Student loan debt hits a new high as millennials take ’poverty-wage’ jobs
▻http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2013/dec/06/student-loan-debt-minimum-poverty-wage-jobs?CMP=twt_gu
The class of 2012 has the highest student loan burden of any graduating college class in history, continuing a five-year trend of rising debt loads on millennials just coming out of school.
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Debt at graduation increased an average of 6% each year from 2008 to 2012, so it’s hardly a new trend. Still, there’s evidence that millennials are slowly beginning to question whether attending pricey colleges is worth it; some say they regret not weighing their options more carefully. A recent Wells Fargo survey revealed that 31% of millennials regret paying for college instead of getting a job and carving out a spot in the job market.
While college education does often result in long-term higher income, current average wage for young college graduates (21-24) is $16.60. That translates into an annual income of roughly $34,500 for a full-time year of work, reports the Economic Policy Institute. That’s the lowest average pay since 1998.
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Then there are those college graduates, who, despite their new degree, still struggle to find a job. According to the Department of Labor, only about 63% of 20-24-year-olds are employed. And while the unemployment rate for college graduates has dropped from 10.4% in 2010, at 8.8% it’s still higher than the national unemployment rate of 7%.
Unemployment numbers don’t always paint the most accurate picture of the situation. Reality is much bleaker than the figures first suggest. For instance, there are about 1.7 million “missing workers” within the 18-29-year-old demographic. These are the people who’ve given up looking for work.
The decrease in the unemployment rate for young graduates can be attributed to the increasing number of those, who while not unemployed, are underemployed, working part-time, low-skill jobs for the minimum wage.