THERE were so many low points, it’s hard for Kyle Whittaker to say which was the lowest. Ditching his girlfriend’s broken-down Lincoln at a gas station, because they couldn’t afford the tow? Month No. 3 of living on nothing but angel hair pasta? Or maybe it was the day he realized he might have to move back in with one of his parents.

It was 2009, and “I wasn’t confident that it was going to work out where I was,” he said. “You acquiesce to the fact that there’s just nothing coming for you.”

Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way. Mr. Whittaker, 27, had worked hard in high school and got into George Washington University in Washington. And he studied applied mathematics and statistics — staples on lists of “the most lucrative majors.”

By all measures, he had done everything right. He just did it at the wrong time.

Mr. Whittaker graduated in May 2008 and walked into the worst recession since the 1930s. After six months scouring job sites, he took the only position he could get — working part time at Lord & Taylor in Northern Virginia.