Youth Demand Teen Age Relief Program (TARP) Bailout

WASHINGTON, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Teens laden with a 10-foot raft, buckets and life preservers marched today to the U.S. Capitol during a Youth Unemployment Rally demanding a Teen Age Relief Program (TARP) to demonstrate before national, state and local government officials that teens are "sinking" due to record-level lows in teen employment rates.

"Like the national banks who received bailouts when they were sinking through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), youth need a TARP – the Teen Age Relief Program," said Jack Wuest, executive director, the Alternative Schools Network, a Chicago-based network of schools working with teens that have re-enrolled in school.

Teens marched from Stanton Park to the nation's Capitol demonstrating the impact of youth joblessness and the need for more jobs for teens across the country to increase the economic stability and future workforce development of the nation.

In late 2009, the national teen employment rate hit record-level lows, falling to 29.2% – a drop of nearly 16 percentage points from 2000 to 2009, according to a recent report, The Lost Decade for Teen and Young Adult Employment in Illinois: The Current Depression in the Labor Market for 16-24 Year Olds in the Nation and State, conducted by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

"No other age group has experienced such steep employment declines in the current recession. Youth depend on part-time jobs as a significant stepping stone to future employment, and they have been forced out of the job market and economically marginalized," said Deborah Shore, executive director, Sasha Bruce Youthwork. "We are running out of time to address the serious policy implications accompanying our jobless youth."

Last year, Congress voted $1.2 billion in the economic stimulus to employ jobless youth. More than 330,000 teens were employed, who without the stimulus funding would have been jobless and on the streets.

"We need to secure a broader stimulus plan and bailout for the teen job market," said Lori Kaplan, executive director, Latin American Youth Center. "Senators and political leaders need to understand the long-term and substantial impact of continued record youth joblessness. Job creation, particularly for teens and young adults, has to be a priority for 2010."

MAKING THE CASE FOR A TEEN AGE RELIEF PROGRAM (TARP) BAILOUT FOR EMPLOYMENT

From 2000 to 2009, employment rates among teens declined significantly in each gender, race-ethnic, family income, educational attainment, and geographic group, with male teens, Black teens and teens from low-income families hit the hardest with teen joblessness across the country.  

Key findings from the Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University included:

• Teen employment is at the lowest level in history.
• Teens are in a jobless depression.
• 83% of Black teens are jobless.
• 75% of Latino teens are jobless.

"Restoration of job growth for youth in the state and nation is critical and urgent. The statistics we've provided make a clear case for supporting national legislation to provide funds to create summer and year-round employment opportunities for 16-24 year olds across the nation," said Wuest. "Time is running out and immediate action is needed to provide a bailout in the form of $2.6 billion for jobs for jobless teens."

Youth employment is a key predictor of future success for the individual and the community, and directly correlates with youth violence and school dropout rates:

• Stimulating the economy – Every dollar earned is put back into the economy while helping individuals and their families.
• Preventing violence – Employed youth are engaged in their lives which often prevent them from turning to destructive interactions and illicit activities.
• Building a future workforce – Without employment, teens may never obtain the skills and experience they need, crippling their future and overall potential earnings.
• Saving taxpayer dollars – Keeping youth in school saves taxpayers $290,000 over the lifetime of each youth who graduates and earns a diploma.

BLOCKED LEGISLATION

On March 9, 2010, U.S. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) demanded a procedural vote that led to the defeat of the amendment on the Senate Jobs Bill of the $1.3 Billion for Summer Youth Employment and $1.3 Billion for TANF Emergency Funds for Subsidized Employment. Funding for summer youth employment was just five votes short of the 60 votes needed to secure a subsidized summer employment program for teens and adults.

Forty-one Republican senators and four Democrats voted against this issue which led to the defeat of $2.6 billion for jobs programs for youth and adults. Attached is a detailed analysis of the increase of teenage joblessness in each of the states of these senators. This list also details the number of youth who were employed last summer through the summer youth employment stimulus funding, and who will not have jobs because of the vote of their senator(s) against funding for youth employment programs.

The youth at the March and Rally will particularly urge Republican senators to support this TARP employment program for teenagers. President Ronald Reagan's father, Jack Reagan, and brother, Neil Reagan, were suffering from joblessness at the height of the Great Depression in 1933. It was a particularly hard Christmas for the Reagans in 1932, with Jack Reagan having been laid off from his job as a traveling salesman. In 1933, both Jack and Neil Reagan were provided jobs from the WPA. This helped them get back on their feet and restore their dignity by providing them with paying jobs.

The teens at this demonstration hope that the Republican senators will remember this when they consider another vote on providing jobs for teens who are stuck in a jobless depression. This only seems fair that if President Reagan's family received such significant help with jobs, that teens should receive help with employment this summer and year round.

The Youth Unemployment March and Rally was organized by the Latin American Youth Center, the Sasha Bruce Youthwork, Alliance for Concerned Men, National Network 4 Youth, Inner Voices and the Alternative Schools Network. The complete report of The Lost Decade for Teen and Young Adult Employment in Illinois is available online at http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/.

Republican Senators Who Voted Against Summer Youth Employment on March 9, 2010 & the Trends in Youth Joblessness for Selected States, 2000-2009 (Annual Average)

U.S. Senator Judd Gregg demanded a procedural vote that led to the defeat of the Amendment on the Senate Jobs Bill of the $1.3 Billion for Summer Youth Employment and $1.3 Billion for TANF Emergency Funds for Subsidized Employment.

Democratic Senators Who Voted Against Summer Youth Employment on March 9, 2010 & Trends in Youth Joblessness for Selected States, 2000-2009 (Annual Average)

Joblessness calculated as the total number of teens without jobs versus the total number of teens in the age group. Unemployment rates are calculated based upon people who are looking for work but are not employed. People who give up looking for work are not counted as unemployed, even though they do not have jobs. The jobless rate for teens considers all teens, not just the teens who are looking for work.

Nationally, the teen joblessness rate rose from 54.8% in 2000 to 71.6% in 2009, representing a 16.8 percentage point increase. An additional 2.86 million teens were jobless in 2009 than would have been if the joblessness rate from 2000 had prevailed in 2009. During January-February 2010, the teen joblessness rate climbed to nearly 74%, pushing this increase in the number of jobless teens to over 3.2 million. A breakdown of the increase in the number of jobless teens in the U.S. and selected states is provided in the following table.

Source: Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.

SOURCE Alternative Schools Network