Things aren’t what they used to be

What we often teach students is to work hard so that they can go to college and get a good job, but what about this:

High unemployment is hurting many young people as they languish without developing job skills. The United States added just 80,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported on Friday: This amount is less than half of what would be needed for the economy to recover in a timely fashion, according to economists.

Older people are benefiting the most from the economic recovery, as they are snatching up a disproportionate share of the new jobs created, some economists say.Workers older than 55 have taken 58 percent of all new jobs in the past year, according to Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

We can ignore these stats and ignore this reality telling ourselves that things will be different once our students, our kids get to that point, but there has to be a breaking point somewhere. When will that be?