A Life in Poverty Begins Early

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to address the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. With the changes in Congress after the November elections, New York's Charles Rangel is now chairman of this powerful committee.

I spoke about the effects of poverty on young people of color in New York City and in America's other urban areas. For while the problem of young people caught in the vortex of poverty is perhaps more acute in New York City, this is a crisis that impacts communities across the country.

Inadequate Education

The journey of a life in poverty begins early -- with an inadequate education often leading to dropping out of schools that seem to have no relation to the world of work.

A recent Community Service Society (CSS) report revealed that 16 percent of New York City's 16 through 24-year-olds are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market. These nearly 170,000 young people are "disconnected" from any framework that could lead to a life of self-sufficiency and achievement.

The report found that the city's African-American and Hispanic youth -- particularly young men -- are twice as likely as Whites and Asians to be out of school and out of work. This predicament is most pronounced in the Latino community, where four in ten young men are disconnected.

We need a comprehensive policy to address the needs of disconnected youth. Revised curriculums emphasizing high-tech and vocational education should equip students with the job skills they need to succeed after school. And we need a second chance policy to reach out to those who have dropped out. For those with deep educational deficits, this will not be a cheap, quick fix. It will require more intensive programs or a series of steps from job corps to transitional jobs to market economy.

Jobless Dropouts

What happens to those who drop out of school and can find no place in our labor market? A few years ago, our report on the joblessness of New York City's Black men woke up the news media and public officials alike: nearly half of all Black men were without a job in 2003. The situation has improved somewhat. Still, our latest figures show nearly 40 percent of the city's Black men are jobless. That's about 250,000 people, larger than the population of Rochester, Syracuse, or Jersey City, New Jersey.

We have also highlighted the problems of the working poor. Our latest survey found that nearly 60 percent of low-income New Yorkers were working, nearly half working full time. A report produced by CSS and commissioned by the Service Employees International Union, Local 32BJ, on New York City's security guards, is a prime example of the economic state of the working poor.

The city's 63,000 private security guards provide the first line of defense for tenants and visitors in office buildings as well as retail stores, schools, and religious institutions. Almost 95 percent are non-union. Over eight in ten are male and mostly men of color. The median hourly wage for guards in the New York City area is only 55 percent of the median for all workers in the metropolitan area. Few guards receive benefits on the job. Most labor without a single day of paid sick leave. The result is a workforce with low morale and high turnover.

We need to reward legitimate, steady work. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been one of our most successful policies in making work pay and especially in drawing more low-income parents into the labor force and enabling them to rise out of poverty. But the EITC leaves out exactly the group with the highest rates of joblessness. The EITC should be extended to childless adults ages 18 to 24, comparable to that available to parents of two children.

We also need to improve the prospects for the working poor generally in an era where income polarization is getting worse yearly. Now we see the spread of dehumanizing efforts to force low-wage workers to hold themselves available for "flexible" schedule changes on the job -- to be at the beck and call of their employers. These tactics point up the need for strong, aggressive trade unions.

Prosperity not
reaching all

Mayor Bloomberg recognized the possibilities for employment in the city's burgeoning construction industry. But it was Congressman Rangel who induced the mayor to create the Commission on Construction Opportunity. And we have seen the results of the commission's work: a new High School for Construction Trades, Engineering, and Architecture that opened last fall; and 40 percent of construction industry apprenticeships earmarked for formerly excluded groups and individuals -- an unprecedented agreement with the city's trade unions.

The mayor's Commission for Economic Opportunity, on which I served, took a targeted approach to addressing poverty, focusing on three distinct groups of the poor: working poor adults, young adults ages 16 to 24, and children age five and under. The mayor has committed $150 million to develop policies that address their immediate needs and create avenues for sustained mobility throughout the course of their lifetimes.

This is a start. I hope that with a new majority in Congress and a new governor in Albany that the concerns of those trapped in poverty, so long ignored by most public officials, will be addressed in a comprehensive way. Most importantly, we must not allow another generation of young people of color to disappear into a life of poverty.

From the New York Amsterdam News
January 25 - 31, 2007