Pollster John Zogby told Secrets this week that support among younger voters aged 18-29 is down for President Obama and the new October unemployment rates announced Friday morning may explain why.
According to the government, the overall youth unemployment rate is 12 percent. But for younger black voters, a critical Obama support block, the rate is a staggering 21.4 percent. And for Hispanic youth voters it is 13.4 percent.
According to the youth-focused group Generation Opportunity, which pulled the youth figures out of the overall labor numbers, the picture might be worse.
"The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.7 million young adults that are not counted as 'unemployed' by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs," they said.
Generation Opportunity President Paul T. Conway, said "For the president, the failure to address young adult unemployment and to understand the negative impact on their hopes will, in retrospect, be seen as the reason why he lost support among millions of who once believed in his ability to affect lasting change."
