great depression but today it's clear that america is on a path toward economic recovery the most recent employment report showed that the economy has gained jobs for four straight months in a row in april two hundred ninety thousand jobs were created with a total of five hundred seventy three thousand jobs created since the start of twenty ten after four straight quarters of negative growth the economy has grown for three quarters these improvements in our  our economy are proof that actions taken by this congress and the administration have put our economy back on track while we're making progress the road to recovery will not be without bumps although we saw significant job creation in the past two months we need stronger job creation to reduce unemployment some groups are suffering more than others today's hearing focuses on younger workers who are facing extremely high rates of unemployment the j e c released a report today showing that one in five workers between the ages of sixteen and twenty four is an employed the highest rate of unemployment ever recorded for this age group while sixteen to twenty four year olds comprise thirteen percent of the labor force they make up twenty six percent of the unemployed the youngest workers those ages of sixteen to seventeen experience the highest rates of unemployment the unemployment rate for sixteen to seventeen year olds was twenty nine percent in april of two thousand and ten while education reduces the likelihood of being unemployed the benefits of a college degree are not uniform among sixteen to twenty four year olds the unemployment rate for young black college graduates was fifteen point eight percent in april of two thousand and ten nearly double the eight percent unemployment rate for all young college graduate these numbers will take these numbers will take on a stark reality as millions of new college graduates start knocking on doors looking for a job and for teens looking for their first job it will be even worse for them the scarring effect of unemployment among younger workers has lasting consequences for their attachment to the labor force their productivity and their future earnings dr von wachter testified before this committee last month these younger workers face reduced earnings even ten to fifteen years later the cost to the economy in terms of lost output for these workers are great which will have an impact on our debt and our deficit today the house began debate on h r four two one three the american jobs and closing tax loopholes act a bill to create jobs support those without jobs and lay the groundwork for new employment opportunities in the future h r forty two thirteen makes many key investments in our people and in our future in addition to extending unemployment benefits and cobra paying premium support through the end of the year the bill finds summer jobs for more than three hundred thousand of our young people job creation is critical of course but so  job training skills we need to defy training and placement programs that are getting strong results and figure out how to scale them so that they reach more workers across the country i look forward to hearing more creative solutions from today's panel on how to solve the unemployment problem for america's younger workers and i thank everyone for coming and recognize mr brady madam chairman please join in welcoming today's the witnesses before the committee i'd like to thank you for holding a hearing this morning on this important topic of success in one's working life is largely path dependent therefore getting off to a good start is important to young people that's one reason why high level of youth unemployment is so troubling in january of last year top obama administration economists christina romer and jared bernstein assured the country that of congress just passed the president's stimulus bill the unemployment rate would remain below eight percent and payroll employment would increase to hundred thirty seven point six million dollars by the fourth quarter of this year congress and acted president obama's trillion dollar stimulus plan in february of two thousand and nine with results have been disappointing at best since in the unemployment for all workers has never been below eight percent today it is nine point nine percent so far the obama administration is seven point four million payroll jobs short of its fourth quarter promises whatever young american workers aged sixteen to twenty four four even worse than their older counterparts since the stimulus passed the number of unemployed workers ages sixteen to twenty four has increased by a seven hundred seven thousand to a total of four point two million in april this year moreover the youth unemployment rate soared from fifteen point eight percent when the stimulus passed to nineteen point six percent in april of this year an all time high for this data series for many of our young people hope from the stimulus has turned to despair and given the severity of this problem i'm very interested in what today's witnesses have to say about the high level of unemployment among young american workers like one of today's witnesses dr hoaxer i want to find what government job related programs and private sector initiatives actually help young americans find and keep that in for an important first job what programs are wasteful ineffective the cost of paying for inefficient and mis tracked government programs to deficit spending will remain a debt burden on our children and grandchildren for example one of today's witnesses james sure observes the two thousand and eight and two thousand and bailouts and stimulus packages will cost the average twenty two year old one hundred in forty five thousand dollars four hundred forty five thousand nine hundred dollars during their working life two hundred eighty dollars a month he goes on to say that's equivalent of requiring college graduates to buy and throw out a high and i pod each and every month of their lives in conclusion today's panelists offer different solutions to the problem of youth unemployment some advocate more government spending others emphasize the private sector where most jobs are created like presidents kennedy and reagan i believe that are rising tide lifts all boats instead of more wasteful government spending on ineffective job related programs we should promote entrepreneurship and business investment to increase job creation in reduce youth unemployment and i'm chairman yield back thank you very much mr snyder would you like of any state well i would like to introduce our witnesses we have a very distinguished panel first we'd like to welcome back is an associate professor at the department of economics at columbia university as well as a faculty research fellow of the aging and labor groups at the national bureau of economic research is research focuses on the long term impact of job loss on earnings health and read hiram it is also study the effect of the persistent effect of business cycles on career outcomes of younger and older workers i would also like to welcome back dr harry holzer who is a professor of public policy at georgetown university and a founding director of the new georgetown center on property inequality and public policy he is currently a senior fellow at the urban institute and a senior affiliated of the national property center at the university of michigan among his many other affiliations projects coming to georgetown professor holzer served as chief economist for the u s department of labor in hundred ninety david jones is from the district that i'm very honored to represent and we've had a long career of working together on programs that are important to two of the nation's youth david jones is the president and c e o of the community services side of new york or the s s a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes economic advancement and full civic participation for low income new yorkers mr jones was also a special advisor to america with responsibilities and race relations urban development and the gratian reform and education minister stephen wing is director of workforce initiatives for c b s care mark the largest provider of prescriptions and related health care services in our nation and his position at c v s a mr wing partners with government agencies non traditional employment organizations and corporate colleagues among others to provide opportunities for employment and training since one thousand nine hundred sixty c v s caremark has hired over eighty thousand former welfare recipients congratulations mr wing has helped c b s marc to develop cutting edge programs that have earned the company many outstanding awards finally i would like to welcome mr james sherk whose previous appearance before this committee was a snowed out in february so we're very pleased you were able to make it this time he is a senior policy analyst in labor ecan economics at the heritage foundation he was previously the bradley fellow in labor policy at the heritage foundation mr short has written on the dynamics of rising unemployment in the recession the economic consequences of extending unemployment benefits card check and other labor members of the comedy it is an honor to be with you today the labor market the united states is covering from the most severe recession since world war two in my testimony i will summarize the available evidence on the short and long term effects of entering the labor market in the recession on young workers employment and earnings i would also indicate which labor market entrants are most affected by such initial bad luck and will summarize potential explanations of these effects finally i would briefly offer some occasions for policy from these findings vailable evidence suggests that the consequence from entering the labor market recessions are severe in both the short and the long run in the short run labor market entrants and young workers suffer from larger increases in unemployment and layoffs than the average worker yet even in the long run young workers who enter with no prior employment histories and are presumably the most flexible workers in the economy can suffer from initial bad luck for a long period of time for example entering the labor market in a recession such as the current one can lead to reduced earnings up to ten to fifteen years during this period younger workers are also opposed to higher incidence of non employment and job and earnings instability the evidence suggests that these adverse effects are driven by labor market additions in years immediately following entry into the labor market as a result of quick improvement labor mark conditions can speed up the recovery process but it cannot and will eliminate significant long term effects from entering the labor market in a recession existing evidence suggests that part of the decline in earnings arises because young and young workers entering the labor market recession take jobs that worse employers and otherwise would have had this process often term cyclical downgrading for the average labor market entrants this initial effect phase over time partly as workers search for better jobs partly as they manage to move up the career ladder of the existing employer however our findings suggest that the recovery process can take a long time and that involves mobility pinocchio patients industries regions as a result some workers never recover from the initial shock as they settle down buy a house and start a family lives not everybody can keep moving across labor force for ten to fifteen years these effects differ by education groups in the short run lower educated workers experience larger increase in unemployment the more educated labor market entrants however in the long run less educated individuals sent to recover faster in fact it is workers in the middle of the education distribution who can suffer close to permanent earnings consequences from entering the labor market recession on the other hand those individual at the bottom and at the very top of the education dis recover more quickly from a bad initial start thus more education per se does not yield full insulation against shocks occurring in the agood labor market yet of course more education is certainly beneficial as it raises the overall mean earnings and employment instability bombs ability entering the labor market recession also has impacts on individuals beliefs the evidence suggests unlucky quarts of labor market entrants tend to believe in a higher degree of income distribution at the recover generally the evidence suggested a faster macro economic recovery will help improve the speed of the recovery from a bad initial start however the adjustment of individual workers last well into and beyond the recovery of the overall labor market a rising tide lifts some boats but definitely not all boats thus it is worth recovering cost effective policies that directly aid recovery from starting to work in the recession for example to recover from beginning to work in the recession younger workers have to reorient their career goals the message here is something's got to give as the economy improves change in the patient industry or region with speed the recovery of earnings so raising of where awareness that the recovery process can take a long time and may involve continued bill it is important this could be done within existing infrastructure providing job search help for the unemployed in addition their young workers could be given information that is routinely provided by the bureau of labor the census bureau and it indicates which of the growing industries are patients or regions that will be providing more jobs to aid the reorientation of careers retraining can also help to provide new skills appropriate for a change labor market situation courses alternatively vouchers could be provided that allow workers to choose ways themselves to upgrade their skills in the private market in the general spirit not unlike personal reemployment accounts finally an important concern is that many young workers quit education and progress because they lack funds to continue to finance their training either their parents are laid off or they themselves cannot find a job to support themselves through their studies such a recession and use declining completion of education could substantially raise the cost of recession for young labor market entrance and the economy as a whole as a result of providing subsidies or facilitate boring to allowing young individuals to continue their education will be worth considering an advantage of these policies of some of these policies that they can be implemented or or build on the existing infrastructure of existing programs and this has the benefit that some of them have already been evaluated and shown to be cost effective more all over they could be implemented relatively quickly and finally the evidence that i've discussed reveals that there's a high degree of persistence of the effect of shocks in the u s labor market and this persistence is likely to arise  intrinsic workings of the u s labor market thus it is likely to be quite difficult to help unlock the labor market entrants after the fact the best help might be prevention this includes efforts to prevent shocks that can cause such a large recession it also include policies that help to prevent concentrated layoffs of continuing layoffs in the future such as job sharing to conclude our best evidence suggests that strong recessions such as the current one can lead to persistent scars for young labor market entrance and the available research shows that entering the labor market in the recession lowers earnings raises career instability affects individuals believe and their family formation and these scars as i said persist for over ten years point is that even in the best of times disadvantaged young people suffer from low levels of education low rates of employment earnings and many disconnect altogether in the school labor market american youth drop out of high school at very high rates on average twenty five percent of the whole population many fail to get any post secondary education of those who attend college whether it's a two year four year majority fail to obtain any credential even an occupational certificate within six within six years and outcomes for some groups like young african american men are worst of all their high school dropout rates remain well over thirty percent when they do drop out their employment earnings rates are very low on whether fatherhood is very as previously indicated employment and unemployment among teens in two thousand and nine two thousand and ten are among the worst ever recorded by the bureau of labor for instance right now now teenagers overall only participate in the labor market at a rate of about thirty five percent given months and out of those participating we have unemployment rates of twenty five percent for those people if we look at black teenagers the numbers are much worse only twenty five percent participate in the labor market at any time and in that group the unemployment rate is about forty percent and these unemployment rates will likely remain elevated for some time as economists project high unemployment for several years  unemployment of six months or longer is already very high nearly half of the unemployed have been out of work for six months or longer and that percentage will likely rise as well my third point the high unemployment of youth over the next several years will cause not only permanently lost and they need to transition to a new sector economy but we also know for young people transitioning out of school into the labor market there's evidence as well we have very strong evidence for young people graduating from college in the early with school applications and enrollment but primarily that's not where our disadvantaged young people end up and we really have very little evidence that a downturn like this one will raise high school graduation rates or post secondary enrollment among disadvantaged and then we have the issues of crime and poverty so far we've seen no evidence of rising crime in this downturn in the f b i released numbers yesterday suggesting that crime in the year two thousand and nine but there is that if that occurs both crime and incarceration will have scarring effects major scarring effects both on the victims of crime and on the young people who will become even more incarcerate poverty rates are certain to keep rising over the next several years and neighborhoods of concentrated poverty will come in increasingly difficult places for young people trying to transition to adulthood the my fourth point concerns policy i think policy efforts should focus on some short term job creation but also on enhancing education and training efforts with some work experience components to improve the labor market status of young people over the long term wrongly support enhanced efforts to spur job creation right now both in the private sector and in the public sector with the public sector jobs heavily targeted to low income support extending summer youth employment programs but actually i much prefer year round programs linked to schooling or other skill building activities high quality education and training options for young people also need to be enhanced in a range of levels options should be designed to address long term problems they should be ramped up right now on employment of young people are so high and wherever possible these efforts should include opportunities for them to gain some work experience if necessary subsidized by government a few examples for young people in high school we should be working not only on dropout prevention efforts but on bolstering high quality career and technical education and subsidize internships and apprenticeships for young people in college a range of curriculum improvement and support services could improve completion rates in certificate as well as degree programs and in general floundering since graduation efforts here include service employment sectoral training efforts and other programs have been recently evaluated high school dropout recovery and reconnection programs like the national guard efforts will cost some federal and state funds over time but we know that the social and economic cost of not investing in our young people are very severe and those will be much greater than the costs of making investments given the in the city of new york welcome this opportunity to talk to the panel we started work in this area focused on new york city almost five years ago we looked at the problem of young people who were not in school or at work we produced a report in two thousand and five out of school out of work that showed that new york city at that time was facing an unprecedented number of sixteen to twenty four year olds who were neither in roldan school nor working the numbers then were approximately two hundred thousand of them and almost a whole city of young people in this condition this represented nearly twenty percent of the new york city youth and adult young adult population and although our rates were high compared to other areas this wasn't unique to new york city i think why welcome testifying here what we see in new york as regretfully as mine we see all across the nation similar problems that disconnect when we were looking than they were nearly five million young people in this condition of all races across the country who  facing this thing five years later in new york city there's a little good news more young people are returning to school in new york city than ever before this is clearly a step forward school reform efforts kept young people from leaving school as well chris has created a new series of school environments to keep young people at risk of dropping out in the bad news is of course the labor participation has gotten much worse for young people we first reported on this trend as far back as two thousand and six when one of our regular labor market reports noted that the booming economy was helping everyone except young people who were working age  so even though new york city and the country was adding jobs young people were just not rising with those boats our recent recession has exacerbated this whole dynamic since two thousand and seven young adults have attained the highest unemployment rates on record as has been mentioned before one thousand percent the situation is much worse for young man and nearly twenty three percent for and for african americans thirty three percent and latinos twenty four percent we think jobs are critical for young people i think as dr vaughn walker mentioned it has an enormous impact if young people  participate in work and particularly going forward if they haven't had regular work by the time they're twenty five we think this has enormous impacts on the likelihood of these young people ever participating actively in the economy i come out of crown heights and better jobs and some of the poorest neighborhoods in new york and the notion of large numbers of young people concentrated in very poor neighborhoods who never have association with work is going to cut right through the fabric of these communities and endangered everyone there both in terms of their earning powers and their ability to really construct stable communities we think this is a real danger that i think we have to recognize this is not going to be cost free this is not something that's happened before at least in my lifetime when i was growing up in the fifty's and sixty's in bedford stuyvesant virtually everyone was employed the jobs weren't good we were facing racial discrimination but it was very rare to find somebody who was not working the bowery of new york really had very few african americans or latinos it was all people who were having substance abuse problems and it basically was not coming from these communities now i can walk through blocks of my old neighborhood and see literally dozens if not hundreds of young people who are just not connected to the job market and it's going to endanger my relatives my young people and my elderly as well as being damaging to the entire city of new york i think it's been talked about the remedy issue is i think the most critical one that we have to talk about i think we've talked about summer jobs as a vital  effort i need to stabilize well we find longer term solutions we issued a report a couple of months ago showing that the passage rate for young people getting high school diplomas  polling we have about one point three million people in the city of new york of working age with no high school degree and we have the worst g d p which is high school equivalency passage rate in the nation worse than any other locality and we have issues here that are going to make it very difficult to get young people back on track we think reauthorization increase funding for we obviously another thing that's necessary we at c s s have been working on three other initiatives a new tax credit for private business to incentivize them to centrally hire young people who fall into this category of being out of work and out of school for more than six months the other is a focus on a bill with jerry nadler congressman nadler looking at the new infrastructure transportation bill to add to it a specific focused w p a like program that could actually have teams of young people working on infrastructure projects as at least a pilot in areas of high impact and high need and the final thing is a work with congressman nydia velazquez and maxine waters and others to look at something called section three something i had no knowledge of before i started getting desperate for jobs for young people but in the one nine hundred sixty eight act for public housing and other subsidized housing there was a provision that best efforts be made to hire young people and others within housing authorities and in other subsidized developments it was never in force through democrat and republican administrations so it is no ideological center here now we're seeing such high concentrations in public housing of young people without jobs and without skills that i'm looking for strict enforcement of section three we spent a billion through three last year  capital and made efforts in public housing in the city of new york virtually none of that went to hire people from those neighborhoods far less young people from that neighborhood i'm looking at recognizing the strict restrictions you're under in terms of money to start focusing resources that are already there and coming up with programs that can get people to work immediately i have a crisis that is ballooning maloney and and the members of the joint economic committee thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about c v s caremark experiences developing programs to train disadvantaged young for careers but first i'd like to tell you a little bit about c v s we are the leading pharmacy healthcare company in the united states and have more than seven thousand c v s stores and two hundred eleven thousand employees across forty four states and the district columbia and puerto rico c v s has built a track record not only as a great place to work but as a company that has developed true specialties in the area of job creation and workforce development partnering with federal state local officials non profits and the deans of pharmacy schools we have developed programs that are recognized nationally as models for recruiting training colleagues for all and from all walks of life c b s is facing high demands for supervisors and management staff within our current national workforce and absence of key basic academic and workforce skills make it difficult up to employment through the work force pathways to pharmacy programs founded in partnership with america's promise in two thousand pathways to pharmacy has surpassed its goal of introducing one million children to pharmacy as a potential career we've also reached our goal of generating four million dollars in summer internship wages for high school students our summer internship serves more than eight hundred teenagers in more than forty cities each year the summer programs run six to eight weeks the first weeks learning about customer service in the field of pharmacy  classroom settings that colleges of pharmacy and then the last weeks gaining hands on experience in interning at a c v s one example is a twenty year old veronica  who participated in our chicago pathways to pharmacy program four years ago she fell in love with the profession and is currently a junior at the university of illinois chicago with definitive plans to enroll in pharmacy she also in teen years to work at the same c v s sensor internship she started out as a pharmacy sales associate and then studied to become a certified pharmacy technician she now works twenty hours a week in between classes c v s caremark has also recently piloted a pathways to retail careers program in boston and detroit focusing on high school dropouts working with several partners including works source partners as well as our own c v s regional learning centers we provide six weeks of intensive training in classroom setting training was designed so that it incorporates critical workplace skills as well as c v s specific training in addition the young people have a mentor and social support to help secure their success following the classroom training period the young people apprentice at c v s in the second phase of the pilot we have designed a set of tools that can help them to continue their skill development with online training and on the job training in boston th retention rates far exceed the company's average we developed this pilot with the support from the kellogg foundation new options initiatives c b s plans to replicate this program nationally when scaling up our various workforce programs in other markets c b s has found that the most difficult task is identifying key players given that they are not the same in each market we have learned that it is critical to the development of the partnerships with a range of local government agencies faith based groups community colleges and other interested parties and it is important to develop a detailed corporate plan first and then share the plan with the potential partner so that they fully understand the program's details what is expected in how the program may further their own objectives lastly i'm i'm on the board of directors of corporate voices for working families corporate voices is a key player and in working with business and they dedicate themselves to young employment opportunities they have compiled a case study on c v s is role in helping out school youth through our path retail careers pilot and have also worked with with us and and europe as dr halter talked about to develop a pharmacy tech model i'd be happy to share this case study and the other  maloney congressman brady and members of the joint economic committee thank you for inviting me to testify this morning my name is james sherk i'm a senior policy analyst in labor economics at the heritage foundation the views expressed in this testimony that were my own and th should not be construed as representing an official position of the heritage foundation is the other panelists have mentioned today's youth face many serious challenges congress should ensure that it addresses these challenges effectively to do so congress should keep in several lessons from recent history but what does and does not work the first lesson that congress should keep in mind is that most youth employment programs have been shown not to work congress has created several youth job training and work experience programs the national supported work demonstration youth programs on the job training in partnership act job start and of course job corps these programs were and are very well intentioned unfortunately evaluations show that they have accomplished little youth who have used these programs are not statistically more likely to have a job or to have higher earnings later in life it's a quote nobel laureate james heckman he literally wrote the book on how to evaluate these programs neither the experimental nor the non experimental literature is provide much evidence that employment and training programs improve u s youths labor market prospects now european nations have created far more extensive huge uproar bramsen america has because they have much higher youth  programs come to similar conclusions public training cities and direct government job creation have generally not worked the swedish experience of the one nine hundred ninety s should provide or particularly important warning for america the swedish government responded to a large rise in youth unemployment by creating large scale youth job training and employment subsidies hundreds of thousands of who had issues went through these programs two years after going through them those who'd done so had no higher earnings and were no more likely to hold a job than those who hadn't swedish taxpayers a large investment did a little good for the swedish youth congress should carefully evaluate proposed expansions and job programs to ensure that the same does not happen to either american youth or american taxpayers now the second lesson that congress should remember is that a stronger overall labor market is the best way to help young and low skilled workers employment among younger workers is pro cyclical as you can see from the chart back against the wall there it responds more strongly and in recessions going up but also in good times it comes down more than unemployment among the older and more skilled workers does during the economic boom of the late one nine hundred ninety s the employment prospects of low skilled workers including the young improve now congress has no silver bullet policies to get us back to the stronger job markets of the late one nine hundred ninety s however congress can take steps in that direction by removing barriers to entrepreneurship investment and wealth creation this will spur employers to hire as they take advantage of these new opportunities increasing the demand for labor including the labor of young workers concrete measures towards the school would include eliminating regulations that do more economic harm than good removing barriers to domestic energy production and suspending the davis bacon act now if congress wants to take measures that would particularly target employer hiring of young workers congress could suspend the recent increase the minimum wage about half of minimum wage workers are between the ages of sixteen and twenty four economic studies show that a ten percent increase in the minimum wage decreases a teenager on a i meant by roughly two percent this suggests that the increase in the minimum wage from five fifteen an hour to seven twenty five an hour has cost roughly four hundred eighty thousand teenagers their jobs with additional job losses among twenty to twenty four year olds these job losses mean as the panelists discussed last in pain for these teens because the main value of a minimum wage job is not the rather low wage it pays today but it's the training in the experience it provides for the future congress could put these youth back to work by returning the minimum wage to five fifteen an hour until youth unemployment falls back to pre recession levels this would create hundreds of thousands of youth jobs and provide them with valuable experience without costing taxpayers a dime now the third lesson that congress should keep in mind is that of the greek crisis unsustainable government spending eventually means severe economic hardship today's youth face a far more serious challenge than even this painful recession they face the burden of paying for the baby boomers retirement and the debts being accumulated today by two thousand and fifty social security medicare and medicaid will collectively consume one sixth of the american economy and paying for these entitlements will place a very heavy burden on america's workers today's youth to balance the budget without cutting spending federal taxes would have to nearly double and today's bailouts and stimulus as are adding to this burden dr edward string of trinity college estimates that the two thousand two thousand and nine bailouts and stimulus packages will cost the average a twenty two year old graduating from college today one hundred forty five thousand nine hundred dollars during his working life that's the equivalent of making him buy a high end i pod every single month and throw it in the trash for the rest of his working life today's youth are set to become a debt paying generation working to pay off the debts of their parents and their grandparents and this threatens their future far more than even the consequences of this painful recession congress should hesitate before adding to this burden thank you and i appreciate the opportunity to talk with you but how to avoid ineffective policies and pursue successful policies to help america's youth i want to thank all of the panelists for their their insight and her testimony  dr holzer and mr johns and dr van walker you all mentioned the scarring effect that our young people experience when they are not able to get a job when they graduate from college or high school and dr  testimony and research particularly riveting when you pointed out that the scarring effect lasts for fifteen years in reduced earnings and i'd like to point to this very troubling report that we just did that has the unemployment for our young people just going through the roof particularly the sixteen through twenty four and certainly with the with the seniors and mid middle age employment it is a far less and i'd like to ask all of the panelists what action can our policy makers take to mitigate against this effect of so called scoring that affects not only the individual but their ability to contribute to the overall society and economy anyone's answers there are there any initiatives or anything that we can take to mitigate this scarring effect dr ben buchler and then just go down the line if you have comments on it so i am going to pick up one of my suggestions to my testimony that is it is important to raise awareness of what the recalls how the young workers can recover to help young workers help themselves so in high school or in community college or in college to important explain to do cover process can take a long time that it will involve hard choices it will involve compromise it will involve continued investment continued mobility  and i think many young graduates don't realize that they have to fundamentally change their career plans and i think it's also important to point out where such information can be gotten where information on jobs and  p patient industry can be obtained that in addition with potentially a voucher for retraining or career building could be of significant help when you say where you find the information now where do you find the information on the sectors or areas that would be employing young people is there some central place that young people could go to see where jobs are for their age group well one so currently a lot of this information can be simply found on the website of the borough of labor statistics of the census bureau but it is scattered and it could be much more effective if perhaps put concentrated in one place and but in addition to this information it's also important to but then there were no has to be raised the debt is where the information is or it could be that essential web sites and provided that it did give the various links to the various pieces of information could so the teaching aspect is important because not everybody knows you know from the start how the same with older workers or is it more severe with younger workers well i think we know that the scoring effect is more severe because this is a more critical time for younger workers when they pick up really key labor market experience that's their long term earnings so targeted job creation efforts either through tax cuts for new hires and tax credits for hiring on the job training much more robust than the recent payroll tax cut that that  congress passed and also some public service employment that would be heavily targeted towards the disadvantaged at dolphin especially disadvantaged youth and i think we have evidence on those and we know that those can be done in ways that are well targeted and relatively cost effective and get quite substantial job creation good bang for the buck but i also think another way to offset whatever scarring occurs is to have more robust education and training that's closely linked to labor market opportunities a nd in different areas we know how to do that and we have evidence we have evidence for young people still in high school on the power of hyper high quality career education like career academies and tech prep which again combine strong academics with good work force experience we have some evidence of community colleges on what works to not only improve completion rates but make sure that what people learn is tied to labor market opportunities and even for young people who have dropped out of high school and i think this is the most challenging group we do have evidence from programs that not only create employment but tie that employment creation to skill building efforts training targeted the key sectors of the economy and there are several efforts there that we could discuss  but all of these offer opportunities i think not only to create more jobs but also to improve education and training my time has expired mr brady thank you madam chairman lot of thoughtful test monday thank you all for being here  separate federal job training programs does the federal government ha the reason i asked i've served on job training programs local level for many years twenty years ago and it was a staff member then as you were talking i just googled that question myself and on one city washington d c if you go to the simply hired site it says here you can access at one point all two hundred forty one separate programs in washington d c they had training employment you experience training youth exchange training team bridge home seeds jobs program latino jobs youth program disadvantaged youth program job corps job start on and on and on my question is how do we know it works when we don't even know if the federal government offers and is anyone really examining the effectiveness of decades of programs layered on top of decades of youth programs and how do we find out what has the best bang for its buck that's not your fault my point is i'm not sure we know what's working because we don't know everything that we're pouring billions of dollars into and i still am convinced that that first job a young person gets is a key turning point in their life and getting them into that first job whether it's through internships that first minimum wage job makes a huge difference and creating a stronger economy making it easier for small businesses to hire young people is i think probably the key whether you are new york city or texas or rural america so my question is how do we make it easier for small businesses to bring on young people for that first training job where they don't have experience but it puts them on the right path so mr sure you sort of addresses and i'll start with you you talked about reducing the minimum wage for youth again to make it easier for small business to hire in real life increasing from five fifteen to more than seven dollars what that man is small business has to come up with an extra five thousand dollars a year to bring that young person on the job what kind of impact has that you talked about but addressing that issue to bring more you removing other barriers how do we start making it easier for small businesses dire i think at reducing the minimum wage back to where it was before would be one of the most effective measures that we could take the increase we've had minimum wage based on studies done and better economic times and businesses didn't have to be as cost conscious suggest that it cost about a half million teenagers at their jobs and probably closer to nine hundred thousand you when you take a look at young adults now that we're in a recession businesses are  see are our small businesses normally see that as that on the job training you know plus the ability to assess the skills in the work ethic of that person often with the opportunity to move them off that the goal isn't to increase  forward well most people on the minimum wage are part time workers sixty four percent and it's exactly as you suggested it's a it's a training wage it's a training job two thirds of all workers who are on the minimum wage a year later earning more than the minimum wage  that by me again two thirds of workers who today this time around the minimum wage come back and look at them a year and if they're still working they're going to be earning above the minimum wage they'll of earn a raise what it does is it allows workers who have very few skills to come in get trained in very practical things like just the discipline of showing up on time for work every day skills that make you more productive and earn you a raise it's not a lifetime job for very many workers at all you talked about the energy domestic energy supply energy in america employs two point two million people directly many of them are high school graduates who are and i know from texas looking some of our energy jobs sixty day eighty thousand dollars many of the minority many of them hispanic to be the honest in opportunity you know to make to or to raise a family to have that job if we that type a living you know if we make it harder to produce explore in a gene united states is that cut off or reduce out too many for good paying jobs for people without necessarily a college degree absolutely and it does it in two ways one that we have heritage of estimated that if we were to expand domestic production of energy by two million barrels create two hundred seventy thousand new jobs you've got the direct jobs in the energy sector itself but then you've got the effect of the economy of what happens when we have more oil being produced well energy's less expensive you gas up your car it's that much cheaper which means you have that much more money to spend somewhere else in the economy so even if you don't have a job that has anything to do with energy it means more money in your pocket and it's better for the economy when our treasury is less expensive madam chairman some point to miss sure if you talk about it but some point to love to hear more about thank you very much i appreciate that the other members are letting me go ahead here because i've got something to get back to in the senate i thank you very much and i really listening to you this morning it made me realize that the statistics support what i've been hearing  at home when i get back oh so many young people who are having trouble getting work either some summer jobs but a lot of it is college graduates or high school graduates who in other better times would be able to get a job so this isn't my life growing up in the suburbs in the seventy's when it was simple to get the car hop job at the n w or the baker square pie shop where my i would tell you madam chair my career came to abrupt and when i spilled twelve iced teas on one customer that's when i decided to go to law school so i i my questions were first of all about the how we get those that are in college right now and even in high school to focus on some of the skills that was just being discussed in the energy area or perhaps and they science in the area of health care which i think they'll still be more needs as our population ages how we target that skill development toward sectors of our economy that will generate demand in the coming years anyone can take it thank you senator for the question i think one of things that we're is we really saw with our pathways to pharmacy program we go back into elementary schools and we start to talk to kids about pharmacy or pharmacists volunteer to go to career days and talk to kids about pharmacy and what the pharmacist does and and then then in middle school they actually they become a shadow at the store they spend time with the pharmacists and the manager just to see what this is really something that they want to do and then and then in high school and they do an internship and they really see and just like i was talking about veronica i mean there are there are hundreds or thousands of kids that we have around the country that are dissipating in that program and that's how they they get excited about the opportunities and then they start to take the right courses that are going to get them into pharmacy so that they're getting prepared at an early age so in really in middle schools where i think they that what we're seeing is where that's where they is really important that they start to take the right courses to get themselves prepared that's pretty early having a fourteen year old back to health or similar i think there are we have strong evidence areas and programatic efforts both for in school you can at a school that can successfully target growing sectors of the economy i think the general statement that mr shurkin made before that nothing works with this population is simply incorrect when you read th seven closely there are a lot of programs that haven't worked we've developed a better sense over several decades of research what does work what gets people not only secondary and post secondary degrees but targets them towards growing sectors of the economy with good jobs for instance the career academies program  for high school students has been rigorously evaluated and shown as much as eight years later it has strong effects on earnings especially for at risk young men for whom other programs have more trouble working also programs like tax prep that build pathways from academy or a financial services or an i t career can mean people take a combination of academic courses to keep open about secondary options as well as career oriented an occupational training and i think at the community college level which is so important right now we have strong evidence that getting certificates even a young person who didn't do in high school they get certificates and some of these key areas health technology and some other areas it has quite dramatic effects on the earth i think there should be a bigger emphasis on trying to have targeted at community college or even regular colleges having two year degrees in certain area two year degree certificate programs i think the whole range the labor market rewards the whole range i think we need is better coordination it's not just necessarily throwing money at these sectors but it's better coordination between our educational institutions and our workforce development efforts i think the workforce investment act needs to be revised in a way that that improves that's because the education system you can do  i think to improve the coordination of those two sets of institutions and make them more responsibly morning when i think senator you have to recognize we have an extraordinary low graduation rate out of our community colleges i think it's two point three percent in two years in new york and when you look at that and deconstruct it it's basically about money there are no money we do surveys and find that most poor households have less than one hundred dollars in total reserves when someone reaches that age or going to community college with no supports it's very difficult to make it has nothing to do with all the intellectual capacity it's the question how can you survive you have time working two jobs and trying to do college level work at the same time so i think we have to look at subsidies if we want to have young people be able to succeed in community college technical programs now thank you i now defend the new york times written article plan b skip college also talk about even with bachelor's only fifty percent get their bachelor's within six years now thank you very much thank you mr cummings it felt a lot of passion and i think because you had just gone through and talked about how what you saw as a youngster and what you see now and the point you just me is so significant i sit on the board of historically black college morgan state university and sadly we have to let a lot of our kids go why because they don't i wonder whether that is a disconnect with reality because when one of these young people get a thousand dollars if they can get a thousand dollars that i mean in a job working that thousand dollars may very well be the link between them being staying in school and leaving school and what we've seen is that if they leave school they live likelihood is they'll never return and so you know i don't know what you say to a kid and  dropping out and then trying to reconnect we did a report on g d p which is your second chance if you drop out basically across the country set up just after world war two for returning veterans who didn't have a high school diploma to come back into the system really a building block much to my shock for virtually any career now you can't get into pre apprenticeship programs and plumbing electricians printer anymore in the city of new york unless you have a high school diploma so this is almost  necessary requirement the difficulty is once you drop out the ged is considered a sort of second rate degree we presented the g t some of the math problems to the regions of the state of new york and fifty percent of the regions couldn't do the math problems because it's been too long as the time goes on after year in the rigor of school trying to reconnect it has nothing to do with your intellectual capacity you lose those skills and that's why it's so important to hold young people in as best you can because that's the best shot to get their high school diploma but it is becoming money when you turn fifteen or sixteen in the middle of the south bronx or brownsville or i soon across america there's no money in the household how can you sit around if there's no indication that there's going to be a job out there for you even if you get through the high school diploma and get into a community college with with the family struggling with no resources i think where we're sort of having this image of a middle class america and we're imposing that on working poor people across the country and it's not fair and i guess i do get emotional about this because i see deterioration question the point you know there was a recent article talking about the importance of childcare subsidies for the unemployed and lore income workers can you discuss the issue where by seems  younger workers more younger workers more reliant on these programs and exactly how do they affect the employer read to be just a question for clarification these are subsidies obtain a job are crucial so even paying a young worker giving it a bonus reemployment bonus or paying them ploy or to hire young workers is worthwhile for the reasons we discussed because the getting a first job and keeping it is so important in fact the point i want to made in the discussion of the minimum wage is that it's and of community college it's important to bring employers back onto the table and discuss with employers what employers need which for young workers they want and this way the information of where young workers would be most needed where the growth jobs are will be provided automatically and i just want to point out the most successful job training program in the world is the german apprenticeship program is where affectively firms can pay such sub minimum wages by giving a training guarantee and what that means is that successful firms select choose to provide training and there's an active market where firms compete for young workers for high school graduates and so on and there's a lot of information provided and that could be provided to be happening right at the end of high school or doing community college and that could be linked this effectively the another way of having a job subsidies allowing minimum wages for firms to guarantee training thank you m madam chair and thank you for having this hearing i want to continue a bit of discussion of mr cummins and he and i were talking back and forth about this issue of high school dropout rates i mean it really is a discouraging thing i mean when you look at the last several decades i think twenty years ago none of us would have predicted i don't think that in two thousand and ten we would still be talking about twenty five percent high school dropout rates in some populations so i would like each of you has been a little more time on that about what is it that we need to do where where where are we missing the boat i mean i think it's probably decision i think it's much more a problem of how do we fix the school system and in reform education that it is an issue of what we do about the labor market but once you have these dropouts it's that it has very severe labor market consequences for them going am appalled by that to see in the in the inner cities that we see sixty fifty sixty seventy percent dropout rate i mean this is it's unacceptable to see that in this country and i think one of the things that we're trying to do is through our pathways program is is really get those and up the pathways program is really designed for inner city rural kids those are the ones who are trying to go after and find the the minority candidates because they're  think was said earlier that that there are some really bright kids they just need some guidance there and and and so that's what we do with our with our pathways program as we get into those the middle schools and start to encourage those kids that not that they're going to become pharmacists but then courage to take the math and science courses that that's going to enable them then to get into high school and get excited and and that's been working for us and we've been like i said veronica's one example but acquired basic reading and numeracy skills by the fourth grade it's basically a long slide i don't believe that i couldn't read in the third grade i managed to recover but i think the issue becomes that we have a couple of things we have been spending even in the city of new york much less on young people in very poor communities than we do we're not examples of that are the stuyvesant high school one of the best in the country the thirteen million dollars just on the bridge across the highway i have no operating labs and many of my high schools in poor so there's disproportion going there but i also think there's something else which i think is more actually i never thought i'd be there that we have to have a serious discussion on career and technical education new york city has one of the poorest systems of that sort in the country despite our norma's dropout rate and this is when we poll people at two hundred percent of poverty or less which we do every year when after they talk about better teachers better pay teachers smaller class size the third thing they talk about is a focus on career and technical education for their kids because they recognize to come out with a general diploma at in this environment in this global economy without real skills that can allow you to become independent is is not the way to go that then education can build on that but the finances have become so critically important for working families that this notion of a long childhood where you can sort of loaf along finding yourself just isn't available and i think we have to start taking this seriously as early as junior high school summer employment should not be a generalized think it should start to link up with actual job skills and just taking things along in an exciting way but something that can actually give you a career when you're out of it and let you then decide how your educational progress will go from there i want to echo the points about about high career and technical education i think when people start dropping out of high school to get to these low income communities twenty five percent of the average nationwide and in some communities it's much much higher as are wings that some young people drop out because they're very far behind many drop out because they just don't see the point and they don't see any pathways to success in their schools and their families in the neighborhoods for people who look like themselves and we have left those pathways a road now historically we had something called vocational education that was very strongly dislike in low income minority communities because it was viewed as a form attracting are you middle class kids get to go to college but but but the low income line already kids get tracked into vogue editor anna mae cases it was an academic backwater that no longer has to be the case and we have good examples of high quality career and technical education like the career academies like where the academic component is very strong and young people are still encouraged not just to get a high school diploma but to go beyond that and get good post secondary training but at the same time they get occupational training and good labor market experience in growing in high wa sectors and the evaluation evidence on those is very positive so we have to rebuild not old fashion broke at but high quality current technology cation linked to strong sectors of the economy there's other evidence of things like mentoring programs certain kinds of case management that also tend to reduce dropout rates but the other thing we have to do i think there's two ways to attack this you can try to prevent dropping out early on which we certainly do and then you can try to reconnect the people that have dropped out now earlier mr brady counts up hundreds o programs disadvantaged young people and then he's right we've had this scattershot approach of a lot of tiny programs if you add them all up the resources in those programs are very very small as as a percentage of g d p this country actually spent very little compared to other industrial countries on active job training and labor market programs but we have efforts to reconnect high school dropouts that are proven to be successful i'll mention a couple of the national guard runs a program called the challenge program funded from the department of defense has had remarkably strong effect in random assignment evaluations and getting young people not only their g e d s in the high school diplomas and then getting them into further education programs like that certainly the enhanced we also had a program started in the clinton ration called the youth opportunities program which targeted money to low income neighborhoods both for schooling and employment with a lot of the money going to high school dropouts that program was very quickly killed off the bush administration in fact a people who've already dropped out as well as improving more success thank you very quickly so currently in most states the compulsory schooling ages sixteen so it's a remnant of a time where at sixteen you could get a decent then a factory in manufacturing now those jobs are gone because of the way the economy has changed and focused on more technical more highly skilled jobs so one way of addressing the problem is to force people to take some form of training until age eighteen this is the weights on for example in germany which is the highest used labor force but space and right in the world but in this way people will come out with skills and we'll see over unity no wonder that the people of sixteen who are low skilled and think of dropping out don't see any opportunities with there are any more there aren't any more opportunities for these people so and letting them enter the labor market later with a better skill well you don't link them to a better labor market thank thank you i'd like to ask  wing and mr jones and in april the unemployment rate for our young people reached an all time high of nineteen point six percent and that age range of sixteen to twenty four which is truly a crisis  number mr when you have run a successful job training program and mr johns in your testimony you talked about using hud money and public housing projects as as job training there is one specific program that is moving through congress now it is three hundred million dollars for youth summer employment can you come to offer ideas of how we might target that in a way that would give the career education opportunities of been talking about is there a way we could tie it to successful programs in pharmacy such as you've done mr wing that that at the end of the summer there is an opportunity like the young woman you describe to has now in college has been come a very inspired with her experience and working in the pharmacy is there a way we could use that in a more productive way to employ not only for the summer but to inspire and give a vision for our young people in the future and mr johns you've been running these programs and are involved in them for many ways and you might have some insight that might help us in directing these funds in a more productive way i agree with what you're saying there and i think one of the things that was mentioned earlier was talking about year round i think that the the it's it's it's great to have a summer program but i think these are things that need to be year round so that the kids really can can resilient they they they really are dedicated and when they get the opportunity to come to work they they're going to stay to work and and even through going through school several of these folks that  we have examples of that they're working two or three different jobs because they're there helping to pay for their education but they're also helping their parents because they they are struggling so i think it's i think it's important that we look at not just summer programs but that we that we make these and expand these into you know year round programs so that that while they're in school they can be taking the things that they have that they're learning in school and applying of that work and and i think one of things that we're seeing is that  so that the kids are really learning and the managers and pharmacists are becoming mentors to them just very briefly i would tend to agree year round programs work much better there's a there's a problem with not having sort of rigor in summer youth employment jobs it is an opportunity to start having certain skills provided so young people start to understand what the work life is i mean this is the first approach and we've never used to your services for the city of new york and we never had the rigor back then it was a long time ago but it's still lacking and if this is going to be the opportunity a rare opportunity to connect young people to the world of work we should you know require that did they come to work on time do they get about you at the end such no matter how you do this to make this a real work experience that can give people the structure of what the world of work is like and i think just the notion of here's your check come here but at the end of it there is no connection to another employer whether private or public there is no real definition of whether you did a good job or a bad job i think is a wasted opportunity with scarce money so i do think we have to seek rigor it may not be immediate but as these jobs go on they should be year round it should hit out of school youth as well as in school youth and it should really start to look more like a real job so that young people can get a taste of what this is about thank you very much mr brady you know i think there's a healthy discussion appreciate mr snyder visiting about  real opportunities for kids who aren't going to college or choose not to there seems to be as a layman not in the education community but there seems to be a disconnect between what the parents and i think students want and what the educational leaders want in that technical vocational training is frowned upon is tracking dr coles i think he's at work almost giving up on kids if you do that in southeast texas for example you know your own area better but up until last year our biggest labor problem is that we couldn't find ten thousand welders to to to work on the refinery expansions the new natural gas projects everything that was going on now obviously that's cool down because of the economy but even this year we lost a eastman project one point six billion dollars fifteen hundred construction jobs due both of the global economy in the figure of cap and trade but the point was that we are having trouble finding those workers because education sort of frowns upon that in that our curriculums at the state level not necessarily federal are really geared toward that college degree and no a welder in southeast texas starts at thirty five thousand dollars a year not much new york but start it's a start texas you know skilled welders up eighty to ninety thousand dollars you can raise a family but that my so my question is a general one is how do we reinstate not for everyone but for those who choose to which require a lot of training in themselves the vocational technical job path where dropout rates can be addressed where there is an alternative you know this path is usable it's workable it creates real revenue for you and your family so you don't have to have to drop out let me just open up madam chairman with your permission congressman i agree with you very strongly and i fear that in some of the discussions of education reform that are occurring right now too much of the emphasis is on academic and academic skills are very important be achievement gap  between middle class kids and low income to those are very important issues but sometimes the conversation becomes too narrow and we talk about an academics only set of standards that i think are inappropriate and ignore these parts of the labor market that i think you've accurately described where there are good opportunities for non college graduates but they need to have something beyond usually just a high school diploma they used to have some significant on the job training or some significant career education i think the way to counter this is to make the career technologic a should high quality number want to make sure that it combines strong enough academics so that people who want to go on to post secondary and should go on have the background to do that it should not be viewed as a dead end in itself and has to be one of many pathways that people can see when they're in a high school some pathways lead into the labor market if you go back afterwards for post secondary but there's a good job opportunities that can be accessed right now with those skills and  young people need to see you know i think young people even people in community college often don't have a clue about what the labor markets are like in their areas and what i think information is first of all walk is that it's very important and very lacking and i think young people need a sense of the range of careers out there good paying jobs for kids with no skills are disappearing but in fact good paying jobs for folks with strong academic plus occupational skills and some post secondary certificate remain strong and i think we have to rebuild the quality of those programs the links to the labor market and the perceptions that they can matter and that could be a viable alternative and i would like to add to that too and i think it's a that's a great question because i think you know it's not just looking at getting kids prepared for college i mean we also have to look at that the kids are going to go to the community colleges or that they're going to go to technical schools and i think really the  program we have the pathways to really that in boston is a great example of of getting kids that are dropouts that they get excited they want to come to work and and we've really seen a great increase in in and retention with those kids because they have they know that this is their chance to get ahead and to and make and have a career opportunity and so they're really digging into it and then at that point they're going on to get additional education so we see you know a working together and i think the important thing that i would want to say about all this is that you have to have the partnerships you have to develop those relationships with government agencies and the foundations and different organizations are going to help you get to two to bring all of the things that dr halters talking about together and and that's what helped us to be successful especially in in some of these tests that we've done just a new york example albeit brief the aviation high school which is one of the more successful of our technical education there even with the vagaries of the airline industry those graduates are immediately picked up well really great paying jobs and i think what's relieved me somewhat because i come out of a generation where the notion of ok was anathema no black child my father wasn't allowed to touch tools for fear he would become you know  not a professional but when i started when we started polling and started talking directly to the constituencies we're trying to help they've got it they don't want their young young person to have to live with them or not be able to support themselves they want good good paying jobs with skills and they recognize that the path we're going on which is this generic education that is supposed to be leading to  theoretically to four year college is not leaving their kids to independence so i think we have to wrest back on the base now working people in the struggles they're up against and their hopes for their kids to be able to make it into the economy thank you thank you thank you very very much i missed a common thank you the spring a very interesting discussion let me ask you the one we've got a first of all a lot of this is seems to be about vision young people seeing their futures several you have mentioned that i'm assuming if you can answer me quickly what caused c v s to do what you did because i agree with mr brady and one of our rare moments of agreement that this has to be not only do we spend dollars in the public but that private folks like you all have to make a contribution to some trying to figure out what is it that cause you i would say wait a minute it was a board decision did somebody just come up and say the government say can you do this how did it come about you know it was very simple it is a business decision we need good people and so it's hard to find people and so this was one of the this is one of our main sources of getting people is to be actively recruiting people in developing those partnerships well then we put money into it and the agency's money and i it's a partnership when i and to the discussion i couldn't help but think about a program that along with some the university of maryland in baltimore professional schools put together about five years ago where we they join in with the our medal our career medical allied medical high school and they brought in twenty five every summer and now they bring in twenty five kids spend about six hundred dollars for a weeks and they what they do is a put them alongside scientist i mean literally for a whole summer it's a wonderful program and he's an inner city kids and what we discovered i always go to the graduation and it always sort of me just makes me feel so emotional mr jones because i find that these kids say for example one will maybe make it working with a scientist is dealing with breast cancer and then get up and talk about their graduate at the graduation say you know what i was so interested in this because my aunt had breast cancer or my cousin and now i think i can do some about it and aids and all kinds of things it's just amazing and to hear them the vocabulary that they then acquire i mean i mean i have to go back and get dictionary just because but they don't realize that they are getting really excited about this than the other piece that we did was that we what in the community college so that those kids would have a pathway to come out of high school and go to a community college in ano program it's and then then we hook them up with a university mom again so they can go on for four year degree i think that you know you all are right not every kid needs to go to college but i saw also believe that kids need a vision and i think that and then i think about my own experiences growing up a lot of my vision cain from my my various jobs but there's one other thing dr von walk walk through that you did not talk about what a job also does is it gives kids another family you know another group of adults looking over to show that to my own kids i say look if you go out beer and you do the best you can at what you're doing i promise you an adult will come by some adult will come by and help you and i find that to be very key is that a factor dr run walk the walk or thank you this is a very important point so i very much agree with the things four year colleges are being a high school community college to show that if somebody takes a vocational degree he can the knolls he can then move on to community college and possibly do for your college and with the way other countries do that they have specialized degrees so  allows people to carry on their trainings if you do if you're a welder then you can do certain types of college degrees not others but you can't do major in english but you can do a technical degree so this is an important pathway the second thing you mention is that the perspective  and this is crucial and important thing is to get business i'm bored in many small businesses probably can't afford a training program of their own and so there's important forge partnerships with say community college or high schools where the high school t community college provides some of the formal training and then the smaller business compliments that training so this makes a small business gain and gives individual sort of it's a family as you're saying and then it creates a possible lasting partnership things we know number one a lot of businesses they're distrustful of the quality of the young people in the basic skills and nobody wants to invest in folks who don't have the basic skills to build on that investment to make the investment successful and of course there are other concerns that th make the investment in the young person will disappear and go to their competitor or go somewhere else i think there's an important role for these partnerships but also for number one making sure that the quality of these kids coming out of these  programs and high school community college make sure that the quality of our training is strong and then the businesses will be more comfortable with it and i think number two there has to be some government resources and technical assistance to make this happen because otherwise firms don't want to invest their own resources even successful kids the most might well disappear on them so i think it's got to be an effort where government makes some investment does some coordinating brings along industry partnerships connects them with the schools and all those pieces i i want to echo that we see that same thing that these kids i mean the parents come to a dinner at the end of the when they graduate or when they finish up they come to a dinner and the parents are saying to us all my gosh i didn't know my kids would know all these things and they're so proud of what they're there so they can i can imagine what they went through and i think the child doesn't realize that what they went through and the things that they study they are they're looking at cancer research and things that really turning them on and i think that that's important i think we've got to continue to to encourage that and i think that's one thing i would say that from from dr halters comments is that i mean we're committed to that and we would help to get other companies to get involved use employment and and yet what we're all now discussing is the chronic challenges that we all have i think when you talk about the black high school dropout rate for minorities as being an acceptable the reality is we've all accepted this for several decades we are outraged by it but we haven't figured out how do we as a society have accepted it and that number is going to go back down once we get through this recession and but the reality is we're still going to be grappling with what mr sure talked about education reform we're going to still try to figure out how to get mr brady as welders and the same in arkansas with our natural gas play that's going on we're still going to be grappling with the problems of parenting world and yet we still have these chronic challenges that are really exacerbated when we have the recession like that idea but mr cummins is one of my heroes and i taught i have a picture of him on a big poster board move for one reason to get them a decent education mom and dad only had a second grade education and but they knew that they wanted their kids to do better and so when i got in school they put me in the third group which was basically our special it told me i'd never be able to read much over the fifth grade level or sixth grade level i was what ten ten eleven i went to the counselor told him i want to be a lawyer and he said you must be kidding and he said some words that have echoed in my mind ever since he asked me this question he said who do you think you are and that question has haunted me all my life and he so anyway i determined i was going to get out of there and so it was a gentleman and felling mr posey my six rate teacher that worked with me and sent me to the library every day and eventually i got out of the out especially and went on to become five  to go on to law school passed about a first time become a member of the moments later and then a member of congress of the united states of america and i say only in america but when we talk about these for example these teenage jobs one of first jobs i had was a part washer people who influenced my life members of the club then and then so it's been you know so when i look at our young people when i watch you mrs jones i could understand your frustration we begin to ask ourselves what is going to happen to all these kids if you've got about fifty in my in in baltimore i will add the magic black male black male dropout rate probably around sixty percent that's a lot of folks and then the question becomes what happens to them and i want to go back alone and may i just say this isn't business is human will that's what i'm afraid of and i want to impress upon people this is not what it's been to drop out in my childhood wasn't the end of the road if you were willing to work actually i think a former head of con edison in new york never got his high school diploma the trouble is things have moved on this and we had a panel that mayor bloomberg put together that i participated in and did some of the research for looking at the construction trades that was construction trades where the pointy end ok you drop out joe or whatever and you'll go work construction and move yourself up through that rank when they told me don't bother to apply to pre apprenticeship unless you have a high school diploma and the fact that starbucks now is looking for a couple of years of college because they can get it with six people applying for every one  low low wage job this is not going to revert to where we were and that's why i think this is much more dangerous than anything i've ever seen and that's why i'm getting a little crazed here because i don't think we're going to have the same kind of as the economy begins to improve we'd already see some seen signs that young people without credentials were not riding the last wave up now i'm worried that we're going to have steady state rates of hi unemployment and literally no place in the economy whatsoever for this kind of young person could also deflate say something about that we we have one very very large and very expensive program  america for young high school dropouts it's called incarceration and we incarcerate more young people than any other country in the industrial world if you're a young black male who drops out of high school your odds of the i mean incarcerated or seventy percent nationwide by the time you're thirty and that incarceration is not only enormously expensive in a budgetary sense tens and tens of billions of state mostly state dollars spent every year then these young men come out and they're essentially on employable because this marker of having a criminal record makes other employers not want to touch them there's a whole range besides the education and training programs we've talked as a whole range of other policies extending the earned income tax credit to young people to young men who don't have custody of children for instance that would make even a low wage jobs more attractive trying to convince states not to pass laws that bar these people from so many areas of employment child support reforms that would not drive these young men out of the labor market if they were in  a whole range of other things that make it almost impossible for these young men to find even low wage jobs and all of those i think need to be rethought if we want to reduce costs that incarceration imposes on us thank thank you have been  informed that we will be having the shortly so all good things must come to an end i do want to thank my colleagues and all the witnesses for your and lightened testimony your ideas on a really huge challenge of facing unemployed  young people in our country that the truth is it's going to be a slow long climb to get us where we need to be in terms of creating jobs in the economy this is the fourth hearing the committee has had on long term unemployment of different sectors in our and economy and you have all of given us wonderful insights and wonderful ideas to work on and follow up on and i want to thank all of you for your testimony today it is a truly deeply appreciated and very insightful thank you committee is adjourn