President Obama next week will ask Congress for billions of dollars to fund his initiative to help young Americans launch their careers, a request that will be made as part of his fiscal 2017 budget proposal.
The White House says the money would “help more than 1 million young people gain the work experience, skills and networks that come from having a first job,” the White House stated Thursday.
Citing technological trends and globalization, Obama said in last month’s State of the Union address that “it’s made it harder for a hardworking family to pull itself out of poverty, harder for young people to start their careers, tougher for workers to retire when they want to.”
To alleviate that, Obama will propose spending $5.5 billion “to connect more than 1 million young people to first jobs over the summer and year-round.” Of that amount, $2 billion would go toward creating a competitive grant program “to re-connect disconnected youth to educational and workforce pathways,” the White House stated.
Obama will also seek $3 billion to create an “American Talent Compact” aimed at filling job openings in more than 50 regions and attract new jobs from overseas.
But Obama is not waiting for Congress. The White House said the Labor Department is launching a $20 million grant competition that will fund “approximately 10 grants to communities to implement innovative approaches that connect young people to jobs and career pathways.”
Obama has said that landing that first job is tough, and crucial to long-term career success.
“One of the main criteria employers screen for in the hiring process is work experience,” the White House stated. “Additionally, many of the skills employers value most can only be learned on the job. Once a young person gets their first job, it is much easier to get the next one.”
Obama will also seek $3 billion to create an “American Talent Compact” aimed at filling job openings in more than 50 regions and attract new jobs from overseas.
The White House said the push is necessary, in part, because a study found “that people who endure a spell of unemployment between the ages of 16 and 24 earn $400,000 less over their careers than those who do not.”
The same study reported that taxpayers spend $1.6 trillion propping up the 6.7 million youth who were neither in school nor in work over their lifetimes.
The White House also announced that it will host a workshop Feb. 26 “that brings together state and local leaders, community-based organizations, private sector and philanthropic leaders, and schools” to discuss how they can make more summer jobs available this year.
Officials will release a guide to help local governments and nonprofits “identify and navigate federal programs across agencies.”
