Youth Unemployment at 15.9% in September Generation Opportunity releases Millennial Jobs Report

Washington, DC – Generation Opportunity, a national, non-partisan youth advocacy organization, is announcing its Millennial Jobs Report for September 2013. The data is non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and is specific to 18-29 year olds:

• The effective (U6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 15.9 percent (NSA).

• The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.7 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

• The (U3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 11.2 percent (NSA). The (U3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 20.9 percent (NSA); the (U3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics is 11.8 percent (NSA); and the (U3) unemployment rate for 18–29 year old women is 10.1 percent (NSA).

Evan Feinberg, President of Generation Opportunity, issued the following statement:

“We’re three weeks into the first Obamacare enrollment period and, to no surprise, young people are still struggling to find jobs. As the administration spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to get young people to enroll in the expensive and creepy Obamacare exchanges, the real focus should be on creating jobs – particularly for my generation.

“Not only is Obamacare a bad deal for young people, it’s also a job killer. The lucky few among us who have been able to secure employment in today’s economy are more often than not finding themselves in part-time jobs for which they are overqualified and underpaid.

“It’s really tough out there for a Millennial – and insulting that the administration thinks we should pay more for healthcare in our leanest, thinnest years just to subsidize an older, wealthier generation.”

Generation Opportunity is a national, non-partisan organization advocating for economic opportunity for young people through less government and more freedom.

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