Youth Unemployment: Will good jobs continue to elude young adults?

Nearly 6 million Americans ages 16 to 24 are not working and not in school, keeping the youth unemployment rate at nearly 15 percent. Young people are always twice as likely to be unemployed as the population as a whole, but many economists worry that young Americans are having a more difficult time since the recent recession in getting a start in the adult world. The effects of high youth unemployment are staggering: delayed marriages, depressed rates of home ownership and, for a growing percentage of young adults, the inability to move out of parental homes into a more independent lifestyle. The number of college graduates working in minimum wage jobs has more than doubled over the past five years, while the situation is even grimmer for young people with less education -- particularly minorities. Meanwhile, working Americans are paying more in taxes to support social-welfare expenses for young people without jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]