Today, young Americans ages sixteen to twenty-four are experiencing unemployment rates that are at least twice the national average.

As of February 2022, the youth unemployment rate was slightly over 8 %. Youth unemployment has been a persistent and growing problem in the United States for decades, reaching a more than fifty-year high in the wake of the Great Recession in 2007 and 2008. Youth are often unable to find full-time positions or opportunities that match their skills or draw on their formal job training or education. The U.S. employment system also struggles to integrate younger generations into the workforce with paid opportunities. Internships are common for youth, especially those pursuing undergraduate studies, which limits both the type of youth able to participate (higher income) and where students are able to intern (typically office, high skill).

Earn and learn programs such as apprenticeships are not as readily available in the U.S. as they are in Europe. Additionally, many young people must take out student loans in order to attend college. This increases the financial burden associated with attending college and trying to find a job after college. If they are able to find a job, many entry-level jobs do not pay young people enough to be able to live and to pay back their student loans.        

Youth unemployment in general tends to ebb and flow as the economy shifts, just as the general labor market does, but in general young people in the United States always have a higher unemployment rate. Generally, the youth population in the United States has a large portion of individuals who are neither working nor actively looking for work because they are in some sort of school or training program. Therefore, the national unemployment rate for this group is often higher because young people have little to no labor market experience, and frequently lack the relevant skills to do the types of in demand jobs the economy asks for. Businesses also face higher costs of investment in more seasoned employees and lower costs of termination with younger workers, which results in young people being the first to go if a company is trying to reduce their labor costs.

It should be said, however that this reality is changing with the changing demographics facing much of the world, but especially in the United States. Young people opting out of, or exiting the labor force, is an issue of concern, particularly when they do not go on to undertake some form of training or other productive activity that a retiring generation of workers is no longer able to do.