Why are so many young people without a job and homeless?

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  1. Cassie Smith profile image61
    Cassie Smithposted 11 years ago

    Why are so many young people without a job and homeless?

    According to a New York Times articles there are more young people out of a job and homeless.  But didn't Obama say that the recession is over?  Didn't Michelle say while campaigning that we were poised for growth?  Isn't the unemployment rate lower?  What's going on?

  2. profile image0
    JThomp42posted 11 years ago

    I Myself still think employers are still leery of hiring full time employees at this time. And the only jobs that are available are minimum wage jobs in which it is impossible to live on especially in a big city such as New York. We may be on our way out, but not quite yet.

    1. Cassie Smith profile image61
      Cassie Smithposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Oh yeah, you think we're on our way out?  We'll see.  I'm waiting for the Obama taxes to kick in.

    2. profile image0
      JThomp42posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      They have to come to an agreement first. They only have 12 days left.

  3. LandmarkWealth profile image67
    LandmarkWealthposted 11 years ago

    The employment rate is not lower.  The unempoyment rate is greatly misleading.  If you want to understand how screwed up the data is read here.

    http://landmarkwealth.hubpages.com/hub/ … ment-Rates

    One of  the better measures of unemployment is what is called U6 which is about 14.5% currently.  And that does not tell the whole story as it excludes many people like those who opted to retire early or go on disability.  The best measure of employment is the labor force participation rate.  The actual number of people who are working.  That rate is at it's lowest point since about 1981.  The growth in jobs is barely enough to keep up with population growth at the moment.

    Young people are at a disadvantage in some ways becuase they lack experience.  In some fields they'll be hired first because they'll work for less.  But in highly skilled areas they lack the experience.  A big part of the unemployment problem is still structural.  We have 100's of thousands of job openings that many americans are simply unqualified to fill.  Many companies are bringing in people to the States from abroad to fill roles in areas like engineering and software design.  We have too many kids graduating school with worthless degrees, and not enough in mathmatics and engineering.   

    The other issue is that top line revenue growth just isn't there.  Companies have deleveraged and trimmed their staffs to increase margins.  Right now the emphasis in many industries is focused on dealing with the growing regulatory burden, which is counterproductive to investing capital in more productive ways.  Which is also bad for job growth in the long run.

    As far as a recession being over, that is an economics terms at the end of the day.  Technically, the economy could grow at and anemic pace of 1-1.5% for ten years and we would not be in an official recession.  However, it would be a prolonged period in which it would feel like a recession for many people, if not the majority.

    Regardless of age, there will be growth in the engergy sector in the next decade plus.  There are too many resources being uncovered on private lands all over the country with new technology that allows us to look for it topographically.

  4. dashingscorpio profile image81
    dashingscorpioposted 11 years ago

    There is a wide variety of reasons why a young person may be out of work or homeless. (lack of education/skills for a career "in demand", break down of family relations, drugs/alcohol issues, lack of ambition, unwilling to consider other options/opportunities that may be in anoher town/state or not related to their major.)
    Every recovery resembles swiss cheese. For example during the Dot.com boom if you did not have a job in software or computers you probably did not make a lot more money than normal. The same could be said for the real estate boom with regard to Loan officers and sales agents.
    The smartest people tend to (adapt) to changing times by keeping an ear to the ground and a eye out to spot the next big wave in the economy. The horse trader never imagined how the automobile would change his life, the post office didn't envision how email and faxes would impact their business, the beeper and pay phone business took a hit when cell phones became the norm. I can't tell you the last time I used the (yellow pages) to look up a business. GPS and Mapquest has probably hurt Atlas Road Map business. I can't imagine how tough it must be to sell advertising for a phone directory these days.
    We have never had 100% employment even in the best of times. There has always been homeless people and always will be. Some homless people have mental problems and would rather be on the streets than placed into an institution.
    If unemployment is 8% that means 92% of people that want to work are working. The interesting question then becomes "What am I doing or not doing that's keeping me from joining the 92%?"

    1. gmwilliams profile image85
      gmwilliamsposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!!!

  5. lburmaster profile image73
    lburmasterposted 11 years ago

    Because a lot of parents don't save for their children to go to college, or some young people don't care about an education. Either they do not think it is valuable or they are not able to hold a job or not able to pay for college.

  6. Express10 profile image85
    Express10posted 11 years ago

    They're likely finding that there are simply dozens and dozens of people that they're competing with for a single job whereas in better times it would be just a few to a dozen at the most simply because there were many more job openings. All they said was that we were poised for growth, not that we are growing at a breakneck speed.

    The overall homeless population has grown and there are many people who have graduated college or high school and find themselves unable to find even a fast food or retail job, let alone something that pays what the employee truly feels is a comfortable living wage. What should also be noted, is the fact that there are homeless people of all ages who work in these types of jobs and other legitimate positions.

    The unemployment rate can be very misleading as Landmarkwealth noted. Many have given up looking for work and are simply not counted as participants. This is very misleading. Some have taken early retirement or while others have obtained disability payments.

 
working

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