I’m going to do something radical. I’m going to defend the Obama administration.
Yesterday the Associated Press released an article analyzing the youth jobless rate. As you can guess, the economic future is not bright for this generation of young Americans.
Republicans across the board were quick blame the President for recent grads’ economic woes, saying this is just another reason why young people are not supporting Obama this election cycle.
The Obama administration is responsible for the continued economic downturn, but President Obama is not responsible for the number of recent college grads who are unemployed or underemployed. In most cases, the blame should fall directly on the recent college grads themselves.
AP’s article cites a 2011 Current Population Survey from Northeastern University and the Economic Policy Institute. According to the survey, 1.5 million Americans under the age of 25 with bachelors degrees are underemployed. That’s 53.6 percent of recent college grads.
Take Michael Bledsoe, a creative writing major who did zero internships. Now he works at a coffee shop in Seattle (probably Starbucks).
“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” Bledsoe told The Associated Press.
Now let’s look at Cameron Bawden. Cameron is graduating from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in December. Cameron is majoring in business. He did a marketing internship with an airline because “his family has warned him for years about the job market.”
Bawden will likely end up with a job when he graduates. Why? Because he picked a marketable major and is entering the workforce with real life experience.
From the Associated Press:
In the article, Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market studies at Northeaster University told AP, “Simply put, we’re failing kids coming out of college.”
No, simply put, kids are failing themselves coming out of college by choosing easy majors because they don’t know what they want to do with their lives. They’re not doing internships, then blaming the economy and the government for their poor financial planning.
According to a recent Pew Research study, Young Americans are the only generation of Americans that are not likely to cite ‘work ethic’ as one of their best qualities. The study found that America’s youth are more likely to be narcissistic and self-centered than past generations and this has created an overwhelming sense of entitlement.
In other words, most young Americans are spoiled and lazy.
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of personal responsibility. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of Big Government and nanny-statism.
If future college grads want to find jobs immediately after college, they should major in fields like nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science where a plethora of job openings exist.
If they are so inclined to choose what I would call majors that are worthless to the job market because they don’t lead directly to a job and do not internships or summer jobs in their field of, expect to be flipping burgers or making coffee.
