9/27/11: Recession Hardest on Young Adults

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In record numbers, Young adults are struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they’re becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II, and they risk living in poverty more than others – nearly 1 in 5.

New 2010 census data released last week show the wrenching impact of a recession that officially ended in mid-2009. There are missed opportunities and dim prospects for a generation of mostly 20-somethings and 30-somethings coming of age in a prolonged period of joblessness.

Andrew Sum, an economist and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University said, “We have a monster jobs problem, and young people are the biggest losers.”