Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) editorial board has declared a “Great Youth Depression,” and Young America’s Foundation agrees. Young people are taking an economic shellacking thanks to the Obama administration, and that’s exactly why Young America’s Foundation released the Youth Misery Index last year.

The Youth Misery Index mixes youth unemployment, average graduating college debt, and national debt per capita—all of which were mentioned in the IBD editorial in some form—and the editorial uses a new Pew Research Center poll which reinforces what Young America’s Foundation has said in the NY Post and Washington Times:

The unemployment rate among 18-to-24 year olds was 16.3% at the end of last year, compared with 8.8% for the rest of the working-age population. That gap in unemployment rates, the Pew study notes, is "the widest in recorded history."

Meanwhile, the share of this population that's managed to find work has fallen to 54.3% — the lowest level since 1948, the first year the government started collecting such data.

Young workers are also doing far worse than everyone else when it comes to income. Between 2007 and 2011, their real median weekly earnings fell 6%. By comparison, those between the ages of 35 and 64 saw earnings climb 1%, while everyone else saw earnings dip slightly by 0.1%.

The effects of this Great Youth Depression are rippling across the country.

The Pew study finds, for example, that more than a third of those between 18 and 34 have gone back to school because they can't find a job. A quarter have taken unpaid work, and an equal share say they've moved back with their parents.

And, while the Pew study doesn't mention this, the terrible job market has pushed more college graduates than ever to default on student loans. The Department of Education says default rates in 2010 had climbed 25% over the previous year.

(Full Article: *IBD*)

For young people, the economy isn’t recovering at all, and it’s only going to get worse thanks to the Obama administration’s new plans. In the administration’s new budget, they propose to keep government spending high, raise taxes on the private sector, and do nothing to fix the coming debt crisis.

On top of that, the administration’s youth proposals only put young people further into education debt and pitch us into a jobs program (Summer Jobs+) filled with gimmicks.  

In the last three years, young people have seen the course the Left wants to take them in: Less income, fewer jobs, more debt, and more time in their parents’ basements. Young America’s Foundation will continue to offer an alternative vision.

For more information on this topic check out:

NY Post – *Young People Want Careers, not More Student Debt and Internships*

Washington Times - *Youth Misery Index: Generation Y asks ‘Why Us?’*