By Marian Wright Edelman and Andrew Sum
When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.
– George Bernard Shaw
Most young men and women today want to work hard, but for those under 25 years old, work has often been impossible to find. Young people ages 16 to 24 are among the greatest casualties of our economic downfall. Even college graduates have had an extremely tough time finding a job, any job; forget about full-time meaningful work in their area of study.
These teens and young adults have been forgotten in the fierce public debates about how best to create jobs for the huge numbers of the unemployed. The country shed 7.9 million jobs during the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009, and during the slow recovery desperate laid-off older workers took any jobs they could get, often jobs requiring fewer skills for lower pay. Entry level jobs for high school and college graduates disappeared. Other young people and teens got pushed out of the labor market completely. They have faced sharp rises in unemployment and underemployment, and the largest declines in employment rates. Teenagers have been hardest hit.
During the economic boom times in 2000, slightly more than 45 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds were employed. By 2010, only 26 percent were employed, a new post-World War II low. Most disturbing, while overall employment throughout the country has been rising since early 2010, the nation’s teens have not seen any increase in their employment opportunities. We ignore this crisis at our peril.
Research shows teen employment helps achieve many positive outcomes for youths, their families, and the rest of society. Teens who work in high school, especially those from low-income and lower middle-income families, are less likely to drop out of high school, become teen parents, or engage in criminal behavior. For poor families, teen salaries often help put food on the table and keep the lights on.
The young Americans who will be our future workforce also aren’t learning the critical soft skills they will need to succeed -- good attendance, proper work behavior, customer service, teamwork, and technical job skills. Learning the value of hard work and the deep satisfaction that comes from a job well done will stay with teens for their lifetime. Work experience also makes it easier to get a job later on. Early work experience is a win-win-win proposition for teens, their families, and for the country.
Certainly during this presidential election year, all the candidates should be talking about our teen employment crisis. Newt Gingrich addressed it by blaming Black Americans for accepting food stamps rather than demanding jobs (many food stamp recipients work), and then blaming poor children for lacking a strong work ethic and proposing giving them jobs as janitors in their schools. Mr. Gingrich turned it into a divisive conversation about race rather than jump-starting a national conversation about the millions of missing jobs for teens and young adults.
Mr. Gingrich’s home state of Georgia makes a dramatic case for urgent interventions for teen workers. Back in 2000, the average annual teen employment rate in Georgia was identical to the national rate. By 2010 it had dropped from 46 percent to 19 percent, eight percentage points below the national average, and tied with California and Mississippi for the lowest teen employment rate in the country.
In Georgia, teen unemployment was an equal opportunity offender. All gender, race, ethnic, and family income groups experienced steep declines in teen employment rates during that ten year period, but the state’s low- and lower middle-income youths were the least likely to be employed in 2010. Only 16 percent of teens in families with incomes below $40,000 worked while 27 percent of teenagers in middle- to upper middle-income families worked. For Black youths it was even worse; only 12 percent in low-income families worked.
If we continue to ignore these dire facts, not only do we fail our children, we put the future economic security of America at risk. It is past time for those who would like to lead our nation to greater economic health over the next four years to tell us how they plan to get our young people back to work. They need summer and year-round jobs, public and private sector jobs, and paid work experiences with educational and training opportunities to prepare them for the future. Most young people want to work and are willing to work. Right now there is no work.
Dr. Andrew Sum, Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, and his colleagues have written a series of policy briefs and articles available online at "Lost Decade" for Young People and Young Families with Children. Check back often for additional reports over the next few months.
Follow Marian Wright Edelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChildDefender
Peter J. Ognibene: Romney Versus Romney
Algernon Austin: The Gingrich Nonsense
Martin Sullivan: Don't Equate Wealthy With Job Creators
Teen Unemployment | EPIonline.org
High Teen Unemployment Could Hurt Future Job Growth - US News ...
Georgia teen unemployment rate above national rate - Atlanta ...
High Teen Unemployment Molding 'Lost Generation' : NPR
Summer job bummer: Teen unemployment 24 percent - CBS News
Average Teen Unemployment Rate in D.C. is 50.1%, Analysis ...
High teen unemployment cuts learning opportunities - USATODAY ...
and Stand for Children (whose founder Jonah Edelman, son of civil rights leader Marian Wright Edelman, gets hefty donations from equity investors, promotes charter schools, and led the successful battle to curtail teachers' job protections in Illinois)."
Ms. Edelman has lost credibility just like the NAACP. They work to privatize education now, hurting the very children they profess to fight for.
In the State of the Union address, the President held women 50+ (some laid-off) as role models to encourage others to go back to community college and get retrained in a STEMM field.
There are 2 million skilled jobs going unfilled due to lack of appropriately qualified applicants.
The VP for the computer tech course at our local state college, in upstate NY, tells me there is no wait-time for finding a tech job for those prepared to move. And those not prepared to move out of of the area (not a high-tech region), the search time to find a suitable job is about 4 months.
Naturally, the main reason for this is the extreme scarcity of jobs. Additionally, teens are rejected for having little or no work experience and older adults are rejected for being overqualified, or for some other imaginary reason best deciphered as, you are too old for us to see any longterm worth to the company in you. As if the company had any intentions of making a longterm commitment to you.
As always, Newt remains historically offensive; demand jobs instead of food stamps, we’ve all been screaming for jobs for nearly four years now. Is he clueless and deaf? Businesses are sitting on trillions of cash and not creating any jobs. They claim there’s insufficient demand. Create some jobs morons and demand will go up. Most of us need a job to have any money to spend.
The barriers to employment have been artificially elevated to give companies an excuse for not hiring. Too much education, or too little, perhaps both are possible at the same time. Underqualified; overqualified. Right out of Steinbeck; what a historically novel way to educate our youth to the heartlessness of those ‘small business owners’ the GOP keep clamoring about.
Our political and business class are completely deaf to our needs. Water on the brain? Or could it be heart disease?
Signs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D59ZWa8ehgI
Now obviously this doesn't apply to younger teens as much, but without sourcing in IT for example, a large % of the entry level jobs just aren't there anymore.
As someone in IT now with over a decade of experience, I would have a much harder time getting into the industry now, because that support position I started with is now in India, which is what down the road (really not that far down the road) is creating a shortage of people in the 3-7 year experience area as well, which is causing even more of those jobs to go overseas because those people have that experience.
And I would venture a guess, that this out sourcing, has also caused others that once had those jobs here to go into lesser fields decreasing the likely hood that those "lesser" jobs will be available for teens/early twenty something’s.
There is a real problem right now with jobs, the jobs available require experience, but the jobs that gain you that experience just aren't there in the numbers we need to get people what is sought after.
And miraculously, he's been able to get these jobs without any help from me or the government. He laughs at me when I tell him there aren't jobs for teens/young people. I know many readers don't believe this, but the govt can NEVER replace the family with respect to teaching life skills.
Quit blaming the govt and place the blame exactly where it belongs...on the parents.
It seems to me that a lot of teens these days look down on certain types of jobs. When asked if they would take a job at McDonalds, they roll there eyes and chuckle, as if they are somehow "above" such work. It reminds me of Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoons Vacation movie..... no real marketable skills, yet he's "holding out for a management position."
When I was in high school I worked as a supermarket cashier, cook in a chinese restaurant, you name the lowly job, and I've probably done it. It did a lot for me, beyond just having money in my pocket.
Many of us in a position to hire young people simply will not hire a white kid who says "like" 15 times during the interview while wearing flip flops, and will not hire a black kid who says "axe" and can't pull his pants up.
You've got to get the teachers, but more importantly, the parents more involved in raising children that corporations would be happy to employ.
Truth is, maybe for different reasons, it's tough finding a job at any age these days.
The real culprit is the minimum wage. When you have zero job skills you are not worth anything. The employer has to spend time and money training you to get the point where you can produce. Then as you get better you are worth more. With a high minimum wage you make this process very expensive. Plus if the person doesn't work out they are stuck paying unemployment.
Luckily with all of the inflation being created by the Fed the real minimum wage is dropping and when it gets low enough you will see employment pick up.
F&F
anyway, you help me clarify
Certainly, practical educational benefits and others can be added to pay. There are people who have money - gorged with it - who can do these things. Look at what George Pullman attempted to do, though his workers' utopia faced problems. But - I haven't studied this - his efforts were sincere. We need-outside-the box, innovative strategies. Obama's early life was outside-the-box.
And it's too bad when we live in a world where manual labor has become devalued.
(Richard Wright's box still exists for blacks.)
You are the future, make sure you have as much say as possible in how it shapes up.
If we let voting not matter, pretty soon we could end up losing it too. It may be over-rated but it's still our main channel at democratic representation and there are good folks struggling around the world to have half as many rights.
Respect the vote, own your voice and exercise political will!