Number of Young People Working Multiple Jobs to Make Ends Meet Way Up Since COVID
New survey from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation shows that the percentage of young people working two or more jobs to make it has increased dramatically. This underscores the difficulties created by the lockdowns. As I have blogged before, Biden Administration labor policies will only make the employment situation of young people worse.
Young people will bear brunt of post-Covid unemployment crisis, report warns
Since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, those aged 25 and under have accounted for three in five jobs lost, the Prince's Trust and the Learning and Work Institute report said. It added that youth unemployment is expected to increase further as the economy recovers. While some areas of the economy might start to recover, young workers are under-represented in these sectors, and the industries that typically employ them will be hit hardest in the long term, the report continued.
Young people have borne the brunt of the lockdowns--a measure intended to combat a disease that affected mostly the old. Yet there is no evidence of any government policies designed to aid young people. Here are a few:
- Abolish the minimum wage
- Pass right-to-work legislation and make unions more democratic through periodic recertification elections
- Stop legislation like California's AB5 and the PRO Act which harm independent contractors
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is on the wrong side of all of the above.
Inflation a major concern of young Americans today
Their concerns are justified given Federal Reserve policy and the enormous growth of government borrowing. The Federal Reserve has announced that they are keeping rates low while seeking to hit their 2 percent inflation target. That means negative real rates for a very long time in the future. That's great for government which can borrow cheap to finance current spending. But it's terrible for young people and small savers who will see what little returns they get on their savings washed away by inflation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/77-americans-are-worried-about-soaring-inflation
Although fewer than 10% believe the country is working as it should be, a majority of young Americans prefer reform over the replacement of current institutions. When asked whether they believed America’s current institutions were working as needed, only 8% of young Americans agreed. A majority (51%) of them believed reform to present institutions was necessary to address existing problems, and about two in five preferred replacing all institutions and creating an entirely new model.The problem is that Biden is going to be giving them more of the government that they don't see as working. A vote for Biden is a vote to keep the deep state in place. There is a reason that 94 percent of Washington voted for Clinton--because she was going to maintain status quo big government. And in the fall, likely 94 percent of Washington will vote for Biden (or whomever the Democrats nominate in the end) for the exact same reason. You don't get change or reform by putting the same people in charge.
There's an opportunity here for a great study on the effect on young people when the shutdown is brief versus of longer duration. All else equal, young people in Colorado, Oklahoma, Georgia and states where the shutdown was brief should have fewer long-terms effects (career, educational attainment) than young people instates where the shutdown was extensive (New York, New Jersey, Michigan). This should be particularly important for those at important life turning points like college graduation.Are these benefits of a continued shutdown sufficient to justify the horrific costs it imposes, especially on the young? I believe not, and instead see continuing our current policies for much longer as generational theft.Preschool children are losing irreplaceable schooling shown to be crucial in cognitive development. K-12 students are losing schooling shown to have huge returns to their future earning abilities. Undergraduate, graduate and professional students are delaying their productive careers.The currently unemployed are disproportionally young and losing not only paychecks, but extremely valuable on-the-job experience. Further trillions are being added to the national debt, to be paid by future taxpayers, the young.
