Youth in US – 5.8 million young people are neither in school nor working

It makes some sense that young people might work less than their older counterparts. They are figuring out their lives, going in and out of school and making more short-term plans. 

But a whopping 5.8 million young people are neither in school nor working. It is “a completely different situation than weve seen in the past,” says Elisabeth Jacobs, the senior director for policy and academic programs at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

“Its a big deal. … Thats a whole cohort of Americans who are at the very beginning of their careers and are pretty dispirited,” she says.

Youth unemployment remains remarkably high across the country. In some places, the unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds is more than twice the national unemployment rate, which is currently 6.3 percent.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at A Lost Generation Of Workers: The Cost Of Youth Unemployment : NPR.