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It should be. For all practical purposes, all university students should always show up as "unemployed" in any statistics, because they are -- and they'll need
by maxsilver 6y ago
It should be.
For all practical purposes, all university students should always show up as "unemployed" in any statistics, because they are -- and they'll need to earn all of that cash back and then some extra, at some point in their lifetime.
- TonyTrapp 6y agoIf they are "funded" by their parents - why would they need to earn any of that back? Is that really how it works in the US? It's a matter of course in other countries that parents fund the education of their children.
- creata 6y ago> It's a matter of course in other countries that parents fund the education of their children. In some countries. In others (such as Australia), students take out an interest-free loan from the government, and are expected to pay it back, with or without the help of their parents.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoAre most students funded by their parents? I certainly wasn't, and neither was my wife.
- bluntfang 6y agoYou can't forget the HN demographic of upper middle class white men who pay for their children's education. I'd say most young adults entering college have a loan in their name. Cursory research [0] says >Today, roughly 70% of American students end up taking out loans to go to college. The average graduate leaves school with around $30,000 in debt and all told, some 45 million Americans owe $1.6 trillion in student loans — and counting. [0] https://www.marketplace.org/2019/09/30/70-of-college-students-graduate-with-debt-how-did-we-get-here/ https://www.marketplace.org/2019/09/30/70-of-college-student...
- TonyTrapp 6y agoAgain that is a very US-centric view. You don't pay 25,000$ a year for attending a university in Europe.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoThe post is titled "America's True Unemployment Rate," so it does make sense in this case to assume were talking about USA. I certainly was in my comment above.
- TonyTrapp 6y agoFair point about your comment, I'm just trying to make my point based on the original generalization I replied to: Part of it is simply wrong even for the US (see siblings), and the rest cannot stand as a generalization for the rest of the world, which "any statistics about students" doesn't account for.
- bluntfang 6y agoThanks, HN is a US-centric website.
- ecmascript 6y agoSo why should we not include children of all ages and retied people as well then? They are also unemployed. The reason you don't include full time students is the same for children and retired people. They are on their way to becoming productive citizens or have done their part for society.
- claudeganon 6y agoMany full time students are employed throughout college. As someone who attended the state colleges my family could afford, most students had part time employment and many were working full time.
- jlokier 6y agoWhat about retired people who aren't really retired, they are just drawing on their pension sooner than they'd like, as a desperate alternative to employment money to lengthen their rental runway to homelessness? Or they are drawing on a pension while doing food delivery gigs on the side to top it up to pay for essentials? I'd suggest a useful definition of "unemployed" for the purpose of evaluating if there's a problem is: "needs a job but can't get one". That covers retired-but-not-really people, and students who need to work for a living at the same time but are between jobs. But not children, or students with enough to live on from their parents.
- albntomat0 6y agoYour definition differs from the one used in the article "A person who is looking for a full-time job that pays a living wage — but who can't find one — is unemployed" I expect there's value in the statistic of everyone who lacks a full time job (unemployment in the sense you mention), but a student who has reasonable prospects of employment in X years, post graduation, is significantly different than someone failing to find an adequate job right now.
- claudeganon 6y ago> For all practical purposes, all university students should always show up as "unemployed" in any statistics, because they are That’s funny because I worked the entirety of my time as an undergrad, as did many of my peers.
- maxsilver 6y agoSorry, I worked through my entire undergrad as well. I meant we should never exclude young adults from unemployment metrics. If they aren't employed at a living wage, they aren't employed, being a student should not "bypass" that metric in any way.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoGo screw yourself. I worked 20/30+ hours a week for rent and to eat.