In response to the NEET's report from Alan Milburn, to which I have already referred this morning, here and here, I invited my son, James, who now works with me on research and content creation, to write a post on this issue from the perspective of a young person who has found employment, but still knows how difficult doing so really is.
His post can be found on our Substack, here. The conclusion is:
The social contract is broken. There is a generation of young people entering university who, by the time they graduate in three years' time, could find there are no jobs to be found, however hard they try.
This is not an individual problem. This is a systemic crisis that must be addressed. Right now, this country risks having an entire generation of ambitious and driven young people with nowhere to go, with no future and no prospects, while only the most fortunate, well-networked and driven will land anything post-university. This will be detrimental to both the economy and to our politics.
Let's not pretend that this country just has a NEETs problem, then. The issue is much bigger than that. Almost all young people are struggling, and the insecurity is disabling.
What young people need is hope and investment. They need to believe that there will be a brighter future tomorrow than there is today. We have seen what despair leads to. It leads to desperation, and that leads to the acceptance of political extremism. This is a crisis that must be met, face on. If not, the future of this country will become ever bleaker, and from where I stand, it does not look too good right now.
That seems right to me.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
James is right.
Neo-liberalism was always a one trick pony, a one way street. It was not about creating markets or industry or jobs, careers etc. It was always about monetising factors of production and existence so that it could be whisked away as money to be effectively hoarded and monopolised by a few people who felt that they were better than everyone else.
This is why MMT is so important and resisted – because it breaks the spell that there is no money, that the power has shifted for good. The power is still there and just needs to be released. Somehow.