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Upon graduation, debt-saddled young people face a fierce job market; youth unemployment has hovered around 16% for the last year and a half. The conundrum is that, although college degrees are exorbitantly expensive, they're increasingly necessary to even get in the door for a decent job.
Problem 10: Inequality is getting worse
It's well-known that the US ranks near the top of most unequal countries in the developed world – and that income inequality here has reached its highest levels since the great depression. A few statistics fill out the bleak picture: the top 1% of earners took 93% (pdf) of the income gains in the first full year of the recovery. The poorest 50% of Americans now collectively own just 2.5% of the nation's wealth.
What level of inequality is healthy for a society may be debatable, but an increasing number of economists and regulators – including those at the IMF and Federal Reserve – are recognizing that US-style inequality is bad for business, and the economy as a whole.
As these experts are starting to realize, the recovery will only come when workers get their due. Until then, American corporations are sowing the seeds of their own destruction – and taking the rest of us down with them.
