Young Underemployed College Graduates Should be Recruited into the Cooperative Movement

“As of December 2021, 41% of college graduates ages 22 to 27 were underemployed, compared with 34% among all college graduates.”[1] Moreover, this underemployment “often carries an earnings penalty” that can increase over time.[2] Thus, underemployed college graduates who find themselves unable to escape underemployment could be attracted to opportunities to mitigate that earnings penalty. Here, worker-owned cooperatives can provide an answer because cooperatives offer the potential for improved wages, benefits, and psychological security.[3] This may prove particularly attractive to younger underemployed graduates who fear remaining in the underemployment trap.

Furthermore, cooperatives require their members to continue learning as their businesses evolve and grow.[4] College graduates, by virtue of finishing, have demonstrated a capacity for learning and resilience because less than two-thirds of college students finish their degrees.[5] Thus, there is a ready population of people – particularly young people – likely to be looking for opportunities to improve their material conditions with the capacity to learn and adapt.

Lastly, the politics of young people indicate they could be particularly well disposed to the cooperative movement on ideological grounds. In 2019, Gallup Polls found that younger Americans viewed capitalism and big business less favorably and socialism more favorably than older generations.[6] Yet, small business, entrepreneurs, and free enterprise still scored well among young people.[7] Hence, cooperatives occupy a middle space that should be attractive because they tend to be small businesses that require entrepreneurship but also shift who controls and owns “the means of production” (in our society that is the firm) to the workers.

Overall, I hope that this population can prove fertile ground for recruiting organizers and advocates in the move to strengthen cooperatives in the US.

[1] Katherine Schaeffer, 10 facts about today’s college graduates, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Apr. 12, 2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/12/10-facts-about-todays-college-graduates/. [2] Preston Cooper, Underemployment Persists Throughout College Graduates' Careers, Forbes (June 8, 2018), https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/08/underemployment-persists-throughout-college-graduates-careers/?sh=70595ce07490. [3] Hilary Abell, The Case for Employee Ownership, Project Equity 1, 13 (2020), https://project-equity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/The-Case-for-Employee-Ownership_Project-Equity_May-2020-2.pdf. [4] Worker Cooperative Toolbox, Northcountry Coop. Found., 1, 45 (2006), https://institute.coop/sites/default/files/resources/372%202006_NCDF_worker_coop_toolbox_0.pdf. [5] Schaeffer, supra note 1. [6] Lydia Saad, Socialism as Popular as Capitalism Among Young Adults in U.S., Gallup (Nov. 25, 2019), https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capitalism-among-young-adults.aspx. [7] Id.