So, you studied hard and graduated from college. Maybe you graduated with honors and perhaps even finished among the best in your class. You did what everyone said you needed to do in order to get a good job -- you graduated from college. After graduation you've seen advertisements for very few openings in your field, and you've submitted resume after resume. Maybe you've had an interview or two, but haven't been offered a job. You've had to move back with your parents and have had to settle for a job that doesn't require a college degree. You're making minimum wage or maybe a few cents more per hour. You don't earn enough to even think about buying a house, let alone a car.
Or maybe you graduated from college a couple of years ago, lost a job during the recession and have been looking for another job. You have some experience in your field and you thought that surely you would be able to find a good job after going without work for a couple of weeks. But the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into a couple of years. You're wondering if you will ever find a job in your field that pays enough for you to buy a house or car or to support a family -- or to have any of the things normally associated with being a member of the middle class.
Do either of these scenarios describe the difficulty you've faced in finding a job -- a good job -- in your field of study?
If so, you're not alone. About one-half of recent college graduates have been unable to find a job in their field of study. The job market for recent graduates is the worst it's been since the Great Depression at the start of the last century. Tens of thousands of your classmates are also out of work, and things don't appear to be getting any better.
So, why haven't you been able to find a job? It's complicated, but let me try to explain.
The recession officially ended in June 2009. Since then, our economy has been in a "recovery." Unfortunately, this recovery has been the worst since the Great Depression.
The reason this slow recovery is that businesses -- small. medium and large -- are faced with an uncertain future. The policies of the Obama Administration have created this uncertainty in terms of environmental regulations, taxes on income and healthcare costs. This uncertainty has resulted in businesses curtailing new hiring and halting any expansion or investment in capital projects.
In short, as a result of this uncertainty created by the Obama Administration, you don't have a good job.
Let's take a look at each of the areas of uncertainty for business and industry.
President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is clearly out of control. Just as businesses invest funds to meet one new environmental regulation, another, stricter one is enacted. In some cases, the EPA seems to be more intent on closing entire industries than protecting the environment. Business and industry don't know what these new regulations will cost or even when they will be enacted, so they are leery of expanding or hiring new people when one unreasonable regulation could close their doors.
As for taxes, President Obama has made it clear he wants affluent people and businesses to pay what he describes as their "fair share." The affluent people he's talking about are mostly the small business owners, the people who create the majority of jobs in America. They don't know how much more in taxes they will pay, so they're afraid to hire new people or to expand their business because they don't know what their profit margins will be -- or even if they will be able to operate profitably when these new taxes are enacted.
The costs of healthcare seem to increase every year, but another monkey wrench has been thown into the equation -- Obamacare -- that has created even more uncertainty. Most of the new healthcare law will not be enacted until 2013 and 2014, so businesses don't know how this new law will fully impact them. In just the past year, the average cost of healthcare insurance for their employees has increased by $2,500, although the President said that Obamacare would decrease by $2,500 this year. Clearly, this new law will cost a lot more than the President said, and businesses know that the majority of those increased costs will ultimately be passed on to them in taxes and/or penalties. They're afraid to hire more employes or to expand because they simply don't know what the affect will be on their bottom lines.
This uncertainty is why so few jobs have been created. This uncertainty is also why you and so many of your classmates have been unable to find a job in their fields of study.
To put this uncertainty in terms anyone can understand, imagine that you save up just enough money for an Ipad. But as soon as you have the money saved and are ready to buy your Ipad, your car breaks down and you take it to the mechanic. Do you buy the Ipad until you know how much it will cost to fix your car? Of course not. Uncertainty causes you to move cautiously with your money. Businesses operate the same way. Until they know what things will cost, they are reluctant to spend.
Remember then-candidate Barack Obama, who promised you Hope and Change? As a result of his policies, you Hope you will be able to find a job in your field and you're essentially earning pocket Change for doing a job well below your talents and abilities. If President Obama is reelected for four more years, he will undoubtedly continue the same policies that created the uncertainty that has left millions of Americans unemployed or underemployed.
There's are two other major factors to consider during this election: debt and entitlement programs. Under President Obama, our national debt has increased by 50% in just three and one-half years. It now stands at $16 trillion. To put this debt in perspective, the amount owed by the United States equates to over $533,000 for every household in America. Unfortunately, President Obama has not offered any serious proposal to cut this debt, which threatens the security and standard of living for every citizen, especially younger Americans. Although Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are all racing toward insolvency, President Obama not made a serious proposal to rein in their costs so that future generations of Americans -- your generation -- has access to these vital programs.
In short, President Obama is mortgaging your future for his reelection. President Obama has said that the proposals by Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, to cut the debt and slow the growth of entitlements are "extreme" and "radical." The truth is that not doing anything, as President Obama has done, is what is truly extreme and radical.
Fortunately, you have a choice this election. In Romney and Ryan, you have two people with unique qualifications that will allow them to tackle the serious issues facing our nation. Romney has a "stellar" business record, even according to former President Bill Clinton. Romney clearly knows what businesses require in order to expand and hire more people. He also was an effective governor, turning a debt into a surplus without raising taxes and cutting Massachusetts' unemployment rate to under 5%. Ryan, 42, is closest in age to your generation of any of the candidates, and he is considered to be the most knowledgeable budget expert in Congress. He knows that unless something is done soon to cut the debt and slow the growth of the entitlement programs, your generation and his children's generation will be faced with a standard of living below that of previous generations and without the benefit of entitlement programs that have served generation after generation of Americans.
Millions of Americans were truly inspired by then-candidate Obama in 2008 with his soaring rhetoric and his promises to unite a divided country. But four years later, the economy has not improved and our country is still divided. In fact, things have gotten much worse.
Of all Americans voting in the election of 2012, college graduates in their 20s should understand better than anyone else that President Obama's policies just haven't worked. But will they be persuaded by more the President's inspiring rhetoric, or his pathetic record creating jobs for people in their age group?
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