America’s newest college graduates were sold the college premium. Four in 10 of them are working jobs that never needed the diploma.

About 42% of recent college graduates, ages 22 to 27, were underemployed in June, working jobs that typically don’t require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s tracker of the labor market for recent college graduates. That’s up from 41.8% in May but down from 42.4% in November 2025 and below the pandemic-era high of 43.4% in October 2020.

Unemployment is the other half of the problem. Recent grads’ jobless rate hit 5.7% in June, well above the 4.1% rate for all workers. That’s a reversal. From 1990, when the Fed’s data begins, through 2018, recent grads were more likely to be unemployed than the average worker in just eight months. They have been more likely every month since January 2021. The gap hit a record 1.8 percentage points in April 2025 and is still near it.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/26/gen-z-underemployment-riots-france-cockroach-india-rebellion/?utm_source=reddit/

Instead, they have all sorts of excuses. They say, for instance, they're investing, that crypto is like stocks or gold. But what exactly are they investing in, given there's no underlying asset? Moving numbers on a digital spreadsheet and hoping someone else will pay more for it? That's not investing, but taking a spot in a digital queue, waiting for the next fool to take your place.

Then they'll say: "Crypto lets me access my money (euros, dollars, etc.) from any country in the world." Wrong! Crypto lets you check a spreadsheet entry on the internet. Your money is gone. Crypto didn't move it across borders. It went into the pocket or account of whoever sold you that entry. And now you need someone in that country to give you their money.

But why would they? With euros or dollars, people have a bargaining position because that money is issued as debt, so private and public sector debtors must have it to pay off mortgages, corporate debt, or government bonds. It's like having any other good that people must have to meet their needs. It gives you leverage to negotiate for what you need.

Right now, people are giving away their money simply because they saw others doing the same and getting rich quick. But that's true for all pyramid schemes. You surrender your economic leverage and wait for new participants to do the same. Until they don't. Then the scheme collapses.

Trying to make heads or tails of this. Is this something to do with BRICS or they anticipate an attack on NY, or maybe Europe's just broke and needs the money? Lots to think about.