| There are structural changes happening in the economy that would have hollowed out some jobs anyway. But Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Gathner have made it much worse than it needed to be. |
Members of this shadow generation have already started out their young-adult lives with a distinct disadvantage, especially if their parents did not have a college degree or were already struggling to stay within striking distance of the middle class. Children of the unemployed are 15 percent more likely to repeat a grade than their peers whose parents held on to stable jobs, a 2009 study by Stevens and economist Jessamyn Schaller found. They are more likely to live with adults whose health is affected by a job loss. Life expectancy drops by 12 to 18 months for people who are unemployed for a long stretch of time, according to a study by economist Till Marco von Wachter and Daniel Sullivan, the director of research and an executive vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Worse, their families may never recover financially; even 15 to 20 years later, losing a job can translate to as much as $140,000 less in lifetime wages, according to a 2009 paper by von Wachter, Jae Song, and Joyce Manchester. For many families, a job loss also nudges them into poverty. From August 2008 to August 2009, Brookings reports that the number of children on food stamps jumped by 3.4 million.
Adulthood doesn't necessarily offer relief, either, for the children of the unemployed: They tend to have a hard time in the job market. A 2005 study showed that children whose fathers lost a job during the recession in the early 1980s earned 9 percent less in wages during their lifetimes than children whose parents held on to their jobs. They were also more likely to end up on unemployment or some form of social assistance as adults.
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