Elaine Chao Blames High Unemployment on the Youth; Bob Herbert Disagrees

You may have heard last week that the unemployment rate for May increased to 5.5%, the largest jump in 22 years. Elaine Chao, the head of the Department of Labor, made a bold and ridiculous claim that the sharp jump was due to an unusually large number of graduates entering the job market:

Via Shame on Elaine:

U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao issued the following statement on the May employment situation report released today:

“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate reflects the fact that unusually large numbers of students and graduates are entering the labor market.”

Aside from the fact that this was a highly foreseeable problem "18 years in the making," the argument doesn't really hold water. As Jared Bernstein notes:

Be forewarned, there are those that will try to dismiss May's unemployment spike, arguing that it was mostly driven by teens. That's wrong. The adult rate was up from 4.5% to 4.8%, also a big spike, and various older groups of workers took a hit too. For example, the jobless rate for women, 25-54, was up 0.4% almost as much as the overall rise.

But even if the unemployment spike were mostly among young people, why should we discount it? If they're flooding the summer job market and not finding jobs, that's a problem too.

Besides, isn't it Elaine and Bush's job to create a robust economy precisely so everyone - teens included - can find work?

While Elaine was yelling "get off my lawn" to all those pesky youth getting ready to vote her out of the job, Bob Herbert laid the smack down today in a column about the REAL problems with teen unemployment - the forgotten youth in inner cities and rural areas who aren't even counted in the unemployment numbers because they've been out of work for so long. I believe the appropriate governmental euphemism is "discouraged worker."

The young people I’m talking about wouldn’t have noticed. These are the teenagers and young adults — roughly 16 to 24 years old — who are not in school and basically have no hope of finding work. The bureaucrats compiling the official unemployment rate don’t even bother counting these young people. They are no one’s constituency. They might as well not exist.

Except that they do exist. There are four million or more of these so-called disconnected youths across the country. They hang out on street corners in cities large and small — and increasingly in suburban and rural areas.

If you ask how they survive from day to day, the most likely response is: “I hustle,” which could mean anything from giving haircuts in a basement to washing a neighbor’s car to running the occasional errand.
[...]
It’s not as if these kids don’t want to work. Many of them search and search until they finally become discouraged. The summer job market, which has long been an important first step in preparing teenagers for the world of work, is shaping up this year as the weakest in more than half a century, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

Now, with the overall economy deteriorating, the situation for poorly educated young people will only grow worse. As Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies, told The Times recently:

“When you get into a recession, kids always get hit the hardest. Kids always go to the back of the hiring queue. Now, they find themselves with a lot of other people in line ahead of them.”

Ah the Bush economy at work. Yet another reason we need change in this country and young voters are going to be the ones pushing us there.