Mobility for young adults in the U.S. hits 50-year low

If the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s had not hit just as Stanley Joseph, a Central High School graduate, received his degree from Pennsylvania State University in 2007. . . .

If he hadn't been basically unemployed, or drastically underemployed, for the first five years out of college. . . .

And if he didn't have a total college debt of $60,000. . . .

Then maybe, at age 28, finally with a good job in his field and the potential to advance, Joseph would be ready to buy a house, look for a spouse, and start a family - things once typical for young adults at his age and stage of life.

Instead, Joseph, who lives with his parents in West Oak Lane, illustrates a national trend charted by new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau - that mobility for young adults has fallen to the lowest level in more than 50 years.

Struggling to overcome debt and the effects of the recession, they are shunning home-buying, delaying marriage, and postponing starting families.

"If I didn't have these debts, I would consider all those ideas," said Joseph, now a network administrator at a local university.

The census report deals with mobility - and it shows that young people are moving less than they had in the past. They aren't moving to other places for work, and they aren't moving within their counties to upgrade their housing.

"Young people aren't moving because the pace of job growth is pathetic," said labor economist Paul Harrington, head of the Drexel University Center for Labor Markets and Policy.

Among adults ages 25 to 29, 4.9 million, or 23.3 percent, moved in the 12 months ending March 2013, the Associated Press said, quoting census statistics.

That is down from 24.6 percent in the same period the year before. It was the lowest level since at least 1963. The peak of 36.7 percent came in 1965, when the counterculture movement was just starting.

In Pennsylvania, the percentage was slightly higher - 24.7 percent. In New Jersey, it was lower - 19.7 percent.

While home ownership across all age groups fell by 3 percentage points, to 65 percent, from 2007 to 2012, the drop-off among adults 25 to 29 was much larger - more than six percentage points, from 40.6 percent to 34.3 percent.

That reflects, at least in part, tighter lines of credit after the 2006 start of the housing bust. Declines in home ownership for those 40 and older in that five-year period were more modest.

"Mobility as a solution to labor market problems isn't as strong a solution as it used to be," Harrington said.

For example, he said, in the 2001 recession caused by the blowup of the dot-com industry, certain states were hit hardest. But opportunities elsewhere attracted job seekers, especially the young.

"People vote with their feet," Harrington said. But in the recent recession, which officially began in December 2007, job loss was everywhere - no region had enough strength to attract job seekers.

That situation, Harrington said, has not significantly improved. There are still 1.5 million fewer jobs than there were in December 2007. Accounting for the minimum of 100,000 jobs a month necessary to keep pace with population growth, the jobs deficit remains at 8.5 million.

Meanwhile, unemployment among the young remains high.

The unemployment rate for Joseph's age group - 25 to 29 - was 7.6 percent in October, compared with 7.3 percent overall, the U.S. Labor Department reported.

At the start of the recession, the unemployment rate for those 25 to 29 was 5.2 percent, rising to 11.8 percent at the worst of the downturn, in January 2010.

These days, Joseph's state of mind vacillates between optimism and pessimism.

The optimism is fueled by his job and the investment he is making in his future by pursuing a graduate degree. Because he lives with his parents, he is able to bankroll his tuition while aggressively paying down his undergraduate debt.

But he thinks he would have been further along if not for the recession. "It really destroyed my earnings potential for the future," he said.

He knows that he isn't alone.

"There are a lot of people just like me. I'm in the position of having a good job," he said. "Others don't have that, and they are working in whatever minimum wage they can find."