And, like many on the left who refuse to leave their parents basement, they do not want to leave the program
The tattoo on Christian Berrios’ right forearm says “Knowledge is Power.” For a high school dropout in a city with shuttered textile plants and 18% unemployment, he needs all the knowledge he can get.
Not according to President Neophyte, who, despite his own massive whining about having to give up his Crackberry to the point that he received a special one, wants all these young people to give up all their high tech devices and just stop learning, damnitall!
Berrios will graduate in June from YouthBuild, one of many national service programs that got an infusion of federal aid under last year’s economic stimulus law. He’ll get his high school equivalency degree as well as “green” construction skills to help him navigate a difficult job market.
“It’s tough out there,” says Berrios, 22, who wants a college degree in psychology. “I feel we got a better chance at scoring a better job.”
The government’s rapidly expanding role in national service will reach a turning point this month as thousands of AmeriCorps members added with stimulus funds start to enter the workforce, and struggling non-profits try to replace them.
And they are finding that there aren’t that many jobs out there that aren’t provided by The Government, because the Stimulus did not stimulate the private sector.
The transition comes at a time when youth unemployment is more than twice the overall rate: 26% for teenagers, 16% for those ages 20-24. Applications to AmeriCorps, the main national service program, have nearly tripled. Many members want to go to college or keep their posts for another year.
In Florida, half of those hired with stimulus funds want to stay in the program. “They realize that there really are very few jobs,” says Volunteer Florida CEO Wendy Spencer.
Of course they want to stay. The real world is big and scary, and they might actually have to compete for one of the few jobs out there, which will probably pay much less than these Millennial Generation folks have been taught to believe they are entitled to. And they are figuring out that all the all the training they did to be ready for “green” jobs is a pipe dream, since there are very few real ones out there.
Welcome to Obama’s version of the jobs market, youngsters, where the only jobs will be government ones, and most will be low paying.
Dude, those kids are *so* going to be managing BHO’s Twitter account.
The stimulus passed in Feb of 2009. The April 2009 unemployment rate was 8.9 % (this was when the very FIRST money became available) The unemployment rate is now 1% higher. Last month had the highest rate of new jobs created in 4 years.
Last month had the highest rate of new jobs created in 4 years
And yet the unemployment rate rose.
What you fail to realize is that TARP was supposed to help real people and stabilize the unemployment rate.
It did neither. It did burden the country with a huge increase in the deficit, but you won’t recognize that.
Of the 240k jobs “created” last month, 66K were part time workers for the Census. Who do you think is paying for those workers? Where do you think they will go in the next month?
TARP has been a miserable failure.