What a difference a decade makes.
In the year 2000, when today’s 30-year olds were about 17, wrapping
up high school and on the cusp of looking for work or heading to college, the
unemployment rate in the United States averaged 4.0 percent. The last time it
was that low was during the “Age of Aquarius,” in 1969. Since 2000, it has
never been that low again. When we wrote an earlier version of this book in
2003, the sun had set on the age of full unemployment. As we revisit this
critical issue, the jobless rate has ranged from 7 percent to 10 percent for over
four years, and it’s not expected to come down much anytime soon.