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November 17, 2009, 11:41 AM ET
Report Urges Congress to Expand National Service to Create Youth Jobs
Congress should provide close to $1.5-billion in extra spending on national-service programs over the next two years to provide jobs for young people who have been hit hard by the economic crisis, a new report by the Center for American Progress argues.
The effort could help both young people who are experiencing the country’s highest unemployment rates in years and nonprofit groups that could use youth workers to help meet the rising demand for antipoverty services, it says.
The center, a liberal think tank in Washington, proposes increasing the federal funds for AmeriCorps, Vista, Youth Corps, and Youth Build in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 in a way that would create the equivalent of more than 100,000 new jobs.
It suggests, for example, speeding up plans to expand AmeriCorps, which is now slated to more than triple its size, to 250,000 positions, by 2017 under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.
“By connecting unemployed youth with opportunities to serve our country and our people, investments in national service can fill the needs not only of low-income Americans but also jobless young Americans,” the report says. “This policy solution also helps the economy overall — putting people back to work creates economic demand that will help get the economy back on its feet.”
The report, “National Service and Youth Unemployment: Strategies for Job Creation Amid Economic Recovery,”“ was written by Melissa Boteach, Joy Moses, and Shirley Sagawa.
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