Simple solution for the simple minds that run our government. Get rid of the minimum wage!

Maybe provide incentives to stay at a school or training institution. And make the school work applicable to the real world. Teach them to read books and also to read music. At least they can fill in the day. Nothing worse than bored teenagers.

The minimum wage works well here. Guarantees that the workers earn enough to feed and shelter the family. Unemployment isn't driven by the minimum wage, more by fluctuations on a more meaningful scale, such as arsehole bankers wreaking economies with their greed.

You're missing the point. The unemployment problem is with young people. They probably live with their parents, and probably have no obligations. Just the need to be introduced into the labor market. But the government prices them out of the labor market because they are not worth the wages that the government wants the employers to pay.

The minimum wage isn't meant to be a living wage. On top of that, if you really want a fair minimum wage, why are places with a below average cost of living required to pay the same minimum wage as those with a high cost of living? Why doesn't the minimum wage scale by the state or county's cost of living compared to the average?

Either way, mklosinski is absolutely right when saying the cost of living hits youth the hardest since it is a starting wage and it is the teenage years when most people start working.