The official national unemployment rate fell from 7.7 percent to 7.6 percent last month, but researchers say that's because so many Americans have given up looking for work. True, unemployment is closer to 12 percent, and youth especially Blacks and Hispanics are bearing the brunt.
Unemployment declined last month, but not for the right reasons; this is not a good number, Terence Grado, director of national and state policy at Generation Opportunity, a national, nonpartisan organization advocating for millennials, tells Sunshine State News. We have the lowest labor force participation since May 1979, the fewest amount of people actually working.
The U.S. Department of Labor released its latest job numbers Friday, reporting that employers added just 88,000 jobs in March. Those gains were half the pace of previous months; John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo, told CNN that might be because companies increased hiring hoping for a stronger economic rebound in early 2013, which hasn't happened.
The retail sector lost 24,000 jobs, and the U.S. Postal Service lost 12,000; state and local government jobs grew by about 9,000.
The worst hit are the youth, those between 18 and 29 years of age. Although their official unemployment rate is 11.7 percent, that's not counting the 1.7 million who are employable but have dropped out of the labor force. When they are factored in, youth unemployment is 16.2 percent.
And among the youth, the lion's share of unemployment is being shouldered by blacks (24.2 percent effective unemployment) and Hispanics (17.5 percent). Young women fair slightly better than the youth average, with an effective unemployment rate of 14.7 percent.
There may be some young people who are not taking jobs [because] they're in school, or may be expecting a child, for example, Grado concedes. But we've always had that. The fact remains that 1.7 million is, historically, an abnormally high number.
Asked to what he attributed the relatively high youth unemployment, Grado places the blame squarely on government interference in the marketplace.
Consistently, small-businessowners and job creators say that the environment now is not conducive for them to grow, expand, and invest in their businesses, he explains. Taxes are hurting their ability to hire, and the president's health care law it seems like each month there's a new regulation kicking in that makes it difficult for [employers] to navigate, for them to understand how it's going to impact their bottom line.
Grado points to surveys conducted by his organization showing that, despite their consistent tendency to vote in favor of Democratic political candidates, 69 percent of millennials agree with the statement if taxes on business profits were reduced, companies would be more likely to hire, and 65 percent agree that the economy grows best when individuals are allowed to create businesses without government interference.
Florida youth are even more emphatic: 74 percent would decrease federal spending if given the opportunity to set Americas fiscal priorities, and 70 percent prefer reducing federal spending over raising taxes on individuals to balance the budget.
March was another lost month for my generation. Young people are finding fewer opportunities and are being saddled with the costs of our country's unsustainable deficits, Evan Feinberg, president of Generation Opportunity, said in a statement announcing the latest job numbers. After years of deficit spending and government meddling in the economy, one in six of us doesnt have a job. Half of us are doing no better than a part-time job. All the while, we are all stuck with a bill that keeps getting bigger. Its like were the last one to leave the bar and everybody else ran out without paying their tab.
Reach Eric Giunta at egiunta@sunshinestatenews.com or at (954) 235-9116.
