Derek Thompson

How depressed are they?

All right, so those are the facts.

We've got low hiring rates for young college graduates, higher unemployment for young college graduates, and this is a group that is historically depressed about the state of the labor market.

What's going on?

I mean, let's start with the big kahuna here, which is artificial intelligence.

What do you consider the single strongest case

that this is happening in an age of AI because it is in fact artificial intelligence that is depressing the labor market for young college graduates specifically.

All right, Roger, you've told like a very clear, very intuitive story for why artificial intelligence would of course be able to explain what we're seeing among young people.

So I assume that economists have been able to prove that theory, prove that story with research.

Is it as simple as that?

It just makes it seem like it's an economy-wide phenomenon rather than a phenomenon of AI seeking out companies.

automating jobs that are most likely done by 22-year-old graduates from the University of Michigan in Middlebury, right?

Like, one way that I thought about that paper is like, imagine two economies.

Each of them have 100 people.

In economy number one, everyone is looking for work, but 10 people can't find a job.

So the unemployment rate is 10% in economy one.

In economy two, 100 people,

but 10 of them have dropped out of the labor force.

They're not looking for work at all.

The other 90 all found jobs.