Unemployed Americans may or may not find grim solace by repeating this old mantra: It could be worse.

The latest release from Eurostat, the statistics-gathering entity for the European Union, has bad news for that continent’s workforce. Seasonally adjusted unemployment statistics in the 17 countries sharing the euro currency ticked up to 12.2 percent in April, up 0.1 percentage points from March. And while the average unemployment rate for all 27 countries in the EU held steady at 11 percent, that number, too, is significantly higher than it was a year ago.

Longer-term trends aside, these figures represent a bleak reality, especially for Europe’s youth. The eurozone’s average youth employment is now at 24.4 percent, meaning that a disproportionate 3.6 million of the region’s nearly 20 million unemployed are under 25. That’s nearly 200,000 more than a year ago.

Much of the eurozone’s average unemployment comes from a small group of countries. In Spain, youth unemployment stands at 56.4 percent, and a staggering 62.5 percent of young people are unemployed in austerity-ravaged Greece. And while some high-unemployment countries — notably Ireland — saw that number fall, at least part of the decline can be attributed to unemployed young people simply emigrating to more economically stable countries like Germany, where overall unemployment was determined to be just 5.4 percent.

In contrast, the U.S. Labor Department put America’s unemployment rate at 7.5 percent in April, a slight improvement over March and down from 8.1 percent a year ago. So even while U.S. youth unemployment remains higher than that of Europe’s biggest economies, Americans have at least some data with which to assure themselves that things could be getting better.

Not so in the eurozone, where gross domestic product remains 3.4 percent below its pre-recession highs in 2007. Europe’s ‘double-dip’ recession is now officially longer than that of the continent’s Great Depression in the 1930s. GDP in the United States, by contrast, grew by a net 3.2 percent over the same period, and has seen continuous growth since summer 2009. The eurozone’s GDP fell by 0.2 percent in 2013’s first quarter.

Forecasters expect the discrepancy between American and European unemployment to grow. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recent economic outlook report predicts U.S. unemployment will fall to 6.7 percent by the end of 2014 while Europe’s is expected to increase by another 0.3 percentage points.

To cite an overused phrase, the U.S. seems on the road to at least some kind of recovery while Europe stagnates indefinitely. And while part of that divergence can be explained by underlying differences between U.S. and EU political structures, many experts have pointed to concrete differences in policy, attributing the apparent U.S. economic rebound to greater monetary stimulus, along with less severe (and better-timed) austerity measures.

To be sure, individual U.S. states and the country as a whole have seen their share of privatization, budget cuts and weakening of labor regulations in the wake of the recession, but compared to EU policy, America seems to have chosen the lesser of two evils when it comes to austerity — or, depending on how you look at it, a lesser version of the same evil.

Protecting Europe’s youth

The fragile nature of Europe’s political and monetary unions means that any significant unrest — like Friday’s large ‘Blockupy’ action at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt — could mean even darker times to come for politicians. As a result, officials have pledged to help mitigate the problems faced by the continent’s youth, many of whom are finding themselves jobless and lacking adequate skills to enter a changing market.

“We must give [unemployed young people] the guarantee that they will be either in training, further education or employment within four months of leaving school,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy wrote last week.

Earlier in the year, the EU agreed to $7.8 billion in targeted spending on measures intended to mitigate youth unemployment. The European Council also announced plans for more structural reforms, new lending programs and increased availability of vocational training in order to lessen the damage inflicted on what some are now calling Europe’s new ‘lost generation.’

“We need to be more successful in our fight against youth unemployment, otherwise we will lose the battle for Europe’s unity,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

In order to restart growth, some economists are calling for policymakers to cease their fixation on curbing inflation. Eurozone inflation numbers have remained safely below the 2 percent that the European Central Bank has long targeted. A U.S.-style monetary stimulus program might worry bankers by driving inflation closer to or even beyond that number, but it could also be the spark that re-lights the fire under Europe’s economy. Economists cite promising initial results from new stimulus spending in Japan as another example.

Even the International Monetary Fund — much-loathed globally by those opposed to its heavy-handed prescriptions for fiscal austerity — has called for a lessening of belt-tightening measures, and recently attempted to discourage U.K. Chancellor George Osborne from implementing a new $15.1 billion round of cuts.

France’s socialist President Francois Hollande went even further in calling for action, saying, “Remember the post-war generation. My generation. Europe showed us and gave us the support we needed. The hope we cherished.”

Ultimately, hope still manages to spring eternal for some economic forecasters. The OECD’s chief economist Pier Carlo wrote, “We remain convinced that there’s light at the end of this tunnel.”