As the Senate prepares to vote on an amendment proposed by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) to the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill, a portion of the amendment has begun to gain traction and bears striking resemblance to President Obama’s second stimulus — a section aimed to help young people.
The measure, titled ‘Jobs for Youth,’ provides $1.5 billion in funding for summer and year-round employment opportunities for low-income Americans between the ages of 16 and 24. According to Politico, the funding for the program will come in the form of grants to state and local communities.
Following the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the Gang’s immigration reform bill — which reported the legislation would drive down workers’ wages and make it difficult to find jobs — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took to the Senate floor, speaking to the plight of young workers “hard hit by the Wall Street-caused recession,” the Washington Examiner reported.
Sanders said immigration reform would hurt young people’s job prospects, an issue that has been largely ignored by immigration proponents, and argued for a program helping to ease their pain.
Unemployment among Millennials currently sits at 11.6 percent, and the addition of more than 7.7 immigrants granted amnesty under the bill wouldn’t make job prospects any better.
“At a time when real unemployment is close to 14 percent and even higher among young people and minorities, it is absolutely imperative that we create millions of decent-paying jobs in our country. The establishment of a youth employment program for 400,000 young people is a good step forward but in the months to come we must do even more,” Sen. Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a press release.
With states already strapped for cash as a result of the sequestration, Sanders said the program will be funded through a temporary fee placed on green cards and visas.
Additionally, each state would receive $7.5 million to create the summer and year-round jobs program — estimated at creating a total of 400,000 jobs — with leftover funds given to states with “high unemployment, large numbers of low-income youth, and large numbers of disadvantaged young adults.”
And so came the ‘Jobs for Youth’ measure in the Corker-Hoeven amendment.
But while the amendment’s program touts funding to provide jobs, the $1.5 billion can also be used “to provide support services such as transportation or child care, that is necessary to enable the participation of such youth in the opportunity,” the amendment states.
And many of the provisions in the ‘Jobs for Youth’ section include portions of President Obama’s failed Jobs Act, which some called the second stimulus.
Though the proposal has been called a “breakthrough,” Corker and Hoeven’s amendment has been met with both praise and criticism.
The Senate is expected to vote on it Monday evening.
