To understand why today’s young people have it so hard, take a look at their parents.

Today’s 20-somethings are, broadly speaking, the children of the last of the Baby Boomers, those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That generation, like this one, came of age in the midst of a brutal recession: The unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds topped 17% at the end of 1982. (In 2010, it briefly crossed 18%.)

But for that generation, unlike for this one, the situation quickly improved. By the end of 1983, the unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds had dropped below 14%, and it didn’t get back above that mark until the latest recession. This time around, joblessness among young people remains over 15% three years after the recovery began.

The slow recovery hits people of all ages, of course. But it’s likely to be especially hard on the young, as a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes clear. The report looks at data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which in 1979 began tracking nearly 10,000 Americans born between 1957 and 1964.

The report reveals just how important the years of early adulthood are to lifetime earnings and career prospects. Hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, grew 6.1% per year on average between the ages of 18 and 24, and 4.1% per year from ages 25 to 29. By their 30s, the group’s earnings were growing by just over 3% per year, and by their early 40s, annual wage growth had fallen below 1%. Put another way: Nearly half of all earnings gains between 18 and 46 came before age 30.