THE BASIC problem that the US faces is that its citizens are unable to accumulate wealth - something they were known to do with ease in the past. The average American Tom, Dick and Jane who used to literally drive the engines of the global economy have gone off the radar. Corporate America has closed its doors on them. Fancy or subsidized public school degrees are being of no help nor are years of experience - simply because nobody wants to hire them. The stuttering US economy doubly gasping due to a debt-laden Eurozone, is experiencing a dry spell of customer buying like never before. US President Barack Obama, the US Federal Reserve and the newly-formed Jobs Council are pumping truck loads of bail out money and devising futuristic schemes but the one thing they are not able to do, or are unable to do, is to force, cajole or push reluctant American customers - who have either gone into deep-saving mode or have simply nothing to pay with - to start spending again. This avalanche of circumstances, which started gathering momentum during the wasteful presidency of George W Bush, is leading to disillusionment amongst substantial working class of America. The Disemployed Generation, which used to have solid jobs, or are in a position to land one, is finding it difficult to find work. Trained engineers, accountants, lawyers, school teachers, retail salespersons, construction workers, and even college professors are postponing grand plans and young adults are delaying marriage and buying fewer things, raising children out of wedlock, and are filling up job applications forms for which they are either over-qualified or not qualified. In fact, 1 in 5 of this generation is likely to live poverty. It is the Disemployed Generation that’s behind the widening appeal of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ street protests from New York to Seattle.

Within this Disemployed Generation, the US is losing vast number of experienced professionals who were retrenched and self-employed professionals who instead of providing employment are now seeking any kind of sustenance to survive the shock of their businesses being wiped off in front of their eyes for no major fault of theirs. This 'middle class' of working America is what held together the American economy, providing their precious experience to run simple and sophisticated businesses. The Disemployed Generation that the US has lost and is likely to lose for a few more years is robbing the US economy of its vitality and competitive rigour, which has already been blunted by China's aggressive periscope-like national vision and Europe's inability to throw a couple of million customers in its way, which in past recessions used to cushion the US's recessionary falls.

The 2010 US census reports that the population in the age group of 20-30, which should be taking the US forward faces missed opportunities and unattractive possibilities due to high unemployment, which is threatening to roll over their prospects. While the US government says that national unemployment stands at 9.1 per cent, the 'real' unemployment on ground is more than 16 per cent - if one takes into consideration the number of people who can't or are unable to find suitable jobs. It's America's Disemployed Generation that accounts for nearly half of US's unemployment. For a country that's forming ambitious plans to ramp up spending on infrastructure, reduce government spending to cut fiscal deficit, and more importantly, prepare for the future - not having a substantial chunk of driven and skilled workforce is a serious disadvantage when countries such as China, India and Brazil are increasingly able to kill competition on any level - be it cost, technology or human capital. The Disemployed Generation will find itself in an embarrassing situation, when the recession does get over, as it will have no choice but to compete with new graduates for entry-level career positions.

What's really causing US President's hitherto curly black hair to grey is not so much so the Disemployed Generation but the growing populace of No-Clue and I-Don't-Know Americans who the US can't use to fill emerging technology jobs and industries of the future. The challenge that the US economy faces is how to train from a construction worker to a lab technician. While the construction and infrastructure industry can provide solace for the present it's the industries such as bio-tech and hi-tech manufacturing that will drive future growth. The fact that bang in the middle of a roaring recession there are 400,000 unfilled health jobs and 3 million unfilled positions and nobody to fill them - is a clear indicator that the US did not plan for the future the way China planned. Knowing its vast population will require increasing resources, China is present in every corner of the world - digging, mining, copying technology, playing eco-geo-politics of the most capitalist kind. And where is the US? It’s running bills worth billions of dollars playing the policeman in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and also maintaining hugely costly military bases around the world. The real war is being fought in malls, bazaars, and offices. 

For the Disemployed and the No-Clue generation to get back on track it's essential that they collectively erase the devil-may-care attitude with which most of them led their lives – at least till 2008. It's because of Tom, Dick and Mary - their four television sets, three fridges, three cars, ten credit cards, and two houses, that the US, till today, has a mammoth $22 billion personal storage industry occupying a colossal 2.2 billion sq ft of space - just to store what was extra they could not accommodate in their already packed homes.

Will we see the US again becoming one of the major economic engines in its full glory? We will, but it will take time as the Republicans and Democrats are fighting a pitched battle in Washington to assert their respective economic agendas even as China is busy copying the best technology of America, German, South Korea, Russia, the UK, and of whoever cares to invest in China, to forge ahead and leave the US even more in debt. The US needs a structural overhaul that puts education and entrepreneurship first and not the consumer. It needs to be like Singapore among other countries – decide what all it does best and allocate resources and governmental direction for future demand than just scurrying to catch up with competition. America needs to enter a deep phase of consolidation while it douses recessionary fires. Obama, in whatever time he has, must take the US back to the drawing board and start from scratch to strengthen fundamentals – otherwise nobody in the US would like to sing Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ – preferring, or rather forced, to croak Cutting Crew’s ‘I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight’.

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