It’s Summer, but Where Are the Teenage Workers?

The New York Times reports:

Since 2000, the share of 16- to 19-year-olds who are working has plummeted by 40 percent, with fewer than a third of American teenagers in a job last summer. Their share of the overall work force has never been this low, and about 1.1 million of them would like a job but can’t find one, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Experts are struggling to figure out exactly why. “We don’t know to what extent they’re not working because they can’t find a job, or aren’t interested, or are doing other stuff — like going to summer school, traveling, volunteering, doing service learning,” said Martha Ross, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research organization based in Washington.

What is clear is that those who need a job the most are often the least likely to get one. To a large extent, the higher a household’s income, the more likely a teenager is to get a job. Suburbanites have a better shot than city dwellers, and white teenagers face far better odds than blacks, in part because of disappearing federal support for summer jobs.

Imagine that . The New York Times hasn't heard of the demand for labor is a downward sloping curve. Higher minimum wage push the unskilled out of the labor market . Is the New York Times just dumb or racist for looking the other way?