From London to Los Angeles, young people are being sidelined by a toxic mix of open-border policies, technological disruption, welfare traps, and regulatory burdens. In Britain, mass migration is directly fueling a youth unemployment crisis. Across the Atlantic, American college graduates face record underemployment despite a seemingly resilient economy. As I emphasized in my speech to the Youth Session at the ECR Party Economic Forum in Romania, we cannot allow the next generation to languish on benefits while opportunities slip away. If we are going to pass down the traditions of freedom, private property, and other shared values we must teach young people that capitalism, not socialism and benefits, works. Policymakers in the UK and US must prioritize citizens, reform incentives, and equip youth with real skills for a competitive world. Comparing the two approaches across the Atlantic, neither side is fully succeeding at getting the message across to youth. While British leadership currently lives in denial and lets the economy spiral, the Americans are failing to address the extreme disadvantages young people are facing with inflationary costs, and rampant underemployment during the AI transition. While Britain leans too heavily on a welfare system from a past century, America refuses to acknowledge that some social benefits, and economic programs, not just pure capitalism and technocracy, are required to keep youth on the right track in this moment of flux.
Recent research from the UK’s Centre for Social Justice lays bare the scale of the problem. Since January 2020, payroll employment for non-EU migrants under 25 has surged by 355%, adding roughly 290,000 workers. In stark contrast, employment among young British nationals grew by a mere 0.3%, or about 11,000 jobs. This translates to 27 young non-EU migrants hired for every one young Brit. Meanwhile, the number of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) has risen by nearly 200,000. Youth unemployment stands at its highest level in over a decade, with nearly one million 16- to 24-year-olds idle—enough to populate a major city.
The human cost is profound. According to one report, Parents, desperate to give their children an edge, are paying five-figure sums—up to £30,000—for specialist career coaching to help graduates compete against AI and automation in a brutal entry-level job market. This privatization of opportunity exacerbates inequality, favoring those who can afford premium guidance while others fall further behind.
Britain’s approach has been marked by denial and half-measures. Post-Brexit immigration rules were meant to prioritize domestic workers, yet non-EU inflows have continued at record levels. Employers often opt for migrants who may accept lower wages or fill immediate gaps, displacing native youth. Welfare expansions and high payroll taxes further discourage work among young Brits. Government reports acknowledge the NEET crisis but downplay immigration’s role, focusing instead on training programs that too often fail to deliver tangible results amid skills mismatches. The result is a “lost generation” risk, with projections of NEET numbers climbing to 1.25 million by the early 2030s if trends continue.
The United States tells a parallel but distinct story. Official youth unemployment figures can appear manageable, but underemployment reveals deeper rot. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the underemployment rate for recent college graduates (ages 22-27) hit 41.8% in Q3 2025—the highest since 2020. Many hold jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree, wasting years of education and debt. Unemployment for this cohort has also risen, with remote work accounting for a significant portion of the increase by limiting entry-level networking and on-the-job training opportunities.
While the US under Trump has taken critical steps to address the migrant crisis that was driving severe economic strain and rising youth unemployment, not enough has been done. In the past, US policymakers have leaned heavily on expansionary education spending, student debt relief proposals, and diversity initiatives, often at the expense of vocational training and deregulation. The Biden-era legacy of loose borders compounded labor market pressures, while post-pandemic remote norms and AI adoption have accelerated displacement. Now, the US faces the challenge of conducting large scale deportations to correct the oversaturation that occurred under Biden. At the same time, legal immigration reform has been ignored by both political parties for years, and the tech sector has faced mass layoffs of Americans while the flow of H1B visa workers continues to increase as if the two are seemingly unrelated. Of course, we all know that companies will take advantage of any system allowing the replacement of high cost workers with low cost ones, which has created some American companies that are entirely staffed by underpaid H1B migrants. Parents mirror their UK counterparts, investing heavily in coaches and extracurriculars. Yet systemic issues—skyrocketing housing costs, credential inflation, and regulatory barriers to small business hiring—trap ambitious youth in gig work or prolonged dependency. And even part time jobs that are meant for college or high school students, are still overrun by migrants of both legal and illegal origin. Students spend years and invest hundreds of thousands in education, only to be told they need some kind of work experience on their resume when graduating, as employers still rely on expectations from a bygone era when teens started summer jobs early in life.
This transatlantic crisis spans continents and demands shared conservative principles: protect citizens first, reject open-border experiments that dilute opportunity, curb welfare incentives that discourage labor force entry, and embrace pro-growth policies that unleash entrepreneurship. We must not let youth “languish on benefits” but create genuine pathways through apprenticeships, skills-based immigration that fills genuine shortages without undercutting locals, and education reform emphasizing trade skills alongside degrees. AI and technology are not enemies but tools—if paired with workforce adaptability training.
Contrasting approaches highlight what works. Countries with tighter immigration controls, robust vocational systems, and lower regulatory burdens see stronger youth outcomes. The UK and the US have a limited window during the rest of Trump’s term to course-correct: enforce borders, reform entitlements to reward work, slash barriers for startups, reform legal immigration, and invest in practical education over ideological mandates.
The stakes are not just about the next election, they are about the continuation of productive western nation states with skilled workers to support robust consumerist economies and a strong defense industrial base. In short, the problem is existential. A sidelined youth cohort breeds disillusionment, populism, and long-term economic drag not to mention feeds left wing fear mongering over the negatives of capitalism. Young people deserve policies that prioritize their entry into productive work—not virtue-signaling that imports competition or subsidizes idleness. The next decade hinges on reclaiming economic realism. Britain and America must lead by example, reforming immigration, welfare, and education to restore the promise of opportunity for their own young citizens. Failure is not an option.
