The economy hits youth worst as they lose the generational war

The Wall Street Journal provides an interesting commentary on how the persistently high unemployment and underemployment among the youth compares with the stagflation the baby-boomers experienced.  In 1982, unemployment rate for the youth was a high 17%.  But,

the situation quickly improved. By the end of 1983, the unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds had dropped below 14%, and it didn’t get back above that mark until the latest recession. This time around, joblessness among young people remains over 15% three years after the recovery began. ...
Many of today’s 20-somethings, therefore, are stuck on the sidelines for what should be — and what was for their parents — their most important years for wage growth and career development. The effects are likely to be long-lasting. A study by Yale economist Lisa Kahn found that “the labor market consequences of graduating from college in a bad economy are large, negative and persistent.”

From my reading of the situation, it is not getting better, and does not seem like it will get better any time soon.  It is awful!

On top of everything else, most of these youth are also graduating with debts from their years at colleges and universities, which then seems more and more the case that we are looking at a horrible prospect of, what Matt Yglesias referred to as, the indentured servant generation :(

Yet, we refuse to talk about one of the significant ways in which the youth are losing because the game is rigged against them: the enormous diversion of precious resources to the much older generations.

Social Security and Medicare were created in a very different America as a response to very different circumstances. The old-age entitlements were designed to alleviate problems related to an economy still in transition from rural agriculture to urban manufacturing and post-industrial services. Private pensions and retirement savings were relative rarities, and the communitarian dream of multiple generations living under the same roof—invoked as an ideal by some of the very people, such as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, who champion old-age entitlements as a means of “independence” for seniors—was a routine necessity.
That’s no longer the case in a country where most retirees are wealthier than the younger people paying for their benefits. According to 2010 data (the latest available) from the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Consumer Expenditure Data, the typical American 65 or older had a pretax income of about $41,000 and annual expenses of about $37,000, including $4,800 for all medical care costs they bear under the current regime (insurance, prescription drugs, doctor’s visits, etc.). Those who can pay for their needs out of their own pockets should do so

Perhaps only James Bond can help; can he?