Friday, February 02, 2007

Teenage Unemployment


From today's BLS employment report:

1. Overall unemployment rate for January: 4.6% (up from 4.5% in December)

2. Unemployment rate for teenagers: 15%

3. Unemployment rate for black teenagers: 29.1% (240,000 unemployed)

4. Unemployment rate for white teenagers: 13.2% (793,000 unemployed)

Bottom Line: There are currently more than 1 million unemployed teenagers who are actively looking for employment and are unable to find jobs.

Question: Will a 40% increase in the minimum wage make it EASIER or HARDER for these 1 million unemployed teenagers to find jobs? See the cartoon above for the answer.

3 Comments:

At 2/04/2007 5:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

England specifies a lower minimum wage, banded by age, for the under 22 year-olds. Would that help, or hinder?

 
At 5/29/2007 10:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The jobs that I did when I was a teen - fast food clerk, waitress, hospital aide, discount store clerk - are almost exclusively filled by immigrants with limited English skills.

At the same time, profits are at record levels.

As I see it, the problem is not that the minimum wage is too high, it's that finding frightened, desperate people to exploit is to easy.

 
At 5/29/2007 10:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The jobs that I did when I was a teen - fast food clerk, waitress, hospital aide, discount store clerk - are almost exclusively filled by immigrants with limited English skills.

At the same time, profits are at record levels.

As I see it, the problem is not that the minimum wage is too high, it's that finding frightened, desperate people to exploit is too easy.

 

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