In Case You Missed It: In Congress, a Bill to Reconnect Youth

Summer officially comes to a close this week.   Families and students are settling back into their daily school and work routines.  For many high school students, September is a time for signing up for the school play and attending the first football games of the season.   Some are beginning to prepare for the PSATs and the SATs; and others are gearing up to submit their college applications.

Sadly, for millions of youth in our nation this is not true.  Not all youth are experiencing the ideal path toward adulthood: high school graduation, then college, a training program, or entering the workforce with a job that offers good wages.  In fact, over 6 million young people ages 16 to 24, disproportionately male, Black and Hispanic have dropped out of high school and live in America today.

Fortunately, in the midst of the Washington chatter on budget deficits and debt ceilings, Congressional leaders introduced a bill this summer, the RAISE UP Act, to reconnect youth to education and jobs in the communities hardest hit by Great Recession. The RAISE UP Act would support local systems to identify young people who have dropped out of high school and help them secure a secondary credential, a postsecondary credential, and a family- sustaining career. Youth would receive education services, workforce preparation, and wrap around supports.

The consequences of not recovering young people and allowing so many to remain idle are serious for them, for their communities and society as a whole. Consider the following:

• Without a high school diploma, you cannot earn enough money to make ends meet.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest poverty figures, 21percent of youth ages 16 to 24 live in poverty.  This figure drops to 18 percent for those youth that were enrolled in school and skyrockets to 45 percent for those young people not enrolled in school and without a high school diploma.
   
• Many individuals within this age group are young parents and struggle to provide for their families.  Over twenty percent of young families (where the head of household was under 25 years old) earned less than $20,000 a year. For young black families, this number increases to 45 percent.

• We are in the midst of a national youth jobs crisis. Youth unemployment remains persistently high with young Americans making up nearly one-third of the unemployed.  This is the worst record for teen employment since WWII. Just 28.6 percent of all youth ages 16 to 19 were employed in August. And just 18.5 percent of Latinos and 14 percent of blacks were employed, compared to 32.4 percent for their white counterparts.

• Community stability and cohesiveness can be threatened when whole segments of people are ignored.We were all shocked and appalled at the violence that ensued in London this summer. In a recent Center for Law & Social Policy (CLASP) blog, the author writes, “the United States is certainly not England but there are several indisputable similarities in the underlying issues behind the British riots that raise questions about what happens when disadvantaged youth feel marginalized or wholly disconnected from larger society."

Simply put, the RAISE UP act can fuel pathways out of poverty for millions of young people. It's worth rallying behind.

What Can You Do?

• Learn more about the RAISE UP Act>>>
   
• Sign up in support of the RAISE UP Act>>>

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Kisha Bird is a senior policy analyst with the Youth Policy team at the Center for Law & Social Policy (CLASP) and the project director for the Campaign for Youth (CFY), a national coalition co-chaired by CLASP and the Corps Network.