Idle Hands: Why The Candidates Must Focus On America's Youth

This summer could be the worst ever for teens looking for work, according to experts. Less than one in three youths may find summer jobs.

In recent years, the youth jobless rate has soared to record highs. In cities like Chicago, three in four teens, including seven in eight Black teens, did not work in 2006. But this summer could mark the highest level of youth joblessness since the end of World War II.

The shrinking economy and rising unemployment rates are to blame, as laid-off workers compete with young people for shrinking piece of the pie. Budget cuts have led to the ending of federal, state, and city youth jobs programs.

But the biggest problem is a lack of political interest.

Earlier this year, George W. Bush and Democratic Congressional leadership killed a $1 billion proposal to create youth jobs. At the same time, the Justice Department gave a $500,000 grant to a George H.W. Bush-chaired golf program supposedly meant to stop juvenile crime.

"We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids," the Justice Department's administrator was quoted as saying. "Golf is the hook."

Dozens of other effective programs were denied. Many grants were disbursed via affirmative action for friends of the administration, the domestic equivalent of handing out no-bid work to firms for "Iraqi reconstruction".

It was still more proof that politicians have neither a clue nor a care as to how to really address the needs of young Americans.

The team at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies has been trying to call attention to the historic rise in youth joblessless. But in a recent shocking, but sadly not-yet-influential report, they posed the question right in the title: "Does Anybody Care?" The issue has not been raised in any of the presidential debates.

But the Center's researchers say the developing trend represents nothing less than "the collapse of the teen job market". They sketch the problem in starkest terms for youth of color. Even the poorest white teens are more likely to find work than the wealthiest Black teens. Wealthy white teens are two and a half times more likely to be employed than the poorest Black teens, whose employment rate was merely 18.9% last summer.

They write, "Low income, Black and Hispanic teens face the equivalent of a Great Depression."

Bob Herbert from the New York Times outlined the consequences in a recent editorial:

There are four million or more of these so-called disconnected youths across the country. They hang out on street corners in cities large and small -- and increasingly in suburban and rural areas.

If you ask how they survive from day to day, the most likely response is: "I hustle," which could mean anything from giving haircuts in a basement to washing a neighbor's car to running the occasional errand.

Or it could mean petty thievery or drug dealing or prostitution or worse.

To the hip-hop generation--and the authorities charged with containing it--this is all hardly news.

Violent crime rates, which have taken disturbing leaps in some inner cities over the past few years, tend to rise during the summer. Idle hands are the devil's tools. But this is an extreme--and simplistic--way to understand a deep problem.

Experts make an economic argument. Idled hands mean less productivity for the nation. Idled minds mean decreased competitiveness in the global economy now and in the future.

There is another argument: youths who want work and cannot find it are being sent the wrong message. Is this a country that really respects hard work if it places no value on creating work?

Indeed, what message does this nation want to send its young?

John F. Kennedy famously implored a new generation not to ask what their country could do for them, but to ask what they could do for their country. In 1963, he followed up with a wide-ranging address outlining the nation's responsibility to its young. In it, he discussed the creation of the Peace Corps, a National Service Corps, and a youth jobs program. He said, "The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth."

What does it mean that, almost a half century later, young Americans face record rates of joblessness?

Since the '60s, youth policy has less often been discussed in terms of harnessing energies, than in terms of suppressing problems. There has been a massive shift towards harsher criminal and juvenile justice policies. The stunning rise in youth joblessness is a symptom of a larger national neglect, a neglect that is interrupted only by--ironic at best, disingenuous at worst--episodes of hand-wringing over young people's corruptibility and directionlessness. Punishment, it seems, has been the only coherent national youth policy since Kennedy.

Senator McCain, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been mostly silent on these issues, save vows to clean up the student loan mess. But even Senator Obama, who has clearly benefited by the enthusiasm of the young and who understands perhaps better than any politician youths' skepticism toward politics, has not yet outlined a place for them in his vision of America.

He supports focusing closely on job development and student achievement in 20 impoverished areas, what he calls "Promise Neighborhoods". More intriguingly, he backs a program of green-collar jobs for inner-city youths first pioneered by hip-hop activists in the Bay Area. But even these worthy programs are hardly more than a drop in the bucket, and don't by themselves add up to anything close to a national youth policy.

Senator Obama knows that the creative energies of young people can never be underestimated. In his interview with Vibe last year, he noted that hip-hop is a vast make-work project, a way of harnessing and channeling vast energies of young people. (This is partly why the up-by-the-bootstraps mythology--a narrative easily twisted into a celebration of consumerism that demagogues are then quick to criticize--has become so deeply interwoven into hip-hop culture.) But how could hip-hop be enough to reverse Great Depression-sized problems?

After four decades of the politics of abandonment and containment, now is the time for the presidential candidates to recognize young Americans are more than just a vote to be courted through late-night TV, more than a wellspring of videos, posters, music, and art, more than just an enthusiastic rally crowd.

Inspiration has been good, hope has been good, but both are not good enough.

The candidates must put young America to work, and involve the rest of us in taking full measure of the future promise of our nation.

Follow Jeff Chang on Twitter: www.twitter.com/zentronix

Comments

[SamuelBerry08]

I would like to see more marketable skills taught in high school (for example, computer and health-care technology). This approach recognizes that skills are necessary for employment, but many of today's youth are not headed to college. There should also be some kind of certification process to assure employers that skills have been mastered.

[earthwealth]

You must have been living in a different planet. You actually do not know that our elected politicians’ main focus must be Israel's interest. Otherwise there is no chance for them for being elected or reelected.

[noneIn2008]

Wait until this youth figures out how Congress will sell them out on Social Security.

[americaforme]

I believe in the American youth, I believe given the opportunity they would jump at the chance to work. Work ethics are inheritant­...The jobs are outsourced­...forcing middle age Americans to work teens usual place. Our legal system has forced the over load of prisons. Racking up felonys like popcorn, to get conviction­s...Money hungry prison contractors, are gleefull, at each new prospective client...3­0k a year,they hungerly await each new arrival. Our system has to go belly up, before things can change...

[george082257]

The day politicians will do something about America's Youth will be the day America's Youth manage to drag it out of the rack on election day and show up at the polls. It has been predicted that Youth was going to change the world for at least the last 40 years. But at the height of the Vietnam war Nixon was reelected in a Landslide. So much for the hippy vote. And Youth? It went on to morph into Yuppie.

[BlueOnBlue]

Politicians pay attention to people who vote. Unfortunately for young people, they haven't voted in great numbers.

In fact, age is one of the two biggest determinants of registration and voter turnout (the other big factor is economic level). In past elections, fewer young people register and of those who do, fewer actually come to the polls. If you wanted to see big turnout, you would have had to go to a retirement community, not a university.

As a result, politicians of all stripes have courted the votes of the aged over the young. We have Medicare, but we also have lousy schools. We promote property tax rebates for the elderly and we cut student loan programs.

We have a chance in this election to start to turn this around, but only if young people actually show up at the polls in big numbers. Maybe this time.

[EngineerBill]

With America having one of the largest incarcerated populations in the world, it is amazing how we don't connect the obvious dots. It isn't just "the devil finds work for idle hands" it's also "an ounce of prevention is worth billions in detention". Another thing that congress could do is enhance revenue sharing with state and local governments to prevent the spiraling effect of state and local cutbacks on the economy.

[tiffj01]

I mentor teenage girls throughout the academic, now that the program is on break during the summer, none of them can find summer jobs.

[bronceye]

You will notice many, many comments on this page for why we are throwing out an entire generation. They will have no skills and no work ethic as they will not be allowed entry level or part time jobs.Only a few years back, when my sons were still teenagers, speaking spanish was pretty much a pre-req. for employment. The jobs that Americans won't do are the jobs that high school and college students traditionally have done. Thank God for our mexicans who boost profit margins and reduce worker's comp claims. Just like Iraq, one generation isn't so much to lose as long as the power and money are consolidated to a small percentage of people on the planet. They are young and happy. We can't have that. they may walk across our lawns.

[dadw5boys]

BULL OLD PEOPLE WON'T GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!!!!

Here we have old doctors who are so greedy they commit open malprastice by keeping offices open and letting the nurses run it. Thew nurses write persciptions and send people for test the docotr never sees them. One has lost his mind really can focus on anything and his wife bring him to the office everyday and he sit there watching T V while she a nurse and others run the office.

So young doctor now seek specialities because the area of family prastice is full of old farts who won't leave.

[LeonBNJ]

Many private employers who used to hire summer help have backed off as budgets, employment cutbacks, need year round and full time people, use temp agency or contract workers and many jobs they would do were shipped out to sub-contractors or outside the USA. Add to that goverment summer job programs have been cut to nothing.
A lot of the 'summer' jobs involve work that too many young people find unattractive, not benfefical in their future careers, pay poorly or where housing (like at resort and vacation areas) are too expensive and where employers found legal foreign workers to be better or use often illegal day workers. Some young people are also wanting easy jobs in glamorous places (like in entertainment) rather that real life jobs. Some jobs also require employees to be at least 18 due to labor laws and if involves operating a company vehicle, then at least 21.
Unless we find ways to employ, including with govenment funded programs, more high school and college aged people in meaningful jobs, they will not get the experience of work that companies will need.

[Chavez08]

Making the American dream, once again, attainable will keep these kids on the right track. In the current Capitalist system, they have no future and the only way the under-privileged will see prosperity will be through crime and you'd better believe China and Russia will take FULL advantage of intelligent, disillusioned teens.

Washington - If you continue your blind Neoliberal policies, you deserve what you get. F***ing fools.

[fleaba]

I have no idea which rock all these people have been living under, but popular culture like golf and hip-hop are not going to save any kids. Especially those at risk. All of that is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. With the price of food and fuel skyrocketing, maybe all kids could be required put to work on community farms or building passive solar heat systems, because it looks like the way things are headed, we will need all the help we can get.
I am being realistic when I say that , I don't think anyone has an idea what sort of crash this economy is headed for. It's already happening. When middle class adults lose their jobs and can't put food on the table, the "hip hop" economy is going fall like Rome. Golfing, P. Diddy, Brittney, sleazy politicians will be the last thing anyone will care about. Anything extraneous from cable TV to unlimited text messaging are going to be under the knife. Trust me, it will be dog eat dog. At risk or not, any kid who can get a job is going to be lucky. Bob Herbert has it right, but what is going to happen is that adults will be the ones "hustling".

[SonofLiberty1]

I'm sorry but when middle aged adults can't find good jobs, teens getting jobs are not a priority!
Many of those middle aged adults are the teens parents, aunts, uncles, cousin's and grandparents.

[wolfgangmo]

That is very true but the corollary to this article is that the kids are the canaries in the mine. If they are not getting jobs it can only be, as you say, because these low paying zero benefit jobs are being taken by seriously frantic adults.

[tlhwraith]

Apples and oranges. I am a thirty-something year old engineer. I'm not even in the same "job market" as my 15 year old nephew (or at least I shouldn't be). My understanding is that the article is saying that traditional teen jobs like lifeguarding, working in a store, etc are now being taken by adults. It's not as easy as saying the priority is on older people finding jobs, in both cases we are looking at a serious issue that needs to be addressed. When I was a teenager, my summer job was actually used to buy food and pay the rent for my families apartment, so to dismiss high teen unemployment is a little self-centered IMO. I think a lot of the problem is that, and I'm sorry to offend, a lot of the older generations have a "I got mine, f*** you" mentality that comes across in many different areas, not the least of which in politicians who are not funding summer job programs and such. The GOP answer is that it isn't economically sound, but the right response is that not everything can be measured in monetary terms, nor should it.

Besides the basic fundamental arguement of giving teens a positive way to get money to do whatever they need/want to do, there is also the huge long term problem of teens not being taught the value of earning a fair wage, hard work, and self-discipline that having a job provides.

[kathy001]

I'm all in favor of allowing our teenagers to have a job, to learn how to work and be productive and to be rewarded for it. I'm more in favor of putting the American adult back to work. Give our skilled adult work force back their jobs so they can give up all those part time jobs as soda-jerks and movie ushers and then the kids can have those jobs back.