‘Fix Young America’ jobs movement aims to recruit Stephen Colbert
Comedian Stephen Colbert hosts a rally with former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain at the College of Charleston on January 20, 2012 in Charleston, South Carolina. Colbert held the event with Cain, titled “Rock Me Like a Herman Cain South Cain-olina Primary Rally,” as part of his pseudo-run for president of “The United States of South Carolina.” He is currently being sought after by the Fix Young America movement.
Fix Young America, a digitally crowd-funded movement which promotes youth entrepreneurship, is going after satirical talk-show host Stephen Colbert to act as its spokesperson, the Daily Beast reported.
28-year-old Scott Gerber, whose Young Entrepreneur Council and Gen Y Capital Partners non-profit groups aim to put an end to unemployment among young Americans, is the mastermind behind Fix Young America, which uses the hashtag #FixYoungAmerica to spread the word.
“The #FixYoungAmerica movement aims to shed light on the solutions that can help solve youth unemployment, get our young people back to work, and get these solutions into the hands of every leader and decision maker in America so we can hold them accountable,” Gerber told Mashable.
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Fix Young America is planning a series of rallies for 2 p.m. on April 19 at hundreds of college campuses across the US, including Penn State, UCLA, and MIT. They are hoping that Colbert, who is known for his political criticism and satire, will appear at one of the rallies, so that they can broadcast his appearance to all the other locations.
The organizers will be encouraging students across the country to tweet messages to Colbert asking him to join the cause.
“With this rally, we hope that we will be able to recruit the great American hero, Stephen Colbert, to our cause. With his help, we believe we can get our leaders to both take notice and act, and give our nation’s students and recent graduates a much-needed ‘Colbert Bump,’” said Gerber.
Youth unemployment in America is currently at a 60-year high, according to Mashable. Over 18 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 are unemployed, the International Business Times reported, and the average unemployment rate among young workers in advanced economies is nearly 20 percent, according to the IMF.
The length of unemployment is also startling; in advanced economies, 20 percent of young workers are out of work for a year or longer.
“Our generation has been hit far worse than any other," said Gerber. "We’re graduating without the needed skills in today’s economy. We can’t get jobs, we can’t think about getting married, having babies or buying a house. We represent the broken dream of America and we can’t let it continue.”
“Colbert is definitely a voice of this generation,” Steve Loflin, CEO of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, told the Daily Beast. “The college students I work with really relate to how (Colbert) spends his time and focuses on the issues he chooses. They are excited that he would be the person to stand behind this … He is inspiring to them.”
Colbert has so far not commented on the movement.
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