Broke and Jobless: 85% of College Grads Moving Home

In yet another sign of the times, 85% of college graduates surveyed have reported that they will be moving home after they get their degrees:

Stubbornly high unemployment — nearly 15% for those ages 20-24 — has made finding a job nearly impossible. And without a job, there’s nowhere for these young adults to go but back to their old bedrooms, curfews and chore charts. Meet the boomerangers.

“This recession has hit young adults particularly hard,” according to Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center in DC.

So hard that a whopping 85% of college seniors planned to move back home with their parents after graduation last May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm based in Philadelphia. That rate has steadily risen from 67% in 2006.

“It’s peaking at levels we have not seen before,” said David Morrison, managing director and founder of Twentysomething.

While unemployment for college grads is 15% according to Bloomberg, we know for a fact that the overall rate of unemployment, per economist John Williams of Shadow States, is actually at around 22%.

It’s not just college students, it’s everybody - one in five able bodied Americans are out of work right now.

There is a reason that these numbers, especially for college grads, are peaking at levels we have never seen before: it’s because our economy is shambles with no clear recovery in sight. (more)