Commencement season at the nation’s universities and colleges is over.
But this speech is for the 66 percent of young Americans who will graduate from high school this month and try to enter the work force off the May jobs report, which held few silver linings.
Dear High School Graduates of the Class of 2013:
Congratulations on completing four years of secondary education. For those of you who were hard-working and blessed with parents who support your path to college, reflect on your luck.
You entered high school in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, and you will emerge from college in 2017 — a time by which the economy will, we hope, have regained much of its vigor.
For the rest of you, I am sorry to say the job market you are entering is a lousy one. No way to sugarcoat it.
The financial shenanigans your elders engaged in when you were still having play dates falls especially hard on your generation when it comes to looking for work.
Tweets might herald an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, but for those of you ages 18 to 29, the real rate is more than double that.
Indeed, if you include the 1.7 million Millennials who have, at such a young age, given up looking for work, the effective unemployment rate is 16.1 percent; for African-Americans, it is above 21 percent.
What’s more, the jobs available to you aren’t especially high-paying or upwardly mobile. Last month, almost all of the new jobs came from hospitality, retail and health care.
Yes, as in the 1930s, the calendar has not been kind to the Millennials. Studies have shown that those who enter the work force during tough economic times face a lifetime of diminished earnings.
But now, as you have come of age, you also have the power to vote for politicians who will watch out for your generation.
Speak up — to reduce regulation and put real job-creating policies in place. You deserve it.