In an uncertain economy and with AI coming for entry-level work, adults aren't the only ones forced to get creative.
Sometimes, while he waits for a ride home from school, Krisann Valdez’s 13-year-old son pulls out his guitar, takes a seat outside the building and plays for tips. When he realized most of the parents who walk by don’t carry cash, he added a sign with a Venmo QR code.
It worked.
“He’s just looking for ways to make money,” Valdez tells Yahoo, adding that her son isn’t quite old enough for a real job. Where she lives, as in many states, the minimum age for work is 14. “He’s started looking into ways to busk in Phoenix, [researching] the permit.”
Young people like Valdez are finding creative ways to earn money in a time when fewer teens are turning to traditional jobs. While reporting this piece, I heard about kids who buy and resell clothes online; a girl who paints classmates’ nails for money; multiple QR-code savvy tweens; and, of course, plenty of enterprising youths who shovel snow and pet- or plant-sit for neighbors. There’s also the rise of teen content creators. While some of this is simply the time-honored tradition of young people trying to earn a buck on their own terms, it’s also coinciding with turbulent economic times, a decades-long drop in teen employment and the disappearance of some classic entry-level jobs. (When’s the last time you saw a kid with a newspaper route?)
Today’s teens don’t work as much as they once did. In July 1989, the youth labor force participation rate was 77.5%; in July 2024, it was 60.4%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Though teen jobs did make a rebound in the post-pandemic portion of the 2020s, teen employment rates never returned to what they were in the ’80s and ’90s.
We can blame the economy, in part: Research has shown that during recessions, experienced adults take on more part-time work and lower-paying, entry-level roles — jobs that teens historically occupied. In recent years, artificial intelligence has also come for entry-level jobs. Recent research from Stanford University found a 16% decline in AI-exposed entry-level jobs held by young workers since 2022. Another report suggested AI could eliminate 27% of teen jobs by 2030.
Changing social expectations likely also pulled teens from the workforce. Researchers have suggested that increased academic demands could be keeping teens from working, even during the summer. Fewer teens today have driver’s licenses than they did in the past, which could affect their ability to get to and from a job. Some parents say their kids simply don’t have an interest in earning money, especially when mom and dad are quick to give allowances or spending money.
“This generation just doesn’t have the same motivation,” mom Shannon Lewellyn says. Another mom, Juliet, says of her now 17- and 20-year-old children, “It took them a while to want to make their own money.”
And sometimes, the jobs many parents recall from their own youth simply don’t exist anymore. Many parents recall babysitting being their first job, whereas today, it’s not uncommon for parents to pay $25-$30 an hour for adult babysitters with CPR certifications and degrees in child development. A dad named Henry says he got his first part-time job at age 12: “That doesn’t happen anymore.”
Many parents tell Yahoo that the demands of youth sports hinder their teens from working. When high school students have daily practices after school and games on the weekends, sometimes requiring travel, it can be hard to fit in a few retail shifts (jobs that, by the way, have steadily declined in part due to self-checkout technology). Some parents have mixed feelings about this trade-off: “My teen can't really get a job because of the time he spends on sports,” says Rebecca, a mom in New York whose kids are 12 and 15. “I feel like he's losing out in some ways on the experience of working, but he's gaining more from being on sports teams, maybe?”
Of course, even if the odds are stacked against them, plenty of teens do still work, especially in areas where seasonal jobs are abundant. D.D.'s 15-year-old buses tables at a restaurant during the summer, a common job for teens in the New York beach town where she lives. Parents also told us about teens who scoop ice cream, lifeguard, work at movie theaters or as cashiers or run coat check at restaurants.
In Rhode Island, Stephanie Bernaba’s three teenagers, 15-year-old twins and a 16-year-old, work at the same bakery. Two work behind the counter and one washes dishes. Bernaba admits that schlepping her kids to and from the bakery, especially when their schedules don’t line up, can be a logistical nightmare for her and her husband, though she hopes that will ease up when her oldest starts driving soon. She worries about when her children will eventually seek out separate employers; her daughter has her sights set on being a barista.
But for now she considers herself — and her kids — to be lucky. Despite the occasional headache, she believes working is beneficial for her teens. Besides, it beats slacking on the couch all summer long, “on PlayStation, doing nothing that enriches them,” she says. “I’d rather them be out in daylight, with people.”