How Bad Is the Job Market for the College Class of 2014?

You can spend a long, long time arguing about precisely how bad freshly minted grads have it these days and why. But for now, let's stick to broad strokes. In its recent chartbook on youth joblessness, the Economic Policy Institute reported that roughly 8.5 percent of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 were unemployed. That figure is based on a 12-month average between April 2013 and March 2014, so it’s not a perfect snapshot of the here and now. Still, it tells us that the post-collegiate job market, just like the rest of the labor market, certainly isn’t nearly back to normal. (For comparison, the unemployment rate for all college grads over the age of 25 is 3.3 percent, which is also still higher than normal.) More worrisomely, the EPI finds that a total of 16.8 percent of new grads are “underemployed,” meaning they’re either jobless and hunting for work; working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job; or want a job, have looked within the past year, but have now given up on searching.

Then there’s the other kind of underemployment—the kind where you're just too educated for your job. For decades now, we’ve been used to hearing about recent college graduates reduced to pouring coffee or working as bike messengers to pay off student loan debt.

Not to worry. They can all get food stamps, free healthcare and SSI disability checks fairly easily. They can live in Section 8 housing and spend their days protesting for higher taxes on those greedy rich bastards who won’t pay their fair share to help those in need.

The poster child is that nimrod from Occupy Wall Street who managed to accumulate $100K in student load debt majoring in puppetry!

You'd think he might have bought a clue by the time he got halfway there.

This will be the sixth graduating class since the beginning of the Obama pestilency...one day these hopeless waifs will begin to realize what patsies they were. Whether they will be able repudiate their progressive views is another matter.

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