Just 30.4% of teens 16-19 years of age worked any job in Sep 2026

 This population needs to be shipped off to the factories and the fields.

 

In July 1978 60% of teenagers 16-19 years old worked, but in August 2026 only 32.8% do

Bring back the cult of work.

 

 

There were 25.89 million prime working age people 25-54 years of age in America just like Abdul who didn't work in August 2026, but Abdul says we have a cult of work

 We have 11.76 million teenagers 16-19 years old, 7.45 million college kids 20-24 years old, 25.89 million core adults 25-54 years old, and 67.63 million people 55 or older, all of whom did not work in August 2026.

That's over 112 million eating but not working.

They can't all work, obviously, but if each group lived up to its own past peak performance, 13.27 million more across all groups could in fact be working who are not working.

That 13.27 million more working is just 11.8% more.

GDP sucks in part because we aren't working up to our past potential.

As I incessantly point out, the key to a happy life is a full time job, because it allows you to arbitrage it for a car, a home, a spouse, and children.

Peak full time in America was in July 2000 when 54.67% had a full time job. In August 2026 just 49.14% did. The difference between those two points at current population is an extra 15.2 million full time jobs which we don't presently have.

America is a much bigger place now than in July 2000, too, by 63 million in civilian non-institutional population. Shouldn't that also make us stronger? 

Do we really think an extra 15 million out of 112 million is dreaming the impossible dream?  

We need leaders who don't think so.

But this guy . . . 

 

 

Who's not working in August 2026?

Over 112 million, that's who: 

67.2% of teenagers 16-19 years old: 11.8 million

33.7% of the college-aged 20-24 years old: 7.5 million

19.9% of prime working age adults 25-54 years old: 25.9 million

64.1% of the population 55 years old or older: 67.6 million.

Peak Baby Boomers worked when they were teenagers, at 2.07% of population, still the peak, today at just 0.78% of population

Get a haircut and get a real job
Clean your act up and don't be a slob
Get it together like your big brother Bob
Why don't you, get a haircut and get a real job?

-- George Thorogood, 1993

 

It's not a perfect one to one comparison, let alone an actual measurement, but about 20% of teenagers worked in 1979, and not quite 12% today:

Trump shill Andy Puzder complains of non-existent labor shortage, suggests more legal immigration while 3 million teenagers sit idle

Labor Shortage May Imperil Growth:

[T]he tight labor market is the elephant in the room. ... In July, the most recent month for which we have data, job openings stood at 7.2 million—nearly 1.2 million more than the number of unemployed. ... [A]t some point the economy will need more workers to meet that demand.

That means job training is increasingly important, particularly for discouraged workers who want to re-enter the labor force. ... Higher levels of merit-based legal immigration—as opposed to immigration based on distant family connections—could also relieve some of the pressure.

Both business owners and jobs data tell us the same thing: To sustain the recovery, the U.S. needs more workers.

The real elephant in the room is idle teenagers.

In 1978, 8.1 million American teenagers aged 16-19 had jobs, on average. That was 48.5% of their population of 16.7 million teens at the time.

In 2018 just 5.1 million teenagers worked on average, out of an equally matched population of 16.8 million aged 16-19. That's just 30.4% working.

Apply the 48.5% rate to today's average teen population and presto! 3 million more instantly working than are.

We don't need more immigrants. We need parents to kick their kids' butts, kids who increasingly fail to launch because they are in desperate need of job experience to help them grow up, become responsible and fly straight.

And it would also help to eliminate the minimum wage. What grocery store wants to pay some kid $7.25 an hour to corral shopping carts, restock returns and take out the trash? And adjusted for inflation from 1938, the minimum wage in 2018 should be closer to $4.45 an hour anyway, nearly 39% less than it is.

The higher than it should be minimum wage is a tax on teenage employment. And as with all taxes, the more you tax something the less of that something you get. That's one reason high levels of illegal immigration remain so persistent. It's a natural response to an unnatural situation created by hypocritical politicians who claim to believe in the free market but don't really.

And it's nothing new. We just hoped Trump & Co. would be different. 

       

Arbeit macht GDP: At root America's basic economic problems lie at every level in not working enough

There is no age tranche working up to its potential, especially not teenagers, but also not the college-aged, not the core 25 to 54 years, and now not even the over 55 crowd. The latter in fact has only been held up more or less by those over 65 ramping up their participation in the wake of The Great Recession.

It all starts with the phenomenon of "failure to launch" in the teenage years. Baby Boomers didn't simply have fewer children and work less. They had fewer children who also lacked a vigorous work ethic. And that now appears institutionalized in the children of the children as well. This has now rippled through the system, as can be seen in the increasingly later dates for peak average annual participation in the age tranche charts below (1979, 1987, 1997, 2012, and 2016-2017?). GDP will not improve without a cultural reestimation of work. And a return to work will not occur without a need to return, which can only mean one thing:

“from rice paddy to rice paddy in three generations.”

16 to 19

20 to 24

25 to 54

55 and over

65 and over (subset)

Your kid probably isn't working this summer like he should be, because of the minimum wage and cheap immigrant labor

The population level of teenagers in 2017 has recovered to 1978 levels, but only 29% are employed in May 2017 vs. 47% in May 1978.

The minimum wage has made it too expensive to hire your kid to recover shopping carts at the grocery store, and soaring immigration means your kid competes against Francisco to cut the grass and Sanjay to sell ice cream.

Make teenagers work again: Repeal the minimum wage

3.3 million fewer teens work in 2016 than in 1978 even though

the size of this population in 2016 is the same as in the late '70s

The minimum wage of 30 cents an hour which prevailed throughout World War II is the equivalent of $5.12/hr today using CPI, not the federally mandated $7.25/hr.

The minimum wage today has outpaced CPI by almost 42% since its inception. Meanwhile teenage employment has contracted by almost 40% since the late 1970s peak.

Already by 1978 the minimum wage was wildly out of whack. It should have been only $1.41/hr instead of the federally mandated $2.65/hr, outpacing inflation by a whopping 88%. No wonder employers have sought cheaper labor abroad, wrecking it for everyone, not just teenagers.

Do we believe in free market capitalism, or not?

WaPo doesn't mention the minimum wage is too high and attracts cheaper illegal immigrant workers, displacing teenagers, which is just fine with them

There are all kinds of jobs not worth the minimum wage of $7.25, and we should abolish it forwith. Youth employment would surge, as would respect for a dollar and the value of capitalism. Maybe that's why liberalism keeps raising the minimum wage.

US teenagers used to do those jobs, and gained the valuable work experience and good habits employers look for in adults but often do not find any longer.

In the United States children who have reached 14 years of age may work limited hours in many jobs. 

There are an estimated 24 million kids aged 14 through 19.

In July 2016 just 6 million aged 16 through 19 were employed, about 38% of that slice of teenagers.

Here:

[A]t least 8 million unauthorized immigrants are employed, most have been in this country for 15 years or longer, and typically they do jobs — tending crops, washing dishes, mowing lawns — that native-born Americans do not want. In basic economic terms, illegal immigrants meet the labor market’s demand for lower-wage employees, for which there is a shortage of available legal workers.

Trump is right that wages are too high: The minimum wage should be reduced to $4.20 per hour, not raised, to put teenagers back to work

Trump was right when he said during the debates that wages are too high. He was referring to our comparative disadvantage as a nation with lower wages abroad.

A key reason wages are "too high" in the US is because the minimum wage sets the floor for wages too high to begin with. That's why Trump said he didn't want to see a minimum wage increase. But we could actually start to reverse this problem by reducing the minimum wage to $4.20 per hour, not raising it.

Currently the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, almost 73% higher than it should be.

The minimum wage set by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set the minimum wage at $0.25 per hour. Indexed to the Consumer Price Index since then, the current level should be about $4.20 per hour, through 2014.

One terrible consequence of artificially high wages at the bottom of the scale is that average teenage employment in the United States has plummeted from its high in 1978 and 1979 at 8.1 million to 4.7 million in 2015.

As recently as 2006 teenage employment averaged 6.2 million, but now on average 1.5 million fewer teenagers work compared to 2006 after a fusillade of minimum wage increases were unleashed beginning in 2007 under George W. Bush.

Demographics are not to be faulted. Birth rates have held steady between 1977 and 1999 at 15.525 per 1000, so that people born between those years turned 16 between 1993 and 2015, providing a steady supply and a steady level of young labor.

So compared to peak teenage employment, 3.4 million fewer teenagers work today even as the federal minimum wage was hiked ELEVEN times:

From $2.30 in 1976

to $2.65 in 1978,

to $2.90 in 1979,

to $3.10 in 1980, 

to $3.35 in 1981,

to $3.80 in 1990,

to $4.25 in 1991,

to $4.75 in 1996,

to $5.15 in 1997,

to $5.85 in 2007,

to $6.55 in 2008,

to $7.25 in 2009.

That's a 215% increase in the minimum wage since peak teenage employment, accompanied by a 42% decline in that employment. You get the picture. Increase the cost of labor, and you get less of it.

Teenage employment is critical to transmitting our values to the next generation of Americans by giving the young an opportunity to gain the work experience and habits they will need to get that first "real" job, and to learn the relationship between effort and enjoying the fruits of labor.

Unfortunately their teachers and parents have not been communicating this message in word nor in deed. The socialism of Bernie Sanders is all the rage at the schools even as the parents idly answer the siren song of minimum wage increases sung by Republicans and Democrats alike.

The only problem with all that is, eventually the kids will run out of the fruits of other people's labor, including their parents'.

    

22 States and DC raise minimum wage this year: Expect teen employment to remain in depression or decline further

Teen employment levels today at 4.6 million are still 2.9 million below their 2006 peak of almost 7.5 million.

This is not just an artifact of the 2008 Panic.

The Federal minimum wage was increased nearly 41% over three years beginning before the panic began, from $5.15 to $5.85 in July 2007, to $6.55 in July 2008, and to $7.25 in July 2009. It is noteworthy that teen employment suffered almost immediately with the first increase in 2007, not reachieving the 2006 peak teen employment level in July of 2007 even as full-time employment hit an all-time record high. Teen employment continued to decline each summer through 2011 before stabilizing at the new low level, averaging about 4.4 million now vs. about 5.9 million previously. Raising the minimum wage has effectively sidelined 1.5 million teenagers permanently.

Raising the minimum wage now in 45% of the country only means inexperienced people like teenagers will find it even more difficult to find that first job going forward.

This is not free-market economics. It is crony capitalism which redistributes income to low-wage-earning adults at the expense of the young.

Call it part of the liberal war on children. Hey, if you forgot to abort 'em, impoverish them!

Our brilliant masters raised the cost of youth labor by 41% in the teeth of the financial crisis, decimating their employment by 43%

The current deficit in the general employment level is about 1.55 million below the July 2007 peak (all figures are not-seasonally-adjusted as published by stlouisfed.org). Since the measurement typically is at its highest in the summers, it looks likely that after seven years we are finally going to dig out of this hole this coming summer. Swings up 2 to 4 million from the winter lows to the summer highs are not unusual for this measurement.

That said, deficits in the levels for some age groups remain, and reveal how far behind the employment level remains even as population has increased over the period by an additional 16 million.

The question is why.

Most importantly, workers in the core of the working age population 25-54 years old are today 5.7 million fewer in number than they were at their November 2007 peak, which is the largest deficit by age group.

The oldest of these workers today were born in 1960 when births per 1000 women were still 23.7. The youngest were born in 1989 when births per 1000 women had plummeted to 16.4. But it wasn't until 1965 that births fell below 20 per 1000. That means there are only five tranches left in the measurement today from the high birth rate years 1960-1964 inclusive, whereas seven years ago the picture was a little different. We had seven more high birth rate years represented than we do today. Those aged 54 seven years ago were born in 1953 when births per 1000 were pushing 25. Births per year from 1955 through 1964 reached as high as 4.27 million in 1961. Contrast that with 1973 through 1976 when births crashed to 3.1 million per year, a deficit of 4 million over just those four years compared to the pre-1965 levels.

It appears therefore that the fall-off in the employment level of those 25-54 can be explained entirely by the aging of their cohort in which many millions over the last seven years have moved on to the next level, and by the failure of the younger members of this group to bring up the rear in terms of their aggregate numbers because there just weren't enough of them born. The reason for the decline of their employment level is therefore structural, not economic, and will continue to be so for the next five years.

Indeed, workers aged 55 and older have escaped a decline in their employment level. There are in fact 6.9 million more working at this age right now in 2014 than there were exactly seven years ago, which is what one would expect from the data. The Baby Boom is simply aging and continuing to work as it did before, and it has a lot of room left to run.

If there is an economic problem revealed by the employment level, it has to do with the youngest workers.

Consider teenagers 16-19: 3.2 million fewer teenagers are working today in that age range than at their pre-recession peak in July 2006 at 7.5 million. That's a 43% decline in teenage employment levels in almost 8 years, an utter catastrophe which has nothing to do with demographics. Birth rates have held steady between 1987 and 1998 at 15.4 per 1000.

Unfortunately, teenagers paid the biggest price because in the teeth of the first economic depression in the post-war this country decided it would be a good idea to raise the minimum wage in 2007, again in 2008, and again in 2009. When wages came under severe pressure for every other age group and millions took pay cuts just to keep working, our brilliant masters decided to raise the cost of youth labor by 41% since 2006. And then the dopes voted for a guy who wants to raise the cost of their labor another 39%.

  

College age workers 20-24 by contrast, are in deficit from July 2007 by only 0.8 million.

The declines for the three age groups of 9.7 million minus the gain of 6.9 million for those 55 and older implies a net loss of 2.8 million in the employment level, impacting workers primarily 16-19.

If you want less of something, tax it. And that's what the minimum wage is, a tax on labor which reduces the quantity of it naturally.