INSIDER VIEW: Good intentions pave the road to unemployment hell

For those that still follow the news, the issue of the ‘disconnected youth’ will be a familiar one. 

They reckon between 7%–11% of those aged 16–24 in the States are classified in this category, meaning that they are not in school, employment, or training.

Although this percentage fluctuates significantly depending on state and demographic group, it still represents a mind-boggling chunk of the American population.

Whichever side of the political spectrum you sit on, there must surely be a broad consensus that this is a massive issue that costs everyone and should be fixed — or, at least, improved upon — urgently.

Where politics may come into play, and therefore where consensus could go out of the window, is on the issue of how we can go about fixing the problem and whether this is worth the trade-offs.

If we accept that stagnant macroeconomic conditions and specific growth-stifling government intervention on businesses both play a role in the scale of the problem, then a handful of solutions spring to mind.

The government (at federal and state level) could reduce taxes on businesses but opponents would say that this would impact the already strained public purse further, at least short-term.

Or it could row back on some of the legislation that it’s introduced regarding employment rights — federal regulations, complex state-by-state labor laws, mandatory reporting, and rising litigation risks.

Again, from an economics perspective this would be a no-brainer and would stimulate the economy for relatively low-paid, young workers almost overnight. But the counter-argument would be that America doesn’t want to become an economy where young people are treated as disposable assets by greedy corporations. 

The counter to the counter would be that there are no employment rights for the millions of young people that now don’t have jobs at all. And so the argument can go back and forth indefinitely. Consensus in politics is as rare as a Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime.

The question is: would the people in government who make up a lot of these employment-deterring policies genuinely be happy if every single 16–24 year-old in the US was out of work and education? It sounds like a facetious question, but it’s not meant to be. 

Assuming that politicians of all persuasions are sincere in wanting to improve everyone’s lives — I know many would call this a reckless assumption! — then we have to believe that they wouldn’t be at all happy if the disconnected youth crisis worsened. And, if that’s the case, then we should hope that they might swallow some pride and ideology and work closer with businesses.

Independent of Watch Insider, I genuinely know half a dozen friends who had weekend jobs at a jeweler during their studies. It benefitted both parties and it feels like madness to consign this dynamic to the past in the name of greater rights for the people that are now jobless because of these same rights.

It’s possible to be pro-workers’ rights in a general sense, without making it much more expensive and complex to hire in the first place. That road, which is undoubtedly paved with good intentions, leads to unemployment hell.