Time to lower jobless, poverty rates among youths

By Claire Grandison

and Jamie Gullen

While the recent news that our national unemployment rate has fallen to around 5 percent is cause for optimism, a troubling trend should not be overlooked: the persistently high youth unemployment rate.

According to the latest release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for youths aged 16 to 19 is 16 percent, more than triple the national average. For African American youths, the number is 24 percent.

Although the youth unemployment rate remains consistently high, it is often written off. Some people believe that young people are merely seeking employment to supplement a comfortable family income, occupy time over a languid summer, or gain experience for a college application. This is untrue. Many young people are not living off a comfortable family income: They rely on their own income from employment to survive.

This population includes a number of vulnerable groups, including youths aging out of foster care or returning to their communities after incarceration, or teen parents struggling to support their families. Each group comes with its own set of challenges. Former foster youths face a staggering unemployment rate of 47 percent. Youths with disabilities are employed at half the rate of those without disabilities. By age 23, it is estimated that 41 percent of young adults have been arrested at least once, and in Philadelphia the arrest rate for youths under 18 is 31/2 times higher than the national average. Juvenile and adult criminal records pose a significant barrier to employment, especially when youths lack employment history.

The youth unemployment and poverty rates are inextricably linked. This is particularly the case in a high-poverty city like Philadelphia, where, according to census data, the poverty rate for young people ages 16 to 24 is the highest of any age group in the city. In 2014, 38 percent of this demographic lived in poverty, far higher than among adults ages 25 to 34, of whom 22 percent live in poverty. Increasing access to meaningful employment opportunities will lift many young individuals and families out of poverty and decrease incarceration and homelessness.

A number of strategies should be deployed to reduce youth unemployment and poverty, including:

Increase state funding for vocational rehabilitation services to draw down the maximum amount of federal funding and help more youths with disabilities access job-training and job-placement supports.

Invest in subsidized jobs to give youths an opportunity to gain needed work experience, build contacts, and move on to full-time employment.

Give priority access to low- or no-cost childcare to ensure that low-income youths with children can work to support their families.

Focus on removing barriers to employment due to criminal history, including juvenile adjudications.

To address these issues, Community Legal Services and Philadelphia Legal Assistance are forming the Youth Justice Project, which aims to improve outcomes for our city's most vulnerable youth. It will officially launch this month. We aim to ensure that antipoverty stakeholders, members of the media, and others understand and address the needs of low-income youth.

In the meantime, let's help young people by recognizing the challenges they face, particularly in gaining employment. Investing in low-income youths and connecting them to meaningful job opportunities shapes not just individual lives, but the future of our cities as well.

Claire Grandison is a staff attorney and Independence Foundation fellow at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. cgrandison@clsphila.org

Jamie Gullen is a staff attorney at Community Legal Services. jgullen@clsphila.org