Elderly More Likely to Be Employed Than Teens

[n2doc]

By Ben Casselman

The past five years have been hard on teenagers. The decade before that wasn’t much better.

The Wall Street Journal today reported that teenager’s work rates plummeted during the recession and have seen little recovery since. More than 40% of teens worked in the summer of 2007. This year, less than a third did.

But while the recession explains the recent drop, there are also longer-term forces at work. From the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, somewhere between 55% and 60% of teens aged 16 to 19 years old worked in any given summer. The rate edged down slightly in the 1990s, then began to fall precipitously in the 2000s.

The decline in youth employment is part of a broader shift in working patterns. Americans are entering the workforce later and staying in it longer than at any time in history. Andrew Sum, a Northeastern University economist and expert in youth employment, points to a remarkable statistic: A decade ago, a 16- or 17-year-old boy was twice as likely to have a job as his 70-year-old grandfather. Today, the grandfather is actually more likely to have a job than the boy. That’s an amazing shift in so short a period of time.

more

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/08/21/elderly-more-likely-to-be-employed-than-teens/

[winter is coming]

1. In the 1980s, the elderly had pensions and retirement was a possibility instead of a mirage. n/t

[SoCalDem]

2. Not surprising at all.. Medicare means they do not need insurance

from an employer..
they have reliable work habits..
they won't call in if a party comes along that they want to attend.
they are not all that picky about wages since they don't have piles of car/college debt.
they are usually not career-driven and tend to work collaboratively
many younger seniors don;t WANT to make too much money lest their benefits get cut

[surrealAmerican]

3. The chart's title is a particularly stupid insult.

"Granpa" is keeping his job because he's greedy, he's keeping it so that he can afford to eat and pay the rent. Do they not understand that our economy crashed, taking many older people's retirement savings with it?

[Wounded Bear]

4. One of the original reasons for Social Security....

was to allow the elderly to retire and make room for the youngsters to find work.

[gopiscrap]

5. Wow that's not good

but as a respondent said in the 80's they had pensions and a safety net...now we've let the corporations fuck over society