President Obama can take some comfort at the latest unemployment statistics. Economic number-cruncher types expected things to be same in April as in March, but the 7.5% unemployment rate announced Friday is a tad better than forecasted. In fact, the unemployment rate has been heading down steadily since it topped 10% in October 2009. In all, 165,000 jobs were added in April, and February and March saw an upward revision of 114,000 of past published totals. No, we're not back in happy-go-lucky days, but there's certainly a case to be made that things are headed in the right direction.

But there are two glaring problems with this view of things: some Americans are so dejected that they are simply dropping out of the job search (and thus disappear from the statistics), as Guardian economics guru Heidi Moore pointed out last month. It's not exactly an economic victory when job-seekers are giving up.

Equally problematic is the persistently high unemployment rate for young people. For many subsets of the population, there's been a marked improvement from a year ago, but not for African Americans; nor for the young. The figures for the 20-24 age group have been especially dispiriting. The seasonally adjust unemployment rate for these young people is currently 13.1%, almost the same as last April. Consider that that is a worse unemployment rate than for those without high school diplomas (11.6%), and that the effective youth unemployment rate, which is adjusted for those who have given up looking for work, is several percentage points higher still. And combining those two subsets, more than one in five (20.4%) of 18-29-year-old African Americans is without a job.

One church on Long Island, near New York, has gone as far as to recommend that its attendees refrain from asking young people "what do you do?" Instead, as a recent church bulletin advised (pdf), it's better to ask the more generic "So, tell me about yourself." You know we've reached a tipping-point when you can't ask even twentysomethings about their work.

The Economist dubbed this global cohort of young people "Generation Jobless". Others have called them a lost generation or even "baby bust" – not exactly what any nation wants to follow on from the retiring "baby boomers".

What's alarming is that this isn't just a short-term problem. Even if the US economy improves dramatically in the coming months, these young people who can't find jobs now are likely to be scarred by the experience for their entire careers. They will have lower wages for life, according to several economic studies. That will cause social problems in addition to economic ones as these young people delay "life steps" such as purchasing a house, or even retiring, since they have not been able to build up as much in savings.

The plight of young people will also play directly into the debate in Washington, DC over whether to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9. President Obama pushed for this hike in his state of the union address, catching some off-guard. The discussion has come back into the spotlight somewhat as Obama's nominee for the Department of Labor, Thomas Perez, faces an increasingly tough confirmation vote soon and some states like Michigan have proposed their own increases.

The argument, mostly on the right, is that a higher minimum wage would make it even more difficult for young people and unskilled workers to get jobs by discouraging employers from more hiring. But let's be honest, this is a generation of young people that is well-known for living at home with their parents well into their 20s, and for doing internships for years after graduating college, in an effort to do anything to boost their career prospects. Yes, these workers want jobs, but they want one that pays enough to give them, one day, the chance to get oout of their childhood bedroom or off their friends' couches. As Ralph Nader pointed out in the Wall Street Journal last month, putting the minimum wage debate in context, even mega low-cost box-store retailer Costco starts its workers at $11.50 an hour.

The bottom line is that while the job market is marginally better than it was at the beginning of the year, any celebrations are premature. Workers are still dropping out of the job hunt. And a generation of young people can't even get a crappy job, let alone one that puts them on the path toward their own American dream.