No matter how much people complain about long shifts or office politics, voters care about jobs more than any other issue. It comes as no surprise that all presidential candidates propose plans for creating more jobs and making sure fewer people are unemployed or underemployed. For Millennials, job creation is especially important, since the unemployment rate for young people is still way higher than the national average.
Millennials were hit particularly hard by the Great Recession. In 2010, unemployment averaged a whopping 25.8% among 16- to 19-year-olds, and 15.5% among 20- to 24-year-olds. Today, those numbers have come down, but youth unemployment is still higher than the national average. And for those lucky enough to have found work, wages for young adult workers still declined 70 percent faster between 2007 and 2014 than they did for all workers.
Unemployment for Millennials today isn't only a problem in the short term – it also has serious consequences for Millennials' futures. Many Millennials unable to find jobs end up discouraged, neither working nor in school. These years without employment lead to lower wages in the future, and cut down on young workers' opportunities for career growth and stability.
On top of these major personal problems, Millennial unemployment leads to a huge loss of tax dollars for the government, meaning that the entire country's economy suffers.