Why Are Record Numbers Of Young Adults Jobless And/Or Living At Home With Mom And Dad?

Summary: In the United States today, unemployment among those age 18 to age 34 is at epidemic levels and the number of young adults that are now living at home with Mom and Dad is at an all-time high. So why are so many of our young adults jobless? Why are record numbers of them unable or unwilling to move out on their own?

There were a variety of reactions, so I added in a bit of everything.

Comments:

The recession has only given “parents” and their child adults an excuse. They were alreayd headed down that path years before.

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I’ll tell you exactly what their problem is: unlike every previous generation in this nation’s history, They. Refuse. To. Be. Poor. Not for a minute.

They won’t live in crappy apartments when their old bedroom is available.

They won’t drive a beater; why should they? They don’t pay rent. They can swing the payment for a brand-new Beemer, at least for a while.

They all have iPhones. People trying to save money for a down payment on a home should give up the iPhones and save a hundred bucks a month.

I don’t feel sorry for them. They refuse to go through the stage we all had to go through, that of post-nest poverty. They were raised to be entitled a-holes, and that’s exactly what they are.

What they’re facing is no more than every generation has faced. Did the children of the Depression buy cars they couldn’t afford? Did they give up the idea of marriage and children? No. They made do. They took any job they could get. Good luck offering a job picking fruit to someone with a journalism degree.

No “making do” for these entitled darlings. Oh, and get ready to pay back their student loans for them. That’s coming.

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This is the FACTION the Republicans must strip away from the Democrats.
All they have to do is say "We will fix this first".

The Obamistas still deny the Great Obama Recession is the Great Obama Depression for young people. In fact, the Obots think they can "buy" these young people with promises of free condoms.

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Yeah, but let’s not forget that it is these very same “young people” that VOTED FOR ALL THIS HOPE AND CHANGE. They have nobody to blame except the person in the mirror.

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The minimum wage is the fundamental cause. It prices entry-level workers out of the job market. In order to climb the ladder, you have to get on the first rung, and the minimum wage thwarts that.
The minimum wage was invented to do one thing; protect white unionized construction workers from competition from black, non-unionized construction workers, who were paid less (blacks were banned from union membership during the 1930s).

The year the minimum wage law went into effect was the last year the unemployment rate of blacks was lower than that for whites.

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My youngest daughter graduated from college in December of 2009. She took a lot of honors classes and college credit courses in high school, and then worked her tail off again to graduate within 3 1/2 years from college. She also worked as an RA for two years which really helped with our college costs and hers. She got out, put together her resume, sent out hundreds of copies. Got zero response.
After that disappointment and looking at the state of our economy, she used some of the student loan that was left over to get herself certified to teach overseas and then started that job search (also took an immersion Japanese language course). Finally, in February of 2011 she was offered a job in Japan and is now residing there and teaching English.

She was living at home, but she really was ready to be out and working and living in an apartment of her own. But, there simply were no jobs available.

She is thinking of staying overseas for another year. I believe she is hoping that Zero will be voted out of office and she can come back and get a job in the U.S. It has been a sobering experience for her, and while she was living at home waiting for some news on her job applications, she started reading Ayn Rand. So Zero ended up making her something of a libertarian.

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“Why Are Record Numbers Of Young Adults Jobless And Living At Home With Mom And Dad?”

WELL DUH....
Young people committed ECONOMIC SUICIDE by voting for Democrats in 2006, and Obama in 2008.

some lessons have to be learned the hard way, like my generation learned under Carter, to cut through the MSM bulls***t.

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Because they are getting free Bammy money to go to school.

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It’s not intelligence, we as a race - are no dumber now than what we were in the 30-60’s. What has changed? Well, there used to be 18 yr old getting married, buying a car, working a job and affording a home. Why, many owned a home, a car and were starting a family while they were in their early 20’s. Why?

Taxes and Gov’t. Used to be a time when a young person could earn enough to work, while his wife stayed home and took care of housework and raising a family. He could earn a comfortable wage, provide for his family, his retirement, live in a decent home, and live comfortably. What was his tax rate? What Gov’t assistance programs were available? It was a time of personal responsibility and honest work.

Today, how many 20-somethings do you know who own their home and are embarking on a family with a stay-at-home wife? Back then, a reasonable house was approximately equal to ~2-4x their annual salary. Today, what is the cost of a home compared to a couple’s annual salary? Now, of that annual salary - how much do they get to keep versus 40 yrs ago?

Now, look at the business environment. Never before have we had so many businesses failing, off-shoring and layoffs. I remember when IBM announced layoffs in the late 70’s. The first to go were Sr. Managment; they got the company in that shape to start with. That is exactly the opposite way things work today.

The kids aren’t dumber, it’s not lack of educational opportunties - it’s a variety of reasons, and all of them are out of the ability for the ordinary person to control.

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"I have a 25 year old and a 19 year old living at home with little to no prospects."

Why is that? Do they have educations? Are they too fussy? Are there NO jobs of any kind in your vicinity?
I just popped into Career Builder, put in my ZIP code and found well over 500 local openings.
Then I went to the NY Job Bank and found over 500 openings in my area.
In my 35+ years of working, I was laid off three times and it was a full time job getting hired again.

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...most high school graduates these days are simply not prepared to function at even a very basic level in our society....

In addition, most high school students are not prepared to function in high school because they have not been properly prepared by mommy and daddy.

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Our younger son was of the conservative/libertarian mindset like his mom and I. Then he went to Berkeley and became a liberal.

When he realized that his Anthropology degree wasn’t worth the paper it’s stamped on, he began to come around again. Still not completely back yet, but he doesn’t like Obama. He agrees with me that Hussein is a fascist dictator. So there is hope.

He’s been out of the house for two years now. We occasionally help him out financially, but we definitely aren’t carrying him.

-- My son became a hippie in SoCal and couldn't get a job with his degree in Anthro! Luckily he realizes THIS IS ALL FARTBAMA'S FAULT

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I think some of it is a consequence(intended or not) of the sexual revolution, feminism and homosexualism. In a previous era, young males were encouraged and required to become a man and being a man meant get a job and become self-supporting so you could get married and support a wife who could stay at home and raise the children. When the incentives for that were taken away and masculine men were seen as something bad that our society did not want our sons to turn into, it encouraged this idea for males to stay perpetual little boys forever with no incentive to mature. And of course without men for women to marry, it affected females as well since a major change for one sex always affects the other sex too.

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This era is defined by having no self-worth, integrity and no compuncture to take responsibility for yourself. Just take a look at who our culture idolizes(the usual Hollyweird folks) and who this age group elected to the White House. Didn’t Obama and Nancy Pelosi pass legislation that children could stay on their parents’ insurance till they were 26?

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Sorry to hear your children are without gainful jobs. However, some part of me wishes that I had a house big enough to hold all my children and grandkids. I’d especially love to counteract the grand girls’ education indoctrination on a daily basis.

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My son is 24 and took 5 months out of college to get a full time job. He is never late to the job and calls in sick only when he's really sick. He got a terrific first review appraisal. He banks almost his entire pay check, He doesn't drink , smoke or do drugs. His only vice is buying movies on DVD.

He helps around the house and is never intrusive. Why should I tell him to move out and pay another person's mortgage with his rent money when in a few years he'll be able to afford the down payment on his own place?

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I find the condescending comments on this site against young people beyond absurd and ignorant. Yes there are some lazy slackers, but many are hard working people using the time to pay down debt, get some savings, and wait out this mess.

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The job market for young people is poor.

However, I simply can’t understand why so many young people are content to live at home.

I moved out at 17 and never looked back, even when times got tough. Lived with roomates, worked odd jobs - whatever it took. But NO WAY was I moving back in with the rents.

For some reason, this generation lacks that drive.

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Just got my youngest of two out the door and set up on her own. I, however, see the inevitable looming as both are in jobs that will soon tank. They'll be back. Both are industrious and hard working. Both voted enthusiastically for Obama, and now openly express buyer's remorse at every opportunity. Be that as it may, blood is thicker than water. As Mark Twain once famously said, "Home is the one place in this world where they have to let you in when you come knocking."