The Epidemic of the Unemployed Younger Working Class

With a debt ridden Euro and the weekly jobless claims making the front page week in and week out, a long term epidemic is forming in our country.  It’s the epidemic of the unemployed younger working class that is a major threat to the financial longevity of our nation.  Our future leaders are bitter, and with rightful cause.   Without addressing the needs of our younger generation, the long term odds of surviving this financial crisis are greatly decreased. 

Our younger generation has to put their lives on hold as baby boomers are holding on to their jobs longer, due to insufficient assets for retirement.  Over the last decade alone, the average retirement age has been bumped back by at least 10 years because of the financial crisis; which has been at best a breakeven point for many portfolios.  As baby boomers are holding on to their jobs longer than ever before; many recent college graduates are being forced to take a job paying substantially less than their college degrees have historically paid, if they can find a job at all.  This is forcing the younger generation to stay at home longer, which in turn puts a burden on the retirement timeline for their parents.  Are you seeing the trend?  The main point here is that we now have an economy where there are no jobs being created and would-be jobs are not being relinquished by the baby boomers, causing a vicious cycle between the two groups.  

Employers are not hiring our most recent generation entering the workforce, and the backlash can be seen in the latest negative statistics.  According to a survey of the Pew Research Center, the US birth rate fell by more than 11% during the last four years for adults 18 to 34 years of age.  Since 2007, the marriage rate for the same demographic fell by 6.8%.  Once again, young Americans are putting their lives on hold because many baby boomers did not have a contingency plan in place for a down market.   The amount of 70 to 74 year olds working full time increased by almost 33% since May of 2008.  Those numbers are likely to climb even higher over the next several years given current market conditions and future uncertainty, especially considering the lingering concerns in Europe.  Without a contingency plan, we are looking at a whole new set of problems over the next decade.

These declines are directly linked to a lack of employment, resulting in many young Americans to feel detached from the American dream.  Prior to the financial crisis, the younger generation has always been optimistic about starting a career; today this is not the case.   The traditional optimistic drive is being replaced by a pessimistic view of the real world.   Unfortunately, this has resulted in some additional negative trends with our younger generation.  During the 2008 Presidential election, over 64% of registered voters between the ages of 18 to 24 went to the polls.  According to Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, only 47% of the same demographic is planning to vote in the upcoming election, a 17% decline.  They learned a real world lesson; just because something is promised in an election it doesn’t mean it will be delivered, and the numbers prove it.  Harvard economist Lawrence Katz states that almost one in five adult males from the age of 20 to 24 were either not working or not going to school because of the crisis.  As of May of this year, there was a 41% decrease of young Americans aged 20 to 24 working in comparison to four years ago.  Furthermore, Americans today under the age of 35 accounts for 65% of the Nation’s unemployed. 

The only way to get the younger generation into the workforce is to get the baby boomers into a position where they can retire and make their jobs available.  One legitimate approach is to focus on a guaranteed income stream for life.  Many investors are starting to realize that proper income planning can provide a safe haven against an uncertain and volatile market.  Having a guaranteed check in the latter years of retirement is a comfort in times of financial uncertainty.  Over the last few years, the fear of dying has been replaced for the first time ever by the fear of outliving your money.  Only when retirees feel that their lifetime income obligations are met will they openly embrace retirement.   The longer it takes for baby boomers to retire, the longer delay the younger generation will experience entering the workforce.  This needs to be corrected if we want to have any chance of ending this destructive cycle.