By: Gilbert Cruz
Source: time.com
It’s nothing new, wanting to snag a summer job, save up those pennies and get a new bike, a new Xbox 360, a new car (price tag: 1,500,000 pennies). But for many low-income teens in the U.S., like those in Tate County, where Singleton lives, jobs have been in scarce supply since the Federal Government gutted its summer-jobs program about a decade ago. But the Obama Administration is changing all that, having directed $1.2 billion to pay for summer jobs for youths. Every state is now flush with stimulus dollars — ranging from about $3 million (in Wyoming, South Dakota and other low-population states) to $186 million (California) — to fund local job programs. Most states have started hiring, and many kids are already in their first weeks of work. The White House estimates that the stimulus money will create 125,000 jobs for low-income youths, though outside experts put the number at up to four times that.
The money couldn’t come at a better time. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for 16-to-19-year-olds is nearly 23%; that’s more than double the 9.2% national unemployment rate and the highest it’s been since 1992. Why the steep rise? For starters, there’s this little thing called the recession. But concern about youth employment also pretty much fell off the federal radar in recent years. Back when President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1965, the Federal Government started funding summer-jobs programs for low-income youth. These efforts included the Neighborhood Youth Corps, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act and the Job Training Partnership Act. In 1999, however, federal commitment to low-income-youth employment was swallowed up by the Workforce Investment Act, which made summer jobs one of 10 priorities for certain federal dollars, as opposed to the only priority. Since then, many communities have seen opportunities dry up, especially for low-skill, low-income teens.
“In rural America, there’s not many private companies that are going to hire teenagers,” says Bill Renick of the Mississippi Partnership Workforce Area. “You just don’t have businesses on every corner in small-town Mississippi. I’ve got applications from kids from Sarah — a town which has maybe 200 people — and summer-job opportunities just don’t normally come around for them.” As a result, Renick says more than 10,000 applications were submitted for what will likely turn out to be about 1,600 jobs.
Stimulus Sparks Summer Jobs’ Comeback
