Idle Hands

It's not only recent college grads that have seen their economic fortunes go woe. As Bob Herbert explains today, most of the jobs created since 2000 have gone largely to immigrants, leaving younger workers' to explore whether idle hands are truly the devil's playthings.

[A] recent report from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston tells us that the employment rate for the nation's teenagers in the first 11 months of 2004 - just 36.3 percent - was the lowest it has ever been since the federal government began tracking teenage employment in 1948.

Those 20 to 24 years old are also faring poorly. In 2000, 72.2 percent were employed during a typical month. By last year that percentage had dropped to 67.9 percent.

Two-thirds of this generation can't even reproduce their parents' prosperity. One of the most thoroughly ingrained beliefs of America is that you will do better economically than your parents before you.

It looks like another aspect of the American Dream is up for revision, which means, parents, get used to your kids, cause they're never leaving home.