FRESNO, Calif. — The Obama administration’s economic stimulus program to find jobs for thousands of teenagers this summer couldn’t overcome one of the bleakest job markets in more than 60 years that had desperate adults competing for the same kind of work.
Almost one-quarter of the 297,169 youths in the $1.2 billion jobs program didn’t get jobs, as more adults flooded the labor market seeking similar low-wage positions at hamburger stands and community pools, according to an Associated Press review of government data and reports from states.
“The summer program was basically half-disaster,” said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “It was too little, too late and too poorly constructed to have any lasting effect on our youngest workers.”
Over the last two years the Democrats have raised the cost of employing these teens by over 40%. How ignorant do you have to be to write a long article on teenage unemployment without mentioning one of the major factors in teen unemployment.
I don’t doubt that even with the increase in the minimum wage it would have been a challenging job market for teens. I would say less because of competition with adults then a lack of jobs total. If there’s less economic activity then there’s bound to be less jobs.
But that doesn’t mean that raising the cost of employing a teen from 5.15 and hour to over $7/hour doesn’t make a major difference in the employability of those same teens. People that would be unable to produce more than $7 are completely priced out of the job market. Most of us have enough job skills that we weren’t faced with the same enforced obsolescence. However those without the skills won’t be able to get a job to learn these needed skills.
The minimum wage is one of the most heartless things that the Democrats have put on the poor in the country.