From Reuters:
Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get a job since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst, wrote Andrew Sum of Northeastern University in Boston, a employment researcher commissioned by the Chicago Urban League and the Alternative Schools Network.
"Low-income and minority youth, who depended on part-time jobs as a significant stepping stone to future employment, have been forced out of the job market and economically marginalized," Herman Brewer of the Chicago Urban League said in a statement.
...Among the proposals the report supported were government-funded jobs programs directed at the young, additional funding to help re-enroll school dropouts, and government-funded expansions of work internships.
I've got a more radical proposal - one that decreases the scope of government and one that doesn't increase it's size: lower or eliminate the minimum wage. Even if someone is willing and able to accept a job for, say, $5.00 an hour, the law says that he can't. Why should that be illegal? Update: Keep in mind that this has been going since before the recession hit.