Kate Zernike in the NYT argues that "Teenagers Facing Hard Competition for Summer Jobs"  (there's probably some form of registration required here...)

Teenagers are facing the worst summer job market in years, with the percentage of those holding summer jobs at its lowest in 55 years and the unemployment rate at its highest in a decade...

Governments have cut money that used to help put teenagers in jobs. Retail stores are increasingly favoring older sales clerks. And teenagers are suffering a kind of push-down effect of the bad economy: older workers are returning to the job market, the laid-off are settling for jobs they might once have thought beneath them and college students unable to find better work are hanging onto jobs that used to go to high school students, squeezing out the youngest workers.

What irks me about this article is that it reveals our reporter's true stripes so clearly - by almost every measure, her data seems to indicate a rather successful reorganization of the labor market.   The limited supply of jobs are being dynamically reallocated from largely well-to-do, suburban kids to the folks who are least likely to have guardians to fall back on.  

This aspect of the economy should be a success story;  it's a feature, not a bug.  But not for this reporter.   And her primary culprit is right up at the top of the list of reasons ("Governments have cut money....").   In other words, it's Bush's fault.  

This is a perfect example of how much latitude reporters have in spinning a narrative for a given set of data.   I could have written something like:  "Given the contraction in the job market, the economy has flexibly reallocated jobs which were held by teenagers during the boom years towards older workers and college students rewarding them for their greater experience."   She doesn't quote / interview a single employer looking who explains this shift in hiring preferences.

But such a spin would NOT allow the NYT reporter the opportunity to feel like she's in the advocacy driver's seat.

Let's imagine for a moment if the data showed the reverse outcome.    If teens were holding jobs that older folks desired our reporter would undoubtedly have a seriously rich tirade.   It would be something along the lines of:  "Employers, taking advantage of the tight labor market have been pushing down wages and ignoring older, more qualified, and thus more expensive workers and instead replacing them with High School wage rats."   In other words, she'd invoke the same "race-to-the-bottom" Globalization argument.   You just can't win with some folks.