I am going to talk about America’s younger generation, in other words, our future. It appears that our labor market and housing system are converging into a two-pronged crisis — one disproportionately hitting young men, the other reversing gains for women.

For men in their early 20s, unemployment is 8.3% —significantly higher than the rate of women the same age and about double what is considered the “natural” rate of unemployment. Even among recent college graduates, the unemployment is 5.3% with men’s rate pulling down that average while the female grad rate is pulling it up. Many young men have been funneled into hospitality, Uber driving and other informal sectors, creating widespread underemployment. More traditional paths such as construction and manufacturing remain cyclical and less reliable, offering little in terms of long-term stability. I was curious about these trends going back further and as it turns out, the male unemployment rate has been higher since 1990 despite more women attending college (that’s yet another article).

The housing market compounds the challenge. As you’ve heard me mention before, the median age of first-time homebuyers has risen from 28 to 38 in just one generation. In 2000, homes cost about three times the average household income; today homes cost six times the average household income. Inflation-adjusted wages since 2000 certainly have not increased six-fold, with “real” or inflation-adjusted wages relatively flat since 1990. I hear young people talk about the delayed milestones of adulthood, which they find discouraging, and which frankly fuel widespread cynicism among younger cohorts.

Women face a parallel but distinct obstacle. Labor force participation among mothers with young children has fallen by nearly three percentage points since January, the lowest in more than three years. Remember, the labor participation rate is different than the unemployment rate. Labor participation measures all workers who either work or would like to work. As such, a young parent who chooses not to work or look for work perhaps due to high child care costs would not be in the labor force. (This is distinct from the unemployment rate, which measures people who are either working or have actively looked for work in the just the past four weeks.) Over 212,000 women have left the workforce this year alone, largely due to the high costs and low availability of child care, return-to-office mandates, the barriers to homeownership, and other critical factors. The consequences are long-term: lower household earnings, lower to no funding of retirement accounts, and limited future career advancement.

Both trends undermine our aging labor force. Sustaining growth and competitiveness depends on bringing more (not less) working-age adults into stable, productive employment. The solutions are well-known but require real commitment: expanding affordable, starter-home supply like the city of Austin, Texas, has done; having more public and private funding for childcare including early childhood education; and embedding workplace flexibility for those who need it, work well in that structure and appreciate it.

Today’s young men face a drastically different labor market than their parents, reflecting a lag in relevant workforce training, another critical investment need. Our nonprofit, Data-Driven Economic Strategies, has conducted return-on-investment studies for these foundational tactics, and they always pay for themselves in spades due to more workers, a higher tax base, higher productivity and business growth, less need for government assistance programs, and even lower crime.

Tatiana Bailey is executive director of Data-Driven Economic Strategies. Other Gazette articles, TV segments, DDES monthly economic dashboards with technical explanations, and how to sponsor their work can be found at ddestrategies.org.