May 19, 2003|By Michael Corbin
PROBLEMS PLAGUING the national economy are threatening to undermine some areas of social progress in Baltimore.
Nowhere is this more ominously clear than in the precipitously declining employment prospects for Baltimore City's young people. With the end of the school year fast approaching and a few thousand more young people entering a labor market that does not want or need them, Baltimore faces a daunting challenge. Many of the city's most pressing problems (homicide, juvenile crime, the drug trade) stand to worsen when meaningful, gainful employment is denied its young people.
The national numbers are bleak. April's unemployment rate grew to 6 percent (an 8-year high) and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hours worked per week saw its largest drop since 1983. The length of time workers are unemployed continued to grow. Periods of unemployment now average 19.6 weeks, the most since 1983.
The labor market for young people is always more precarious than national averages reveal.
A recent study by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies shows just how precarious and points to the potential consequences. Since 2000, the report notes, there has been a 12 percent increase in the number of 16- to 24-year-olds who are both jobless and out of school, raising that number to 5.5 million young people. The report singles out the country's largest metropolitan areas as being particularly inhospitable to young job-seekers.
As Baltimore and other American cities try to improve their schools, it becomes a cruel irony when those who do stay in school and graduate still cannot find work.
The center's report - "Left Behind in the Labor Market: Labor Market Problems of the Nation's Out-of-School Young Adult Population" - reveals that more than one-third of the out-of-work young have high school diplomas. Moreover, a higher share of the nation's 16- to 24-year-olds are enrolled in some kind of schooling today than at the end of the 1990s, but they are less likely to be employed than they were in the late 1980s.
Considering this coming storm, the U.S. Conference of Mayors has called for a national investment in America's young adults. But it is difficult to see where the money would come from for such an investment.
The Bush administration's budget eliminates the Youth Opportunity Grant program, which includes the only federal program providing comprehensive employment, education and development services targeted to low-income youths. The budget also significantly cuts the Workforce Investment Act's year-round youth program by $127 million and eliminates the Responsible Reintegration for Young Offenders program.
With great fanfare in February 2000, Mayor Martin O'Malley announced the receipt of a five-year, $44 million Youth Opportunity Grant. That grant was part of an ambitious 36-city federal Labor Department plan to target resources to inner-city youth employment. Now the Labor Department says the project will end with this fiscal year Sept. 30.
Similarly, state and federal funds that allowed Baltimore to find 5,500 young people summer jobs last year have been cut or eliminated. The city's Office of Economic Development hopes to provide a similar number of jobs this summer, but without new sources of revenue or private sector employers willing to hire, maintaining the status quo will be difficult.
Numbers for specific Baltimore neighborhood out-of-school and unemployed young people can be notoriously erroneous. The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicator Alliance puts the citywide percentage of the population of 16- to 19-year-olds who are not in the labor force but are in school at 44.3 percent.
Even if these numbers are close, that makes for a lot of young people who are not in school and not in the labor force. The number of out-of-school and unemployed youths in certain Baltimore neighborhoods is staggering. The legendary Baltimore "Corner" has a lot of potential recruits.
Without a serious investment of resources and political will, things are going to get worse before they get better. Nationally, after declining for more than a decade, the number of 16- to 24-year-olds has steadily increased since 1992, a trend expected to continue through the decade. By 2010, the total population in that age bracket will reach 39 million, several million higher than the peak in 1981.
Michael Corbin is a free-lance writer who lives in Baltimore.
