U.S. Recent Graduates vs. All Workers · Unemployment Gap

## What this measures

The NY Fed's unemployment rate for recent college graduates (aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor's degree or higher) minus its rate for all workers aged 16 to 65, in percentage points, each month from January 1990. Both rates are seasonally adjusted and smoothed by the NY Fed with a three-month moving average and exclude people enrolled in school.

## Why it matters

A degree has long meant a lower chance of being unemployed, even straight out of college. When the gap turns positive, new graduates are having a harder time finding work than the workforce as a whole, which is the pattern people point to when they ask whether entry-level jobs are drying up.

## How to read it

Below zero is the historical norm: from 1990 through 2014 the gap was positive in only two months. It turned positive in January 2021 and stayed positive in every month through the June 2026 data. Its widest reading in the record is April 2025. A widening gap with a steady all-worker rate points at entry-level hiring rather than the economy at large.

## What it does not say

It does not say what causes the gap. Slower hiring of new staff, the mix of degrees graduates hold and AI are all argued as causes; the series cannot separate them. The recent-graduate sample is small, so month-to-month moves are noise.

## Source

Palanor calculation from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates (newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market): labor.nyfed.recent_grads.unemployment_rate minus labor.nyfed.all_workers.unemployment_rate. Underlying data © Federal Reserve Bank of New York, from the Current Population Survey (IPUMS). Recomputed whenever the NY Fed updates.