Expert: 12.7 Percent Unemployment Rate for Millennials ‘Far from Acceptable’

Millennial leaders are slamming the September jobs report over its high — 12.7 percent — unemployment rate for people between the ages of 18 to 29-years-old.

“Today’s lackluster job numbers signal that our sputtering economy has reached an unacceptable new normal,” says Patrice Lee, the spokeswoman for Generation Opportunity, a “free-thinking, liberty-loving” nonpartisan organization for young people.

Lee continued:

Millennials are the largest and most educated generation in the U.S., yet we are facing an unemployment rate of 12.7 percent. Our generation is struggling to find good-paying jobs or start our own businesses due to regulatory barriers that are creating roadblocks to quality opportunities.

Generation Opportunity’s press release about the jobs report notes that for Hispanics between the ages of 18 to 29, the unemployment rate is 14.2 percent and it is even higher for African Americans between 18 and 29, reaching 16.1 percent. For young women between 18 and 29, the unemployment rate is more than double the national average at 11 percent.

Gabrielle Jackson-Bosche, an author and expert on millennials, said that although she has seen a rise in millennial employment, it’s still “far from acceptable.”

“The rise in Millennial employment is not only good news for new graduates, but it projects a more stable economic future. Before President Obama starts to thank himself for this too, American youth employment is far from acceptable,” Jackson-Bosche explained.

She continued:

Reported Millennial unemployment is still three times higher than the rest of the population, and doesn’t count the over 1 million Millennials who have given up looking for jobs altogether. The employment landscape for many 18-34 year olds is still bleak in places like Allentown, TX, the home of the highest youth unemployment and most amount of Millennials living with their parents.

“Not exactly our idea of the American Dream,” Jackson-Bosche concluded.