Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Mike Konczal points out today that youth unemployment in the United States is nearly as high as it is in all those Middle Eastern countries where it’s considered a “time bomb” of sorts. “Given this,” he asks, “how could we ever say youth unemployment in the United States’ Lesser Depression isn’t a ‘time-bomb’?” He then posts a chart of the employment-population ratio of 16-24 year olds that “floored” him. As well it should: it’s been on a steep downward trend ever since 1990.

But it’s not just young people, though they’ve done worse than older cohorts. Here’s the employment-population ratio for everyone over the past 30 years. The trend for men stayed pretty steady through the 80s and 90s, while women joined the labor force in increasing numbers. Then the bottom fell out. The employment ratio for both sexes fell during the 2001 recession, never recovered during the Bush era, and then plummeted again in 2008. The Great Recession has made all of this far more visible, but the problem didn’t really start in 2008. It started in 2000. The U.S labor market has been stagnant for over a decade now.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate