Well, again this is all anecdotal. But in my experience with friends and personal, it really depends on whether or not the young person has a support system fro

Well, again this is all anecdotal. But in my experience with friends and personal, it really depends on whether or not the young person has a support system from their parents or others. In my case, less then a year after graduation the agency I was working at lost our biggest client, I was the newest hire, and was in the first round of what ended up being a reduction of, no exaggeration 90% of the entire company so it could then be acquired. This was March 2009. I didn't have any real savings, and my parents couldn't bail me out. I qualified for the maximum which was about $316 per week after taxes. So of course immediately I was looking for a job, and had an offer in hand by the end of April, but it was for a lower paying job, it was clearly a stop-gap job. I think many people my age, don't want stop-gaps, but when you don't have a support system you need to do what needs to be done. Of course I kept moving forward and looking to move up, made a move from DC to NY for better money, and continue advancing. But had I not taken the "stop-gap" I would've crashed and burned. And so, the other folks I know who didn't take similar paths had one thing in common: they could count on their families or some financial support system. I don't begrudge that, I would do the same for my future heretofore unborn children, but it seems to me to be a common thread.