Ned Resnikoff for Demos: For the past year, Albuquerque, N.M., has been experimenting with a pilot jobs program for its homeless population called “There’s a Better Way.”
The initiative began as a push to connect the homeless with shelters and other assistance providers, but within a few months of its launch, the city also started offering needy residents $9 an hour to perform menial labor such as cleaning up litter. The program also offers lunch and overnight shelter to participants. …
It’s worth noting that access to temporary “Better Way” jobs is limited. There are only so many seats on the “Better Way” van, and the van itself operates just twice a week (though it will soon be in operation four out of seven days).
But it’s not hard to envision a more robust and heavily resourced version of the program, in which just about any homeless Albuquerque resident can find temporary public-sector work if he or she wants it.
This version of the policy would resemble something close to a job guarantee targeted specifically at Albuquerque’s homeless population. At the very least, expanding the “Better Way” model could test out some of a job guarantee’s purported advantages.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a job guarantee is exactly what it sounds like: a blanket offer of public-sector employment to any unemployed, able-bodied adults who want it. …
Gainful employment confers tremendous psychological benefits. Communal work reduces social isolation and provides some structure to the day. It can also provide a sense of purpose, a certainty that one is contributing something valuable to one’s own community.
The lack of that structure, purpose and social identity can be profoundly damaging, which is why, as the World Health Organization and International Labor Organization observe, “re-employment has been shown to be one of the most effective ways of promoting the mental health of the unemployed.”
Why hitting Obama’s refugee goal would be an accomplishment
David Bier for the Cato Institute: Responding to the worldwide refugee crisis — which the United Nations has called “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era” — President Obama vowed last September that the United States would accept 10,000 Syrian refugees and 85,000 refugees total over the following 12 months.
With much fanfare, the State Department hit its Syrian refugee quota this week. But with just one month left, it is still 15,000 short of its overall target, and if it continues at its current pace, it will come up 3,000 short.
But here are … reasons why hitting the target would be a major accomplishment …
Most refugees in a month ever: If the United States is to reach its goal this year, it will need to accept nearly 15,000 refugees in September. This is more than any month that the State Department has made available since 2001 and possibly the most ever.
Although month-by-month statistics are unavailable for the record year of fiscal 1992 when the United States admitted 132,000 refugees, the average monthly intake was only 11,000, making it possible that September will be the most ambitious month in history …
Humanitarian emergencies everywhere: On top of these 85,000 refugees, the Office of Refugee Resettlement will also have to deal with the most Cuban arrivals since 1980, the most asylum-seekers at the border claiming a credible fear of persecution in their home countries and a massive influx of unaccompanied immigrant children.
The administration warned Congress as early as December that it may fall short of the money needed to handle the number of unaccompanied children, and that has in the past resulted in money being taken from the refugee program.
Black workers shifted into bad jobs
Alan Berube for the Brookings Institution: Among the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, 25 saw earnings for black workers decline significantly from 2009 to 2014, while just four exhibited statistically significant increases.
In metro areas including Akron, Ohio, Las Vegas, New Haven, Conn., Sacramento, Calif., and Winston-Salem, N.C., median wages for blacks declined by a staggering 20 percent or more. By contrast, white earnings declined in 14 metro areas during that period, but increased in 11 others.
One reason for those place and race-specific declines may be that black workers shifted from higher-paying to lower-paying occupations over the recovery.
In Akron, for instance, shares of blacks working in middle-paying sales and office jobs, and higher-paying management/business/financial and computer/science/engineering jobs fell, while the share working in lower-paying food service occupations rose.
Indeed, many metro areas in which black wages declined saw a drop in the share of black workers employed in sales and office jobs, and a rise in those employed in food service jobs. Some of these metro areas did, however, see a rise in blacks employed in middle-paying manufacturing jobs as that industry rebounded from the depths of the recession.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by various think tanks.
