Young Americans are becoming slow to enter labor force

To The Daily Sun,

Why can’t the workforce participation rate get to 70 percent? I have asked myself this many times since Trump has taken office because there is no shortage of jobs in this country. In fact, I have read that there are now more available jobs nationwide than there are people on unemployment.

Locally I think most business owners would agree since I see “for hire” signs on businesses in the Lakes Region all the time. So, who is out there to fill those jobs. Well I did a web search and found the data at the Bureau of Labor Statistics which is part of the US government. Here is the link. (https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm)

The data is not in the format I would like but it does show what I have suspected for years. The young (ages 16 to 24) are not entering the work force until later in life. Here are the workforce participation rates by age group between 1996 and 2016. Ages 16-24 decreased from 65.5 percent participation to 55.2 percent, ages 25-54 went from 83.8 percent to 81.3 percent, ages 55 and older increased from 30.3 percent to 40 percent. You read those right. The youngest sector or the population is working less and the oldest sector is working more. I don’t know about you but I think this is a very disturbing trend.

Obviously, we didn’t get here overnight and won’t get out of it without addressing the underlying reasons for the shift. I’ll suggest a few but by no means believe it will fix the entire problem. First is to hold teens accountable. Work is a part of life and they should learn that at a young age. Sixteen is old enough to wash dishes, bus tables, pick crops, landscape, bag groceries, etc. Yes, the jobs are not glamorous and don’t pay well but it instills the sense that work = $$$ and $$$ = independence.

If kids don’t want to work the incentive may be as simple as not providing them with a smart phone. If they want one make them pay for it. With the cost of a smart phone today they will have to work to support it. Next is to have them pay rent if they live at home. I told my children that when they graduated high school they would start paying rent at a rate of 10 percent of the going rate in the area and it would increase 10 percent per year that they continued to live with us. (That would be delayed if they went to college but start at 50 percent when they graduated).

My point here is that allowing teens to be unaccountable young will only lead to a dependency on others as they get older. Here are some trends in our country. Children are living at home longer, getting married later and buying first homes later. Also, drug addiction and deaths due to overdose are on the rise for the first time in decades. People can argue there are other reasons for these social issues but in my opinion people who work for a living are happier and healthier than those that don’t.

The second recommendation is to make work a requirement nationwide to receive government health benefits for those who are capable of working. I was glad to see that N.H. passed SB-313 on June 5 and it was signed by Governor Sununu on July10. It was designed to do exactly that.

I want to note here that the bill was sponsored by six Republicans and no Democrats. Both political parties agree that health care is important but apparently only one is willing to hold individuals accountable for paying for it themselves if they are capable.

I’ll close this letter with a general observation. Countries rise (and fall) based on vision and hard work. President Trump brought a vision of “Make America Great Again.” His actions and policies are bringing jobs back to this country but it’s up to all of us to literally “work” to make it a reality.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough