New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker • Hacker News Board

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#241

Post by watwut » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 7:12 AM UTC

tamimio wrote: post #85

Telemakhos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted because people don't like what you say, but NPR had a piece confirming this just this April: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/10/nx-s1-5773327/women-men-jobs-... > Of the 369,000 jobs the Labor Department says were created since the start of Trump's second term, nearly all — 348,000 of them — went to women, with only 21,000 going to men. That's nearly 17 times as many jobs filled by women as by me…

Thanks for sharing that! It’s something I noticed both online and IRL, it’s only guys (especially young ones) who are crying about the job market, I actually don’t know a single jobless female, all of them are working, and I know plenty who works two jobs! Regarding the downvotes, I really don’t care about the fake online currency, I think their impact is negative in creating echo chambers in communities, and for som…

Yeah, that is why we talk exclusively about male loneliness despite loneliness per gender being the same statistically.

The whole current gop/conservative thing was to talk about manufacturing jobs. And current admin did their best to push women out of labor force and army/goverment career positions. They failed overall, because they are morons economically, not because they would favor women. Men were all the focus and the supposed recipients of advantages.

And if you want to talk about successfull suicides you will need to talk about gun ownership. Because that is a big reason men are killing themselves more succesfully - they are more likely to have the gun handy.

Male problems are talked about constantly. The issue is that some fairly large ones are tied to powerful industries like, hell, gambling and guns. And attacking those is treated like attacking masculinity itself, creating a cycle.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#242

Post by testfrequency » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 7:24 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #58

The story here isn't college grads as much as young people in general. We are eating our young. We stopped building new housing, which turns housing into a transfer of wealth from those who don't have it (the young) to those who have been holding it (the not young). We have eliminated entry level positions, saddled college graduates with massive amounts of debt by defunding universities, and created great security fo…

The transfer of wealth is diminishing also as older generations didn’t save as much, are unable to retire, or are spending through most of their retirement

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#243

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 7:36 AM UTC

827a wrote: post #203

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reverse migration of sorts back to the rust belt and Deep South (well, Georgia and Tennessee at least), and most of that migration is driven by cheaper housing and cheaper cost of living. And this is really how it should be, we will never be able to build past demand here in Seattle without Chinese construction powress, and the unions and residents would never allow for that anyways. However, Toledo has pl…

> without Chinese construction powress We need to be honest in calling this what it is: yes the Chinese have incredible construction capacity, but the far bigger reason why their cities are growing so fast is because: they essentially have zero personal or corporate property rights in urban zones.

That really isn’t true though, nail house term was invented in China after all. The only real magic is simply their ability to get sh*t done on time and on budget, which doesn’t exist in the USA anymore.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#244

Post by anal_reactor » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 7:59 AM UTC

z3c0 wrote: post #29

Interestingly (and anecdotally), as a 10-year+ experienced college dropout, I still see challenges getting hired for jobs that list degrees as a requirement. The only time I get a call back on "front door" applications is with the fateful addendum of "OR relevant work experience". (I wonder if agents and their lack of human discretion is amplifying this.) The article's assertion that a college degree still offers an…

I know it seems awkward, but you can just lie on your resume. Most employers lie on their job ads, most applicants lie on their resumes. This is why the whole recruitment process is so broken.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#245

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 8:44 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #146

materielle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I don’t care about affording more things? And instead want to live in an ethical society that prioritizes stability and universal access to housing, healthcare, and education?

Welcome to the forever dissapointed club. The society you desire can’t exist unfortunately as much as I’ve thought it could and worked for it

There’s no utopia but that doesn’t mean you can’t bend society in one direction or another.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#246

Post by ed_balls » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 9:49 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #58

The story here isn't college grads as much as young people in general. We are eating our young. We stopped building new housing, which turns housing into a transfer of wealth from those who don't have it (the young) to those who have been holding it (the not young). We have eliminated entry level positions, saddled college graduates with massive amounts of debt by defunding universities, and created great security fo…

Could be just that USA is trying to reindustrialize and need more people that can do stuff with hands?

- the smallest population cohort is entering workforce - Trump and Covid slowed down immigration - high interest rate slows down R&D

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#247

Post by cherry_tree » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 10:19 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #79

throwaway27448 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just our young—that just receives disproportionate attention. The entire country is being actively looted under the guise of "economic growth". Anyway, increasing supply isn't going to solve our many problems leading to widespread homelessness and financial insecurity, but the Ezra Klein dunces aren't ready for that conversation yet.

> increasing supply isn't going to solve our many problems leading to widespread homelessness and financial insecurity Why not? (I guess I'm a "dunce", but I'm one that's ready for that conversation)

I think “amount of houses” misses many important parts of how people decide where to live and what they struggle with that results in unaffordable or unavailable housing.

Where do you increase supply? The most desirable places to live like urban centers, or more likely more and wider suburbs. In a vacuum many people will say it doesn’t matter and poor people should move to where they can afford; but many people have strong connections to where they grew up and are not inclined to abandon their lifelong support systems because the pricing in one area has gone up.

How do you increase supply? Ugly 5-over-1s are cheap to make but not desirable, not particularly dense. Single family homes are even less dense. Most supply proponents are talking about these or luxury condos.

How much is the new supply? If we build new homes but they are still unattainable to the people who need them, then we didn’t help much right? Which leads me to

Who gets the new supply? Are they put on the open market for speculators/investors/landlords/private equity to gobble up or are there provisions for ensuring the housing goes to people who don’t already have housing or are physically real people not llcs etc.

Tl;dr we could build a million houses but if they are in undesirable places, unfavorable designs, or allowed to be snatched up and resold at the same high prices we already have, then supply alone wouldn’t fix unaffordability of housing across the nation.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#248

Post by Mallory_Ringess » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

tamimio wrote: post #50

Now I want to see the males/females ratio in that graph, I bet most of the unemployed are males, which is something weird I noticed where everyone who’s complaining about the job market are men, meanwhile women are hired and sometimes working two jobs on top of that.

I have no idea whether this is true but it is an interesting question which the knee-jerk downvote brigade should have left alone. Is this information available somewhere? As far as I know the majority of college graduates in all but the STEM fields is female now, there's only a few disciplines which are still majority male. Given this fact it would be expected that unemployment among female college graduates should be higher, not lower than that of men if companies were to aim for a 'fair' distribution between men and women in their workforce given that there will be more women vying for the 'female share' of the pie.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#249

Post by throwaway27448 » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 10:41 AM UTC

simonw wrote: post #79

throwaway27448 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just our young—that just receives disproportionate attention. The entire country is being actively looted under the guise of "economic growth". Anyway, increasing supply isn't going to solve our many problems leading to widespread homelessness and financial insecurity, but the Ezra Klein dunces aren't ready for that conversation yet.

> increasing supply isn't going to solve our many problems leading to widespread homelessness and financial insecurity Why not? (I guess I'm a "dunce", but I'm one that's ready for that conversation)

There are many reasons, one of which is certainly supply in some places, but most strongly it's just simply unrealistic that everyone will be able to make enough money to afford the mortgage on any house, let alone renting one, because of disability or age, because the housing isn't where the jobs are, because it's cheaper to import a skilled worker than it is to train one here. we do so many things that are collectively irrational that expecting one variable to unchain the free hand of the market in our lifetime seems simply... naive. And this isn't even touching broader issues about the commodification of housing and the role that real estate plays as a form of both wealth and accessible wealth extraction that make the idea of "affordable housing" downright repugnant to those who have some.

Ezra Klein is an intelligent man, but he has put his intelligence towards selling hopeful visions to professionals who want hope rather than an earnest diagnosis of the dysfunction afflicting our culture, geography, labor market, and welfare system.

Re: New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker

#250

Post by scihuber » Sun, Jun 07, 2026, 10:45 AM UTC

Oh, I ended up in a really funny situation. I inherited a 45-square-meter apartment 1/2 portion, while my mother bought another portion from a relative and then sold that part to my wife, who bought it on credit. We were just so happy when we finally paid off all the debts. And then we had to leave the country and become refugees! And now, after five years of living in another country, I realize that even if a country has democratic freedoms, economic life there is far from a bed of roses. This was a very sad and depressing realization this year, since I still haven’t found a full-time job, and naturally, that’s not having a very positive impact on my life.