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The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

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Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#61

Post by bluedino »

jlgreco wrote: post #42
readme wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. Lowering the minimum wage isn't going to make an unskilled and lazy teenager useful. We have programs for this: * http://www.jobcorps.gov/home.aspx -- This provides room, board, a stipend suitable for a teenager with no expenses, and vocational training for those under 25 years old (i.e, teens) * http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ -- There's really no disputing this one. Any one of them can hoof it over to the nearest…

I think that there is value in dropping the minimum wage for teenagers dramatically, regardless of these issues. Giving teenagers another place to get yelled at for not working hard enough (besides just school and home) is clearly beneficial (as you note about the military) but the options that you list are not sufficient. They require too much of a lifestyle change which makes those programs seem inaccessible. Letti…

> They require too much of a lifestyle change which makes those programs seem inaccessible. Letting the sandwich shop down the road yell at teenagers for $4/hr is better than having teenagers go halfway across the state with Job Corps.

A lot of these kids need exactly that - a change of environment. I have a second cousin whose mother is always getting fired from minimum wage jobs, is constantly getting kicked out of apartments, and couldn't provide him with a stable home life. His dad is long gone.

Job Corps provided him with a place to stay, training, and a job. But the best part of it was that he had to move an hour and a half away, close enough to visit but far enough where he wouldn't be distracted by all the trouble in our crime-ridden and poverty stricken city. They also teach personal skills and things like money management.

If you don't get the kid out of the ghetto, you'll have trouble getting the ghetto out of the kid.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#62

Post by ErikAugust »

Jayschwa wrote: post #60
ErikAugust wrote: post #56

"High school students working today work at less than a 50 percent rate to what they did back in 2000. Like in our state here in Massachusetts, 45 percent of our high school students worked in 2000. Last year it was 15 percent: 45 to 15 percent." I had a couple jobs - as a high schooler in Massachusetts in 2000. I learned a lot of job/life skills from those jobs...

Ditto. I learned that I didn't want to scrub toilets for the rest of my life!

Ha, yes - I learned that as well, among other things.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#63

Post by jlgreco »

bluedino wrote: post #61
jlgreco wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that there is value in dropping the minimum wage for teenagers dramatically, regardless of these issues. Giving teenagers another place to get yelled at for not working hard enough (besides just school and home) is clearly beneficial (as you note about the military) but the options that you list are not sufficient. They require too much of a lifestyle change which makes those programs seem inaccessible. Letti…

> They require too much of a lifestyle change which makes those programs seem inaccessible. Letting the sandwich shop down the road yell at teenagers for $4/hr is better than having teenagers go halfway across the state with Job Corps. A lot of these kids need exactly that - a change of environment. I have a second cousin whose mother is always getting fired from minimum wage jobs, is constantly getting kicked out of…

Oh sure, a lot of those kids definitely need the Job Corps. I wouldn't support discontinuing that program.

I'm just saying that the Job Corps isn't a great fit for all teenagers, and that all teenagers would benefit from working at any sort of job (and that a lower minimum wage for teenagers would facilitate this. I think that work for the sake of work is good for teenagers, but that minimum wage gets in the way of this).

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#64

Post by cpeterso »

hooande wrote: post #38

This seems like another argument for Basic Income. A lot of young, jobless people (males especially) isn't only a moral problem, but it's a sociological problem. The young jobless commit more crimes, are more likely to join gangs and are generally more of a drain on society. Giving them an income would remove the social pressure to constantly look for jobs that aren't actually there. People could focus on internships…

I imagine a huge number of people on Basic Income would just blow all the money on the first day of each month on drugs and frivolous consumer goods. That said, I do think society has an obligation to provide a basic guarantee of life's needs: education, food and income, and health care. There is only so much society or any individual can do for someone if they, given the tools and opportunity, choose to waste it.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#65

Post by bluedino »

Where are the young black kids in tech? Blacks of any age are sorely under-represented in tech. So are Latinos, although not quite as bad. It's a very white (and Asian/Indian) world we live in.

I'm so glad to see things like Black Girls Code. These kids need mentors that aren't sports stars, or music stars. Oddly enough, music is one industry I always remember running into a lot of black people in - Macs and ProTools used in music production.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#66

Post by nahname »

cpeterso wrote: post #64
hooande wrote: post #38

This seems like another argument for Basic Income. A lot of young, jobless people (males especially) isn't only a moral problem, but it's a sociological problem. The young jobless commit more crimes, are more likely to join gangs and are generally more of a drain on society. Giving them an income would remove the social pressure to constantly look for jobs that aren't actually there. People could focus on internships…

I imagine a huge number of people on Basic Income would just blow all the money on the first day of each month on drugs and frivolous consumer goods. That said, I do think society has an obligation to provide a basic guarantee of life's needs: education, food and income, and health care. There is only so much society or any individual can do for someone if they, given the tools and opportunity, choose to waste it.

Quite the opposite actually. Poor people become very good at managing their money out of necessity. http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15318&a=65653

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#67

Post by icelancer »

philwelch wrote: post #59
icelancer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or shouldn't it be used to promote alternative methods of education that are accepted by many employers? STEM fields by and large are the most friendly towards alternative (or complete lack of) education. A well-manicured GitHub, a decent resume, and not looking like an idiot in an interview trumps most college degrees for mid-level developer jobs that aren't Facebook/Google/etc.

By "STEM fields" you mean "programming". Or do you know of many scientists, mathematicians, or engineers (real engineers, not programmers) who succeed without a formal education?

Quite a few. I meant what I wrote, thanks.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#68

Post by krakensden »

philwelch wrote: post #59
icelancer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or shouldn't it be used to promote alternative methods of education that are accepted by many employers? STEM fields by and large are the most friendly towards alternative (or complete lack of) education. A well-manicured GitHub, a decent resume, and not looking like an idiot in an interview trumps most college degrees for mid-level developer jobs that aren't Facebook/Google/etc.

By "STEM fields" you mean "programming". Or do you know of many scientists, mathematicians, or engineers (real engineers, not programmers) who succeed without a formal education?

In bioscience jobs there are definitely pipette monkey -> manager stories, and you don't particularly need much in the way of qualifications for the former.

I suspect he's pretending all STEM is programming though.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#69

Post by 1123581321 »

readme wrote: post #23
bmmayer1 wrote: post #4

Minimum wage law.

Hardly. Lowering the minimum wage isn't going to make an unskilled and lazy teenager useful. We have programs for this: * http://www.jobcorps.gov/home.aspx -- This provides room, board, a stipend suitable for a teenager with no expenses, and vocational training for those under 25 years old (i.e, teens) * http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ -- There's really no disputing this one. Any one of them can hoof it over to the nearest…

I directly disagree. Lowering minimum wage reduces the risk of hiring an unskilled and lazy teenager to train them in a job.

When you look at one hour of one person's work, the difference between $9, $7, $5 and $3 an hour seems trivial. Surely the employer has a five dollar bill sitting around, right? But when you look at full work weeks of time, plus the costs of training the job, multiplied by all of the employees the company will hire, the difference in hourly wages emerges. And, equally importantly, the employer perceives this difference and given time will react rationally to a lower minimum wage. For every dollar of "labor standards" achieved, the minimum wage imposes a skill and manners floor with no ladder beneath it for people who need to get a leg up into the employment system with experience. Lowering this floor lets an employer take a chance on someone or even take a chance on two people where only one could be hired previously.

Job Corps, FAFSA grants, and the military all essentially pay below minimum wage for job training without economic benefit, i.e., productivity (ignoring the various effects caused by foreign wars.) Additionally, while the training provided is supposed to bridge over neatly to employment, it never does perfectly and sometimes does not match real-world needs at all. It would be better to just let companies directly pay lower wages and also provide the training by having the employee learn the actual job instead of a simulated job.

Re: The Jobless Rate for Poor Black Teen Dropouts is 95%

#70

Post by gboudrias »

ne0codex wrote: post #17
mjfl wrote: post #11

What jobs are you going to give them? Cashiers these days have Bachelors degrees in Communications. It's the inflation in the system. America is not producing as many factories as it used to, manual labor jobs in construction are hard enough to get. If you drop out, it's going to be tough to get a job.

Exactly. Shouldn't this be used as incentive for parents and families within those communities to promote school attendance and encourage academic performance?

I can't speak for the US, but here in Canada everyone is already trying pretty much their hardest to make youth stay in school. Doesn't always work, and we need to have alternative solutions (/jobs) for those who do drop out.
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