This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Mary Rooke
There’s a trend in public commentary to attribute young Americans’ openness to socialist or communist ideas to laziness or educational indoctrination. The point is to dismiss generational economic complaints as entitlement or a poor work ethic. However, such characterizations irresponsibly ignore the truth about what’s happening to our sons and daughters.
Data on labor market dynamics, particularly the role of H-1B visa policies in constraining white-collar job access and wages for young Americans, provide a better explanation for the shift. Gen Z and Millennials face a structurally challenging environment. Net job creation in the U.S. has been anemic, to say the least. College degrees, especially in STEM-related fields, continue to rise. Combine the degree inflation with limited opportunities for recent graduates and add on legal immigration programs like H-1B visas, and you’ll get the suppression and displacement in tech, engineering, etc., that young Americans are unjustly facing.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revisions for 2025 confirmed that the U.S. economy added only about 181,000 non-farm payroll jobs for the entire year. This means, on average, the U.S. added roughly 15,000 new jobs per month. This marked the weakest annual performance since 2003. Even more concerning is that most of the jobs created were concentrated in healthcare and construction, while white-collar jobs were either flat or saw negative growth after the revisions.
U.S. colleges and universities award roughly 5 million degrees annually, including about 2.1 million bachelor’s degrees. The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES/NSF) tracks Science and Engineering (S&E) fields, finding that in 2021 there were 1.31 million S&E certificates and degrees awarded in the U.S.
Starting to see the issue here? America is facing a supply-and-demand problem that is tearing the country apart. There are simply not enough jobs to employ young Americans, and when that happens, it delays milestones like homeownership and family formation, which are bedrocks of a healthy society.
Still, unfortunately for young Americans, it’s not just that the job market is extremely hostile to their entry. It would be one thing if we were asking them to compete with other Americans for the few jobs available. Instead, we are sending them into the interview with both hands tied behind their backs as we demand they compete with cheap foreign labor.
The original intent of the H-1B visa program was to address genuine talent shortages by authorizing employers to hire foreign specialty workers. However, it’s become increasingly clear that this program has been abused and operates in ways that suppress wages and job opportunities for American workers.
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis shows that about 60 percent of H-1B positions certified by the Department of Labor were assigned wage levels below the national median for the occupation. U.S. employers are intentionally labeling H-1B workers as entry-level, even for roles that demand significant experience, to pay them less than an American worker would rightfully earn for the job.
In 2021, EPI examined an India-based IT services firm, HCL Technologies, which heavily relies on H-1B placements with major U.S. corporations such as Disney, FedEx, and Google. It found that H-1B workers were compensated below market rates in nearly all roles. How is an American worker supposed to compete against this?
Report after report details that major tech companies that should be employing American workers are actually firing them in the thousands. And when these Americans, who were lucky enough in this environment to get a job in the first place, become another unemployment statistic, these same companies apply to fill some of those now vacant roles with H-1B visa workers.
Crunchbase News Tech Layoffs Tracker follows mass job cuts at U.S.-based tech companies. It reports that U.S. tech employers laid off at least 127,000 workers in 2025 alone. Top contributors include Intel (27,000 layoffs), Microsoft (15,000 layoffs), Verizon (15,000 layoffs), and Amazon (15,000 layoffs).
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data shows these firms remain among the top H-1B sponsors even during layoff periods. In the fiscal year 2025 alone, Amazon was approved for over 13,000 H-1B employees. Microsoft had over 6,000. Intel had over 2,000. In a year with only 181,000 net new jobs and massive layoffs, our federal government allowed these companies to provide much-needed job opportunities to foreign labor.
It’s no wonder that young Americans are increasingly becoming cynical of the old ways of accessing prosperity. This disconnect between government rhetoric on opportunity and the realities faced by young workers is clearly manifesting in this cohort’s budding relationship with socialist and communist models of government.
Of course, we can’t discount educational indoctrination, which for sure plays a part in their cynicism. But socialists and communists have long taken refuge within our education system as professors and lecturers. The difference is that in generations past, the path to the American Dream was infinitely more accessible than it is today. It was much easier to discount these redistributive or interventionist ideals because they weren’t being systematically prevented from accessing American prosperity.
The real laziness infecting our society comes from those among us who reduce complex labor economics to character flaws. They are ignoring the reality that our own government is allowing U.S. employers to undercut younger generations by using cheaper foreign labor
While it might be fun to call younger generations lazy and laugh at their misfortune, it is ultimately a distraction that only pushes them further away. If this problem is not addressed (and soon), the U.S. will suffer as the Mamdanis of the world continue to gain power.
Follow Mary Rooke on X: @MaryRooke
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