Young Invincibles and Demos partnered to complete The State Of Young America report, the first comprehensive look at the economic challenges facing young adults since the Great Recession. In addition, we conducted a groundbreaking poll with Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research & Consulting of 872 young adults (18-34).
Jobs
Persistent Wage Gaps & Unemployment
- Young Latinos earn only 68 cents for every dollar earned by whites.
- Unemployment is higher for young Latinos of all ages and genders than for the population as a whole.
- Joblessness declines for Latinos in their mid-twenties and early thirties, though both African Americans and Latinos continue to experience double-digit rates of unemployment at this age (See Figure).
Education
The gap in college completion has widened by race since 1980, though all groups have higher percentages of 4-year degrees.
- Just 46% of Latino bachelor’s candidates completed a bachelor’s degree within 6 years.
- The percentage of young Latinos with a bachelor’s degree grew from 9% in 1980 to 14% in 2011.
- African-Americans and Latinos comprise 28% of all undergraduates, but make up nearly half (46%) of undergraduates in the for-profit sector.
Health Care
Young minorities are disproportionately likely to lack health care.
- Over half (51.7%) of all Hispanics 24-35 year olds were uninsured in 2009, compared to 33.8% of blacks, and 20.8% of whites the same age.
Raising A Family
The high cost of child care leads many to turn to relatives or ad-hoc child care arrangements, which are particularly common among low-income and minority workers.
- 25.6% of children of families above the poverty line were in center-based care in 2010, compared to 15.4% of children of families below the poverty line.
- Young children of Latino mothers were primarily cared for by relatives – collectively, at 60.7% in 2010 – more frequently than children of either African American or white mothers, of whom 47.6% and 44.9%, respectively, in the same year were cared for by their relatives.
