20-SOMETHINGS ARE SKIPPING THE FIRST JOB? I think the better headline would be they are forced to try to make ends meet themselves, but we will summarize their report anyway. The Wall Street Journal reports that young Americans are turning down entry-level offers and starting companies instead. The paper says AI is shaking up those starter jobs, and that younger founders are using it to get businesses off the ground. Babson College's Global Entrepreneurship Monitor puts early-stage entrepreneurship among ages 18 to 24 at 23.6% in 2025. The rate among ages 25 to 34 is 23.0%. Both sit above every older age group in the survey. A decade earlier, in 2015, the 18-to-24 rate was about 10%. Gusto surveyed more than 1,000 people who started businesses in 2025. About 71% of Gen Z founders in that survey used AI to help launch. The entry path into wage work is also thinner. The New York Fed puts underemployment among recent college graduates at 42.5% in the third quarter of 2026. That means they hold jobs that typically do not require a bachelor's degree. Their unemployment rate was 5.2%.