With the youth unemployment rate in this country higher than 20 percent, we can be thankful that angry young Americans are not marching in the streets like their peers in many countries in Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. Perhaps the biggest reason that we haven't yet seen protests here is that, for now, young citizens have faith in our democratic processes.
Our youth are under deep stress. This spring, more than 1.6 million students graduated from American colleges and universities. Many will simply join the swollen ranks of the unemployed. After taking on enormous debt to finance their studies, many are ending up competing for unpaid internships or working in low-paying jobs for which their education is irrelevant.
We're violating the tacit pact we made with them: If they were industrious, law-abiding and diligent students, their lives would be prosperous.
The U.S. isn't alone in violating this pact. According to the International Labor Organization, youth unemployment in most of the world is stuck at about around 20 percent. "Young people [are] nearly three times as likely as adults to be unemployed," says the ILO. In Spain more than 40 percent of young people are unemployed, in Italy it's 28 percent and in France the rate is more than 20 percent.
In the UK, many young people are simply giving up. There, about 40 percent of all unemployed are age 16 to 24, which means almost 1 million young adults are jobless. More than half of the 18- to 25-year-olds questioned in a recent survey said they were thinking of emigrating because of poor job prospects.
Fortunately, few American youth are looking to leave. This is despite the inability of President Barack Obama's administration to fulfill their expectations. At the time of the 2008 election, America's youth were riding high. They were excited about the future. They embraced our democratic processes and allied themselves with the candidate of hope. They wanted a political leadership that put the needs of ordinary citizens ahead of powerful elites. They wanted better prospects for landing meaningful employment. They wanted to be part of the system and not left on the outside looking in.
Since then we've watched the collapse of the global economy. During the meltdown of the financial services sector, no expense was spared to resuscitate the health of Wall Street. Most of the financial services industry was able to bounce back, with billions of dollars in bonuses being subsequently awarded to investment and banking executives. What followed was the so-called "jobless recovery," leaving millions of Americans without jobs. Suddenly, however, many politicians say the government can't afford to spend money on job creation programs. Politicians in countries such as Spain or Greece are saying the same thing to their unemployed, but their citizens are taking to the streets in anger. In America, this isn't the case. Our youth still appear to have faith in democratic processes. But how long will this last?
It's true that in practice Americans have a more direct say in choosing their elected officials than voters in most other countries. Using primaries to choose candidates allows for groundswell political movements to make an impact. Party bosses cannot simply decree who the candidates will be. On the Republican side, we saw the Tea Party win many nomination battles in 2010. For Democrats, in 2008 Hillary Clinton was overwhelmingly the favorite candidate of that party's establishment. But young Democratic party supporters, using social media, rose up to overwhelm party insiders and secure the nomination for Obama.
Jonathan Chavez, co-founder of SocialSphere, a social media consulting company, says recent research shows that "young people, while palpably frustrated with the current government, have not abandoned their faith in the efficacy of having their voice heard within the system." Sixty-two percent of young adults disagree with the statement "It doesn't really matter to me who the President is," compared to just 13% that agree. Additionally, 42 percent disagree with the statement "Politics is not relevant to my life right now," compared to just 24% that agree. Chavez says that "These numbers have slipped some since 2008, but they still point towards a general view that political engagement, when properly undertaken, can make a difference."
But we would be foolish to think this will go on indefinitely. Historically youth radicalize when disparities between expectations and reality persist. As we've seen in other countries, today social media is an unprecedented tool for finding out what is going, informing others and organizing collective action. Young people need jobs, and we shouldn't wait for mass protests before taking serious action.
Follow Don Tapscott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dtapscott
I'm going on nine months of unemployment. I graduated Cum Laude from a top university with two degrees over a year ago. I've taken advice from everyone and their mother, I've played the "connection" card, I've done everything I could possibly think of to get a job -- and then some. Currently, I volunteer... FOR FREE. Many, if not most, of my friends find themselves in the same situation and we are MISERABLE. We want independence, we want lives of our own, we want to move out of our childhood bedrooms. The reason why we're not protesting is because we're busting our *** 15 hours a day using free Starbucks wi-fi sending out resumes and pounding the pavement.
So no, I'm not happy with the status quo. I don't even own an Xbox. If I'm not sending out resumes, flying around the country going on interviews, or attending networking events it is because I am volunteering for wounded veterans and bettering my community.
Being unemployed is not at all fun. Please do not represent it as such.
Reagan tried to grow jobs by promoting production without customers, which just caused factories to have higher costs per item made, and resulted in many jobs ultimately being exported for cheaper wages, since any factor operating near full capacity will have a lower cost of manufacture.
G. W. Bush did little besides increasing federal spending and borrowing to give tax cuts to the wealthy and start new wars. Instead he should have continued to pay down debt to free national borrowing capacity to even out funding for the Social Security Trust Funds.
President Obama mostly has just worked hard to keep the national from imploding economically because so much federal spending has to go to pay for past deficit spending..
Clinton grew jobs by raising taxes which indirectly redistributed income to the workers who spend nearly all of what they earn. That lowered the National Debt and gave investors a choice between investing or lending because they no longer park their wealth in U. S. Treasury debt.
The J Visa enables foreign nationals to visit and work in the United States. Unlike most visa programs, the J visa is run entirely by the State Department. There are no numerical limits and employers are not required to look for Americans to fill the jobs.
Part of the J visa program is a summer work travel program that supplies foreign workers to restaurants, amusement parks, etc. for for the summer. In 2008, 116,387 foreign workers were granted J visas for summer work, while 4.4 million U.S. teenagers were unemployed and looking for a summer job. In 2011, 120,000 summer jobs will be filled via the J visa.
Numbersusa.com fight for jobs for Americans
From June 28, 2010...
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-230289199.html
Signing on Uncle's dotted line; The military has reached its recruiting quotas...
"More than eight years into fighting two wars, the U.S. military finds itself in an odd but enviable position: All four military branches and all six Reserve components reached their recruiting targets, both in quality and quantity, for the first time in the history of the all-volunteer force.
Eschewing the cold call and hard sell for what it calls the "soft lead," the military is employing the latest in marketing techniques to secure the newest generation of recruits, who are plucked from an increasingly select pool of applicants. In a turnaround from as little as five years ago, Armed Forces enlistment requirements have never been higher.
"There's an awful lot of good kids out there who are coming out of high school with no job prospects or are having trouble affording college or don't see college is the route for them. That's the prime recruiting market," said William Strickland, a retired Air Force colonel who commanded …"
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