As a young teenager, Jeone Thadison used to sneak out and shoot dice with local drug slingers to help his mother pay the bills. These days, the 19-year-old is playing it straight, having landed a job at a local Boys and Girls Club. But as Chicago Public Radio's Eilee Heikenen-Weiss detailed yesterday, many young Chicagoans aren't having the same luck securing summer employment:
THADISON: Everybody filled out the KIDSTART application, but everybody didn’t get a job.
Although the city’s KidStart budget has increased through the years, the program will still turn down the majority of applicants this summer. Mary Ellen Caron is the commissioner of the Department of Children and Youth Services.
CARON: 40,000 young people applied, and in our program, there are 18,000 jobs. So there will be 22,000 who applied that will not have a job through our program.
Andy Sum, the Director of Northeastern’s Center for Labor Market Studies, estimates the figures nationwide are at a historic nadir. Only 34 percent of the nation's teens will be able to obtain some type of employment during the June-August period, the lowest summer employment rate in the last 60 years.
Unfortunately, a proposal by congressional Democrats to create 1 million new summer jobs for young people has stalled. Meanwhile, Gov. Blagojevich's plan to spend $30 million on a summer jobs program aimed at employing young people between the ages of 15 and 22 hinges on the adoption of a capital bill, which looks unlikely for the time being. While politicians work out the kinks, more and more teens are forced to turn their attention to the black market:
Hollis Hutchins just graduated from high school. He’s already working at Starbucks, but understands why others are tempted to deal drugs.
HUTCHINS: The economy is so messed up now, and it’s like I said. Everybody wants to live comfortably—whether you want to be filthy rich, or you just want to be able to go out and have a nice fifteen dollar meal and not have to worry about if you have gas money to get home after you eat the meal. And you got these drug dealers out here that’s makin’ it look so easy!
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