Summer jobs used to be a rite of passage for American teenagers. This year, they are hard to come by.
The job placement agency Challenger, Gray &Christmas projects that teenage workers will add fewer than 800,000 jobs from May to July 2026. If that happens, it would produce the lowest recorded level of teenage summer employment.
As with anything involving the economy, there are multiple factors. High gasoline prices and inflation are hurting consumer budgets. Worried consumers have companies leery about boosting hiring. Entertainment and leisure companies have significantly cut back on their hiring plans compared to past years. That’s especially tough on teenage job seekers.
But this isn’t a one-year blip. Hiring last year dropped by 25 percent compared to summer 2024.
“Last summer was the weakest summer for teen hiring we have ever recorded. What is striking is that it happened without a recession,” Andy Challenger, who monitors workplace trends for Challenger, Gray &Christmas, told The Wall Street Journal.
You can’t blame that on the Iran War. It suggests that there are other factors at work. One obvious culprit is the minimum wage. In New York City, it’s $17 an hour. In Washington state, it’s $17.13 an hour. In California, it’s $16.90 an hour for most employees and $20 an hour for fast-food employees. Nevada’s minimum wage is $12 an hour.
That’s a lot of money to pay a first-time employee who’s likely to leave in less than three months. That’s especially true when automation and AI continue to improve. Why pay to train a temporary employee when you can buy a machine that will never call in sick or quit to return for school?
Blinded by good intentions, minimum-wage proponents fail to see the unintended consequences of their meddling. The real minimum wage is $0 an hour, which many unemployed teens will learn the hard way this summer.
What’s lost here isn’t just a paycheck. Entry-level jobs provide teenagers with valuable real-world experience. They learn the importance of basics such as showing up on time, wearing the right uniform and interacting with customers. You can’t learn these things by scrolling TikTok on your smartphone.
Having a job also puts teenagers one step closer to receiving their first raise. As they increase their skills — and demonstrate their reliability — they become more valuable as employees. Over time, this translates into higher pay and more options.
But removing the bottom rung on the employment ladder makes these opportunities harder to come by. The solution to that problem isn’t raising the minimum wage — some are now pushing to make it $30 an hour. It’s to eliminate inflated minimum wage rates and let the free market work.
