By Rob Basso on
1/25/2012 11:59 AM
As the US struggles to accelerate a sluggish recovery, a deeper look needs to be taken at the reasons for the slow recovery. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal government’s official source of employment statistics, in October 2011, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Americans 25 years and older who had at least a bachelor’s degree was 4.4 percent. For those who graduated high school, the unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in October 2011. However, for those without a high school degree the rate is 10.6 percent, and for those aged 25 and over, the unemployment rate was 13.8 percent. These are staggering numbers. How are we supposed to compete on a global scale when we have almost a quarter of high school students dropping out each year, or in other terms, over 340,000 students a year? In fact, the Education Database recently reported that high school dropouts are not eligible for 90% of the jobs in our economy and we have 40 million high school dropouts in the US today...