Young adults today are more likely to live in poverty than previous generations, but a college degree can go a long way in preventing this trend.
The Atlantic reported earlier this month that young adults are extremely likely to spend a year living in poverty.
Data gathered between 1968-2009 show that young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are more likely to need welfare, face unemployment and live in poverty than any other age group.
W.M. Neal Reynolds Distinguished Economics Professor Michael Walden, said there are several reasons for why this trend is occurring, one of such is relatively weak job market.
This not only makes it difficult for anyone who is looking to find a job but especially for young adults because they’re less experienced.
“Younger workers are more prone to be laid off or eliminated from the job market because they tend to be the last hired and have the least experience,” Walden said.
According to Walden, college students are less likely to experience poverty because they’ve gone to school to learn a specific skill.
“The job market is extremely tough for young workers who don’t go on to college to master a certain skill that employers want,” Walden said. “There is also the issue of people who have simply dropped out of both school and the labor force and choose to live off their parents or others.”
Walden said he is a strong believer that in the long run, a college education pays for itself.
“If you look at all the data, two things stand out. First, the unemployment rate among people with a college degree is much lower,” Walden said. “Second, despite the student loans many are facing these days, for the average student, the payoff of a college degree in terms of additional money earned far exceeds the amount of debt they are in.”
Unfortunately, however, the struggle to find a suitable job even with a college degree is still difficult. Students have to work hard to make themselves look appealing to employers, according to Marcy Bullock, the director of professional development at the Career Development Center.
Bullock said about half of the three-plus million college grads last year are working jobs that don’t require a degree, which can be discouraging to many future graduates. Bullock suggested students need to make their resume stand out to catch an employers’ attention.
“Students need a ‘hook’ or something that will differentiate them from others in a competitive job market,” Bullock said.
Even as the economy begins to rebound, young adults are still highly prone to spending a year in poverty.
Regardless of college experience, Walden said there seems to be a more recent trend, where young adults are having trouble finding jobs as the world becomes more modern and advanced.
“If you go back decades ago and you were a high school dropout or graduate, there were hundreds of thousands of jobs in textile mills and printer factories available to you making employment for young adults much less difficult,” Walden said.
According to Walden, technological advances have replaced the need for these workers, and now it’s harder to get an entry level job without much experience.
“We don’t have big textile mills or furniture factories anymore and for the ones that we do have, that work is beginning to be done by machines and technology, eliminating the demand for more human workers,” Walden said.
