Since the Great Recession started, young people have weathered a disproportionate amount of the shocks that have resonated through the economy. Four years later, youth employment is at a 60 year low and student loan debt, which you can’t even get rid of via bankruptcy, is almost $1T. That’s trillion. With 12 zeros. Even recent college grads with decent degrees are having trouble finding jobs. Our government is broken, refusing to deal with real problems head on, preferring to engage in partisan bickering and gotcha politics.
We are going through the biggest changes since the industrial revolution. Technology is changing fast, replacing jobs with computer programs and robots that always show up for work and never get sick. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, we lost our manufacturing jobs. In 2008-2010, we lost many middle management white collar jobs. These jobs aren’t coming back. Our new industries only employ a fraction of the people our old giant companies did. Instead of looking for solutions, our institutions are failing us.
It begs the question: how safe is your job? Do you have a skill? Are you willing to work harder than other people? Do you take criticism and work under pressure? Are you better at something that just about everyone else? To succeed in our new economy you either have to create something on your own, have skills that help those who are creating succeed or be willing to work incredibly hard. You need to be willing to learn every day. You have to compete with the rest of the world!
From government to Wall Street, our instutions are failing us. They’re busy talking about how bad it is or recycling old ideas that aren’t going to work anymore. The loudest voices are not proposing real solutions. They are stuck in the past. So how do we help fix the problem?
Enter #FixYoungAmerica and The Young Entrepreneur Council. “From the Arab Spring to the Tea Party, from Occupy Wall Street to the SOPA and PIPA protests, we’ve seen the power of what like-minded individuals can achieve. #FixYoungAmerica is about starting a much-needed conversation in America and implementing a REAL plan of action,” writes Gerber. A combination of entrepreneurship, education, government policy and hard work will make things better. #FixYoungAmerica is designed to start the conversation and force it into the halls of government by getting our ideas into the hands of every member of Congress. It’s a movement that needs to happen.
I’ve been a big supporter and member of Scott Gerber and Ryan Paugh’s YEC movement from the beginning. I’ve seen the good work that YEC has accomplished so far and know this campaign can really make a difference. But #FixYoungAmerica needs your help. Check out the #FixYoungAmerica website and add your voice to the conversation. We need it.
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