have had role models to aspire to become like. They will not have grown up seeing a group of people bust their hump to get a formal education or a trade, and then bust their hump to get a job, get up at the crack of dawn every morning and walk out the door and come home in the evenings exhausted, and then be rewarded for their hard work with the simple accommodations that one needs to start a family, raise a family properly, own a modest home, and eventually live a life of happiness, much less live a life of prosperity. Thats not happening in large numbers anymore, and that visual certainly isnt there for the generation to come. The higher education institutions, the "system", and corporate america can only skim by and keep this racket going for so long, before young people cease to waste investments of their time, money, and not to mention their futures into doing the "right thing" without any reward whatsoever, just because a bunch of old farts tell them to.
Last edited by soletaire; 04-04-2012 at 05:47 PM..
There are very few options for young people today. College has become a complete rip-off for anyone who doesn't come from a filthy rich family. 60% of recent college grads can't find full-time work in their college educated fields of study. Another huge percentage of the small subset of college educated people who do find full-time career work end up making only $10 an hour without benefits.
Despite what any out of touch person on the internet types, the message to our youth is clear: it sure as hell doesn't pay to be American anymore and you probably have a hard future ahead of you. ... Thoughts?
Yes. You have joined the whining losers.
It's no different today than it has been in the past 40 years. Companies all over the US are looking for skilled workers just like they did 40 years ago.
The only part of your post that I agree with is that too many kids are going to college. We need more kids who want to work and less who want to just read books.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
