Ahmad Afiquddin Ahmad

Paper 4 Draft 3
Negin H. Goodrich
9/4/2015

Graduation and the Challenges After

The recent recession strike has deeply plagued the economy, and although
the official end of the recession was in 2009, its effect on the worlds finance is still
felt today. The aftermath of the disaster has brought, and still continues to bring
great turmoil to fresh graduates looking for a job, and landing one depends on
either stellar qualifications or just sheer luck. I attempted to uncover more on the
issue of unemployment among young college graduates: the causes, effects, and
solutions. To achieve that, I am going to summarize and synthesize following
articles: (1) The Class of 20141 by Heidi Shierholz, Alyssa Davis, and Will Kimball,
(2) Americas 10 Million Unemployed Youth Spell Danger for Future Economic
Growth2 by Sarah Ayres Steinberg, and (3) Twelve Ways to fix the Youth
Unemployment Crisis3 by Elizabeth Jacobs.
The first article is written by Heidi Shierholz, Alyssa Davis, and Will Kimball,
researchers at the Economic Policy Institute. Their research paper titled The Class
of 2014 focuses mainly on the issue of the Great Recession that ended in June
2009, the aftermath of the disaster and how it affected the employment of college
graduates, primarily. According to their research findings, the United States Labor
market still has a deficit of higher than 7 million jobs, and the unemployment rate
has been at 6.6 percent or higher for five-and-a-half years. The researchers
deducted that the weak labor market will be very tough on young workers of age 25
and below, shown by the March 2014 unemployment rate of the aforementioned
age group, which was at a staggering 14.5 percent, over two times higher than the
overall unemployment rate of 6.7 percent. The group state in their paper that the
extremely high unemployment rate of young graduates is not the result of
something unique about the Great Recession, rather it is caused by the
disproportionate increases in unemployment during times of labor market
weakness. According to them, there are nearly 1 million missing young workers;
potential workers who are neither employed nor actively seeking a job, and thus are
not counted in the unemployment rate; reason being the scarcity of job
opportunities. Adding fuel to the fire, the researchers found that not only are
1 http://www.epi.org/publication/class-of-2014/
2 https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2013/06/05/65373/americas-10-millionunemployed-youth-spell-danger-for-future-economic-growth/

3 http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/05/22-youthunemployment/brookings_jacobsunemployment_to-print.pdf

unemployment rates affected, but the job quality for young graduates who are lucky
enough to land one are deteriorating; evident in their declining likelihood of
receiving employer-provided health insurance and pensions. Shierholz, Davis, and
Kimball conclude their research paper with a few suggestions to turn the tables on
the disastrous situation facing young college graduates: (1) provide fiscal relief to
states, (2) substantial additional investment in infrastructure, (3) expanded safety
net measures, and (4) direct job creation programs, particularly in communities
hard-hit by unemployment.
The second article Americas 10 Million Unemployed Youth Spell Danger for
Future Economic Growth, takes a whole different point of view, predominantly
directing the spotlight on the effects that young graduates unemployment bring to
the economy. The author, Sarah Ayres Steinberg, a policy analyst in the Economic
Policy department at the Center for American Progress, begins her article with an
honest dissection of Americas current economy; the fact that the number of
Americans who are unable to find full-time work in 2013 stands at a shocking 10
million, outnumbering the population of New York City of about 8 million. Steinberg
continues by stating that the high number of youth unemployment will severely
affect individuals, society, and all levels of government. She highlights that some
young people are failing in paying their student loans, delaying saving for
retirement, and moving back home with their parents, while other consequences
will be felt long into the future. According to her analysis, a young person who
experiences a six-month period of unemployment is expected to miss out on at
least $45000 in wages; $23000 for the period of unemployment, and an additional
$22000 in lagging wages over the next decade, due to their time spent
unemployed. Businesses will also suffer from reduced consumer demand, and
taxpayers will feel the impact in the form of lost revenues, greater demand for more
government-provided services such as health care, increased crime and more
welfare payments. Sarah ends the article by saying that the pace of job growth
remains too slow, even after four years since the official end of the Great Recession.
She feels that policymakers should try harder to create more jobs and hasten the
pace of the economic recovery in America, and unless countermeasures are taken
soon, the United States can ill afford to let the generation of young graduates lose
out on earnings, wealth building, experience and skill development that come from
working.
Elizabeth Jacobs, a Senior Director for Policy at the Center for Equitable
Growth, in her article titled Twelve Ways to fix the Youth Unemployment Crisis
underlines the various solutions that could be taken in solving the unemployment
crisis affecting young college graduates in America. Jacobs writes in her article that
on-the-job training should be combined with classroom instruction through the
apprenticeship model, effectively creating a new pathway for young Americans to
find a foothold in the ever-changing economy. She adds that a Career Internship
standard should be implemented in addition to the solution mentioned before, to
ensure that employers offer valuable training and experience beyond clerical work.
The program will provide youth the necessary workplace experience while offering
employers an opportunity to evaluate and retain future employees. She continues

by pointing out that establishing a national standard for internships would provide a
low-cost incentive for employers to improve their existing internship programs,
while simultaneously creating valuable paid work experience to help youth towards
full-time employment. The article also suggests that mentoring programs should be
executed in colleges and schools in order to help train and discipline youth, while
giving them the motivation that they need in chasing their targeted career.
Elizabeth ends her article by highlighting that the situation that young college
graduates are currently facing is dire and suitable solutions should be implemented
in order to help increase employment rates, and to improve the quality of
graduates.
Although the three articles are centered on the issue of unemployment
among college graduates, they differ from each other in terms of content and their
point of view on the problem. The first article describes the Great Recession, and
how it has affected employment among college graduates. The following article, on
the other hand, focuses more on how unemployment among youths in America will
shape the economic landscape in the future, emphasizing more on the adverse
effects. The last article tries to provide relief for the troubling issue by offering
solutions that could and should be implemented in order to ensure a more rigid and
stable economy in the future. The articles have really helped me in gaining a better
understanding of the issue of unemployment among fresh graduates and I feel that
I should prepare myself for my own graduation two years from now.