Now Is an Awful Time to Be a Young Man in America

Some 14.4% of 25- to 34-year-olds jobless; many living at home
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2011 9:41 AM CST
Updated Nov 12, 2011 7:38 AM CST
Young Men Face Soaring Unemployment
Young men have found the troubled economy particularly challenging.   (Shutterstock)

Few Americans were immune to the recession, but the plight of young men continues to be particularly dire. The unemployment rate for male high-school grads ages 25 to 34 is 14.4%, far above the 9% national average; the figure also marks a huge jump from the 6.1% jobless rate they faced before the downturn, the Wall Street Journal reports. Even worse off are high-school educated men ages 20 to 24, who suffer a whopping 22.5% jobless rate.

Meanwhile, some 18.6% of men 25 to 34 are living with their parents, the highest rate since 1960. “We're at risk of having a generation of young males who aren't well-connected to the labor market and who don't feel strong ownership of community or society because they haven't benefited from it,” says a public health professor. The Journal follows the story of two 25-year-old men who went from comfortable construction jobs and up-and-coming lifestyles to sporadic, lesser-paid jobs and living with multiple roommates or mom and dad. “I wasn't living, I was surviving,” says one. (More young men stories.)

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