July 2008- 210,000 jobs lost
Aug- 320,000 jobs lost
Sept- 460,000 jobs lost
Oct- 540,000 jobs lost
Nov- 720,000 jobs lost
Dec- 680,000 jobs lost
Jan 2009- 780,000 jobs lost
Feb- 720,000 jobs lost
Mar- 750,000 jobs lost
Apr- 590,000 jobs lost
May- 340,000 jobs lost
June- 500,000 jobs lost
July- 340,000 jobs lost
Aug- 210,000 jobs lost
Sept- 220,000 jobs lost
Oct- 220,000 jobs lost
Nov- 60,000 jobs gained
Dec- 150,000 jobs lost
Total- 7,690,000 jobs lost in 18 months
More after the jump.
That list is is mind-blowing. It doesn't really seem possible that I am living through this. I graduated from college in August 2008, quite possibly the worst time to graduate from college since 1932. I didn't even walk the stage in a gown to get my degree. I was busy in Southern Indiana giving my heart and soul to elect Barack Obama president of the United States. I travelled the country starting at my home in Texas, going to Chicago where David Plouffe deployed me to Las Vegas to go work in the primary against the Clintons. Only after I withdrew from college for a semester. Then back home to Texas to work in that primary and get back in school. Then off to Southern Indiana where I finished my last few courses online while working 110-hour weeks during the general election to get doors knocked, phone calls made and endlessly explaining why I didn't have any yard signs. After he became President Barack Obama, I went to Atlanta, Georgia in a worthless attempt to get the 60th vote in the Senate.
I believe the term for people my age is "Millennials." Those of us that were in high school or earlier on 9/11 generally qualify. The media, therefore everyone, seems to have forgotten very quickly that it is my generation who put Barack Obama in the White House with such a strong mandate. I'd venture a guess the average age of the employees during the Obama campaign was no higher than 23. State directors were commonly around 28 or 30. The legwork was done by the 18-to-24 year old Millennials, by far the biggest group. The 18-to-24 year old demographic voted for Obama 66% to 32% and voted in the highest numbers since the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971. Obama won Indiana by 26,163 votes. North Carolina by 13,692. If Obama had lost all the states with a tighter spread than 5% in the election, that would lower Obama to 279 electoral votes. Throw in Colorado at an 8% spread and he's back to 270. A convincing case can be made that the large youth turnout combined with its heavily weighted vote toward Obama gave him the election or at least the dominant final result. Millenials had thousands of conversations with older family and friends who truly didn't believe it was possible for a black man to win the presidency. Looking back it's hard to imagine he won by such a landslide. It was the young that provided that landslide, and now it is the young who have gotten little in return for their investment in the Democratic Party and Barack Obama.
Anyone who looks at that graph and sees "America is on the path to recovery" is overly optimistic or crazy. Only when there is an equally steep hill over the zero line will all those jobs lost be "recovered," which I feel is a simple definition of "recovery." I submit what we have been witnessing since the economy crashed should be termed the Millennial Depression. Recession doesn't seem to cut it rhetorically for me anymore. It doesn't have the bite, the strength to convey the struggle and hopelessness many people my age have felt. We grew up during one of the longest periods of American growth in history, the 1990s. We were brought up to believe, and believed it because it was what we saw around us, that capitalism had reached its pinnacle in America. Go to school and get good grades. Then go to college so you can get a job and make a living. It works for everyone. If you have a college degree all will be well. Now I'm left in 2010 with a feeling that something must be wrong with me since I can't find a career path at a good company yet. There must be something wrong with my friends who are going through the exact same situation. Can't find a home to settle down in. Forget about getting married, god forbid a kid comes right now. I often go back and forth from cautious optimism to apocalyptic despair.
How long will we have to stay at 10% unemployment before the media declares we are in a depression? According to the UN, youth unemployment is at its highest level ever. What will happened when Millennials get stuck in dead-end jobs or have bad under-market wages because we happened to live through this hell? I know many more people who have the same job they had when they graduated or dropped out of college than I know that use the degree they paid so much for. And through no fault of their own. Summer 2010 the proportion of the 16 to 24 year olds working or looking for work dropped to its lowest percentage on record at 60.6%. Banks don't lend to Millenials since we have little-to-no credit and many of us are still paying of our student loans. Landlords are suspicious of us and often will not rent to young people for fear we are wild hooligans who can't even be responsible for an apartment.
You may try to argue that Obama is doing the best he can under the circumstances. Young people shouldn't be so critical of the person they put so much faith, and yes hope, into. But what I see from this president is a larger Afghan/Pakistan War for us to die in, a continued presence across the world from Iraq to Somalia, bailouts for banks that we will pay for, mandates to buy private health insurance we can't afford or easily get at our jobs, cuts to services I'm sorry to say my generation will need like unemployment and Medicaid, and token investment in green technology. All I'm saying the least we deserve is an acknowledgment that this is our age, our time of crisis, our time as a generation to define what makes us American and what makes us different than Americans who have come before. This is the Millennial Depression.