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(Elaina Natario Photo Illustration) |
ASSESSING SUMMER JOBS PROGRAM
THE ASSOCIATED Press article “Despite US stimulus, teens left without jobs’’ (Page A19, Sept. 27) should lead readers to worry about the consequences when a generation of young people risk never experiencing employment. Yet, in my view, government made a good stab at addressing this issue this past summer. According to the AP, it would seem that three-quarters of youth in special summer jobs programs may have gained employment, a small miracle when you consider predictable gaps in the launching and administration of a complex program requiring meeting federal guidelines for eligibility, lining up job placements, supervising, and monitoring job sites.
Even youth who weren’t placed in jobs may have participated in programs that exposed them to new career horizons: health care, green jobs, computers, and more - what economists call pre-employment and life skills training. Consider too that eligibility extends to 14-year-olds, for whom learning about work may be as valuable as work.
Seen as a management challenge, the summer jobs program for teens was successful but with isolated and entirely repairable challenges for future years.
Andrew Hahn
Waltham
The writer is a professor at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis.
“DESPITE US stimulus, teens left without jobs’’ (Sept. 27), regarding the federal summer jobs program supported by Recovery Act dollars, did an enormous disservice to a successful effort that put more than a quarter of a million young people to work.
In Boston, our summer jobs effort employed nearly 10,000 teens; it was a partnership that included city support, state funds, federal stimulus dollars, and business community participation. Hundreds of private employers stepped up to pay the wages of 3,000 young people. But we could not have gotten this level of business community backing if the federal government did not provide the basic infrastructure funding.
Mayors across the country have fought for a decade to get this program reestablished, and on their behalf, let me clarify what the Associated Press story made unclear. The federal summer jobs program first and foremost provided funds to pay youth wages for their work. It is not a substitute for private sector employment, nor is it to substitute youth workers for adult employees.
These are not make-work jobs. Young people provided vital services across our community, expanding services to children and seniors and improving the environment through projects such as organic farming and repairing parks and playgrounds. The dollars earned by these young people are reinvested in the local community - for clothes, food, and yes, even for helping their families pay household bills.
All good things are hard, and accountability is demanded by taxpayers, as it should be. In evaluating this program, let’s not confuse complexity with failure.
Constance J. Doty
Director Jobs and Community Services City of Boston 
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
