Gen Z calls degrees ‘useless’—but 20 years of data tells a different story: graduates are still the least likely to be unemployed
Despite growing skepticism among Gen Z and millennials about the value of college degrees, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that bachelor's degree holders continue to have the lowest unemployment rates. Over the past 20 years, those with degrees have consistently been less likely to be unemployed compared to those with less education. While graduates may feel underpaid and burdened by debt, they still earn significantly more and are more likely to be hired than non-graduates.
- ▪Bachelor’s degree holders have the lowest unemployment rate among all education groups for workers aged 25 and over.
- ▪Over the past 20 years, unemployment rates for college graduates have remained consistently lower than those without high school diplomas.
- ▪College graduates earn about 66% more per week than high school graduates, and top-paying jobs often require advanced degrees.
- ▪Despite some companies removing degree requirements, hiring managers often still favor candidates with degrees.
- ▪In 2006, the unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma was 6.9%, compared to 2.2% for college graduates, a gap that has persisted into 2026.
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| Original publisher | Fortune |
| Canonical URL | https://fortune.com/2026/05/17/gen-z-millennials-worthless-degrees-20-years-of-bls-data-shows-graduates-lowest-unemployment-rate-of-anyone/ |
| Publication time | Sun, 17 May 2026 10:06:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-17T10:17:13.024Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-17T10:17:13.024Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 5b-pT8Jlsw0e |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Gen Z and millennials alike have been writing off their degree as worthless. And it’s not hard to see why: Entry-level corporate jobs have been slashed, promotions are “peanuts”, and the new wave of young millionaires are trade workers turned business owners and AI entrepreneurs. Recommended Video But actually, graduates are still the least likely to be unemployed right now. Fresh data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that among workers aged 25 and over, people with a bachelor’s degree have the lowest unemployment rate of any education group. In fact, despite a third of graduates slamming their degrees as a waste of money and not financially worth it, the numbers show a pretty blunt reality: The more educated you are, the more likely you are to be in work.
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