At first glance, images of eager customers forming snaking lines around Apple stores nationwide should inspire optimism that consumer confidence is making a comeback as 2012 winds down.
Stocks are at multi-year highs, Apple in particular is up 75 percent since the ball last fell in Times Square, and oil prices have retreated from their peak this summer.
But a closer look at just who’s doing the waiting on those lines at Apple stores tells a different story about the US economy.
According to Bloomberg, hundreds of those waiting on line in Manhattan this weekend are being paid to do so. That’s right, with the jobless rate for Americans aged 20 to 24 now running at nearly 14 percent, or 6 percent above the national average, line-waiting has become a coveted line of work.
In fact, there’s an app for that. It’s called TaskRabbit, a website that links mostly under- and unemployed Millennials with more demographically fortunate Americans who need errands run or their furniture assembled.
“I’ve done other waiting-in-line things. I think it’s going to end up being, like, my specialty,” Sara Clarke noted as she held a place for her “boss” — the ultimate owner of Apple’s latest gadget.
It’s a fitting metaphor for those loosely described as Generation Y or Millennials, Americans between the ages of 18 and 30, who are now often happy to just have a “task” to do, because they can’t find a job.
For millions of 20-somethings who do have jobs, the picture isn’t so rosy either. Real earnings for young graduates with college degrees (the lucky ones) have fallen for six years in a row and are down 15 percent from where they were in 2006.
Millennials are already showing a greater tendency toward risk aversion. On average, they also believe that luck, as opposed to an emphasis on hard work, is a big determinant of success.
Four years ago, when the overall unemployment rate was just 6.5 percent, 18-to-29-year-olds showed up in force, and two-thirds of them voted for President Obama. By 2010, with unemployment among this group firmly planted in the double digits, they stayed home from the polls.
Will they return to vote with enthusiasm for Obama in 2012? Perhaps, but four years of literally standing in place — even if they’re getting paid for it — isn’t much of an incentive.