Thomas Oliver: We are crippling our young

By Thomas Oliver

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

There are some issues that we as a country seem oddly silent about.

Like the unemployment rate of our young people, particularly young blacks.

One can’t help but think that if the other party occupied the White House this would be a raging issue.

Fingers would be pointed. And wagged.

Regardless, while the official unemployment rate stands at 9.7 percent, the rate for those ages 16 to 19 hovers at 25 percent. Among black teens, the unemployment rate is at 42 percent.

These teens’ parents know that it is during these years and during their first jobs that their children learn the ins and outs of working and responsibility.

But few of us are willing to admit to the role adults have played in this ongoing calamity.

No, our youth’s elders take cover behind the recession.

Certainly the recession raises the unemployment rate for everyone including the young. But a closer look reveals one of the great examples of the unintended consequences of politicians who would help us -- who believe they know how to pull on one lever of the economy without causing harm in another area.

It was our benighted leaders who set in motion a series of cost increases to hiring young people just as the recession was getting ready to destroy 8.5 million payroll jobs.

And as the recession tore a hole in the job market, our leaders boasted as the cost of hiring increased again. And, as unbelievable as our national economic policies often are, we raised the cost of hiring young people for a third time in the middle of last year, just as we were beginning a national discussion about how to foster job creation.

(You can’t make this up.)

The total cost of hiring young people increased 41 percent from mid 2007 to mid 2009. That’s when we raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85; then to $6.55 and last year to $7.25.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the unemployment rate for our youth has skyrocketed.

In mid 2007, the unemployment rate among teens stood at 15.3. A year later, after the first increase and in the middle of the recession, it stood at 20.8. A year later: 24.5.

In Georgia, the latest data available is from 2009. While the state’s unemployment rate averaged 9.8 for the year, the rate for those 16-19 years old averaged 29 percent. For young men, the unemployment rate averaged 37.1. Young women fared better at 21.6.

There isn’t a breakdown among races.

Our well-meaning but befuddled leaders want to lay all the blame on the recession.

Of course they do. Just like they wish you would blame bankers for subprime mortgages.

In the two most recent worst recessions, youth unemployment did take a hit, getting as high as 20.9 in 1975 and 24.1 in 1982.

However, those highs are 32 and 15 percent less, respectively, than the highest rate (27.6) reached this recession.

The answer is to have a two-tier minimum wage, one that would allow our teenagers to work for less.

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Thomas Oliver writes the Sunday business column. He can be reached at toliver.writeright@gmail.com