OUR YOUTH NEED

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT

by Talbert W. Swan, II

With the end of the school year a few weeks away, it was good to hear that Governor Deval Patrick decided to support a plan that will provide $11 million in anti-gang grants. The prevention and intervention programs supported by this money are essential measures that will keep some of our youth off the streets and out of gangs. However, the prospects of putting our youth to work this summer are pretty meager given the lack of federal and state support and the enormous competition for the few jobs that will be available.

For many years the federal government supported the Summer Jobs Program, which, at its peak in 1999, was funded at $871 million and served 500,000 at-risk youth. Since that time, the federal government has moved on and no longer sees the importance of the summer youth employment business. Perhaps our federal and state officials need to be reminded of what happens when too many youths have nothing to do all summer long. In short, they get into trouble, they join gangs, they take drugs and they get pregnant. Even if they manage to stay out of trouble, they miss out on opportunities to gain desperately needed skills to lift themselves out of the malaise of the inner cities and provide inspiration toward a promising future.

The likelihood of youth securing employment without outside help from government officials is extremely slim: In 2006, only 17 percent of young Blacks from families with household incomes under $20,000 managed to find summer jobs, according to a 2006 study by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies. The lack of opportunities available for youths, especially those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds, will hurt their income-earning ability into adulthood. “For teens, work experience begets more work experience, and cumulative work experience has a high payoff in determining the wages and annual earnings of young adults in their early to mid-20s,’’ the Northeastern University study noted.

In 2000, the U.S. Conference of Mayors urged U.S. lawmakers, to no avail, to reconsider phasing out the old Summer Jobs Program, predicting it would have detrimental effects down the line. Unfortunately, they were correct. We now have a responsibility to marshal our resources and focus on our at-risk youth, not abandon them. The city of Springfield and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can become a model for the nation by investing in our youth and providing them with valuable summer work experience. By doing this we will reap the returns many times over in reduced welfare dependence, fewer crimes, less incarceration expenses and greater workforce productivity.

The summer jobs program facilitated by the Massachusetts Career Development Institute is a good start, but does not provide nearly enough jobs for the overwhelming number of youths needing employment. We must call on our state elected officials to provide funding for these efforts and on the U.S. Congress to reinstate the Summer Jobs Program. If we ever hope to close the gap between people of color and mainstream America, it must start with our youth. If we don’t invest in them now, the disparities they now face will only be reinforced in the years to come. n