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Gen Z post-college joblessness crisis is a wake-up call to all of us [1]
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Date: 2025-03-28
This story from Fortune about Gen Z’s not getting jobs after college should be sounding huge alarm bells for Democrats everywhere:
Over 4 million Gen Zers are not in school or at work in the U.S., and in the U.K. 100,000 young people joined the NEET cohort. But it’s not generational laziness that’s to blame. Experts are taking swipes at “worthless degrees” and a system that “is failing to deliver on its implicit promise.”
The lack of opportunity for young people is a colossal failure in the US, and a broken promise between generations. Democrats for many years have made broader access to college a central part of our story about economic opportunity. We are also the party dominated by college-educated people, and we look and talk that way.
So when people can’t find a job after college, especially if they are carrying a lot of debt, it is highly likely that they are going to be angry with the party of college and cynical about that party’s commitment to broad economic opportunity. College is still the most likely path to a professional career, and if that works out for you it does lead to economic prosperity. But whether you can actually turn the degree into a stable career is pretty close to a coin flip now. And the lack of other solid opportunities makes get-rich-quick ideas like crypto look like a way out.
To me this says the Dems need to start thinking hard about three things:
It is vital that we come up with a better story for how to get ahead and make enough money to live on your own, then own a home, then raise a family, then retire than “get a college degree”.
Our party needs visible leaders who did not go to college but have found ways to have economic stability and progress in their lives, and who also believe the value of the social safety net. These are the messengers we need to reach the non-college working class, and right now I see very few of them.
We need to offer something concrete to people who are hustling hard for their money, whether that’s sales people who live solely on commission, gig workers, entrepreneurs, etc. Americans are entrepreneurial people — we want them to go forth and build, but with enough security and stability to be confident that hard work will help them build a good life. I believe the words that encapsulate this are stability and security, and the place to start in policy is making insurance (health, auto, home) affordable — good insurance is critical for protecting and building wealth.
Otherwise, the Republican story of everyone for themselves, combined with the anti-elite rage that animates Trump and MAGA, will continue to push people away from social solidarity and more towards coldhearted cowboy capitalism.
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