State of Young America: Youth Housing

According to The State of Young America: Economic Barriers to the American Dream:

The share of young households spending more than 30% of income on rent was stable for two decades, but grew after 2000 to reach 41% in 2009.

Long-term economic trends, rising rental costs, and the Great Recession can all be seen in the decision to move home with parents.

The State of Young America: Student Financial Aid

According to The State of Young America: Economic Barriers to the American Dream:

Student financial aid has not kept up with increasing costs. In 1980 the maximum Pell Grant covered 69% of attendance, today it covers 34%.

The State of Young America: Lower Earnings for Young Adults Without a High School Diploma

According to The State of Young America: Economic Barriers to the American Dream:

Young men without a high school diploma have experienced a 28% drop in earnings since 1980. Young women’s earnings also lost ground, dropping 8 percent.

Watching the Teen Job Market Disappear

Trends in the Summer Employment / Population Ratios of the Nation’s Teens 1989 – 2010

According to the Center for Labor Market Studies:

• Teens are at a unique disadvantage: No other age group of American working-age adults has been beset by such a dramatic decline in their overall employment rates over the past four years, or over the last decade as a whole.

• "During the summer of 2000, near the height of the early 1990s-2000 national economic boom, nearly 52 percent of the nation’s teens held some type of job."

•  "As a result of the national economic recession of 2001 and the largely jobless recovery of 2002-2003, the teen summer employment rate dropped considerably, falling to 41 percent by 2004."

• "The next four summers, from 2007-2010, saw the teen employment rate fall steadily and sharply from 42.6 percent in 2006 to 29.6 percent in 2010. Over that span, the summers of 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 each set post-WWII summer lows for teens."

• "There are no signs that teen employment rates will improve this summer."

Employment Rates of Teens (16-19) in

Selected Household Income/Race-Ethnic Groups in

the U.S. during the Summer of 2010

Additional observations from the Center for Labor Market Studies:

• "Accounting for race shows even greater disparities in summer teen employment rates. The breakdown by race and ethnicity of teens at work in the summer of 2010 shows about one in ten low-income, black youth and between one in seven and one in five black and Hispanic teens from low- and middle-income families."

• "Yet employment rates over the same span were 40 to 41 percent for white youth in families with incomes in the middle and upper middle income range. This means more affluent white youth were four times as likely to be employed as low-income black youth."

From Which Piece(s) of the Pie will Ohio's $8 Billion Deficit Be Taken?

Standing On Shaky Ground

The recession of 2008 and early 2009 took an economic toll on 93 percent of American households, according to a new report from the Rockefeller Foundation and Yale University, the first to detail how economic insecurity affects the well-being of Americans.

The Worst of Times: Increase in Extreme Poverty from 2008-2009

A new Southern Foundation study, The Worst of Times: Extreme Poverty in the United States in 2009, reveals that:

• Americans living in extreme poverty (below 50 percent of the official poverty threshold) were the fastest growing income group in America last year.

• In 2009, 18.8 million people, including nearly 6.5 million children, were living in households with income below 50 percent of the poverty threshold.

• Half of the additional 2.1 million persons who fell into extreme poverty in 2009 resided in only seven states: Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New York, and Ohio.

• Between 2008-2009, the number of persons in extreme poverty in Ohio increased with an additional 87,420 people.

In the meantime, the Republican members of the House of Representatives have proposed cutting this fiscal year’s non-defense discretionary spending back to 2008 levels and also rescinding any unspent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money.

85% of College Students Move Back Home After Graduation

CNN recently reported that the number of college seniors who plan to move back home with their parents after graduation has risen from 67% in 2006 to 85% in 2010.

Reasons?

• A 15% unemployment rate for young people ages 20-24

• An average of $24,000 in student loan debt 

• The highest unemployment rate for college graduates on record

Ohio's Budget: Steady Fiscal Control in Turbulent Times

According to OBM Director Pari Sabety's presentation:

• The United States is recovering from the deepest recession in 50 years
• Economic recovery will be slow
• States and local governments continue to need federal assistance and fiscal relief
• Current projections from Moody’s show that key economic indicators will not recover to pre-2007 levels until 2013-2016

One of the main issues in crafting the 2012-2013 budget is how to fill the projected gap from one-time funding sources -which is between 6-8 billion dollars.

Wisconsin invests federal stimulus dollars in Transitional Jobs Project

Kudos to Governor Jim Doyle for investing $34 of million of federal recovery funds in transitional jobs to help thousands of people across the state of Wisconsin gain skills and re-enter the workforce - including emancipated foster care youth.

In his latest state budget, Governor Doyle directed the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to create the Transitional Jobs program. The Transitional Jobs  Project targets Wisconsin residents who are not eligible for working family assistance through the state’s W-2 program, including young adults exiting the foster care system.

It's estimated that this project will help create jobs for 4,000 people across the state.

The Department of Children and Families will work closely with 17 local organizations to carry out the pilot project in 38 counties, with the possibility of future expansion throughout the state:

• Goodwill Industries of Southeastern WI, Inc.
• Policy Studies, Inc. 
• Milwaukee Careers Cooperative  
• UMOS
• Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board
• Silver Spring Neighborhood Center
• Step Industries
• Racine County Human Services Department
• Forward Service Corporation
• Workforce Development Board of South Central WI
• Community Action Inc.  
• Workforce Connections, Inc.  
• Workforce Resource, Inc.
• Sheboygan County Health and Human Services
• WOW Workforce Development Board
• Northwest WI Concentrated Employment Program
• Indianhead Community Action Agency

  

Recession has impacted over half of American adults in the workforce

According to a new Pew Research Center survey, more than half (55%) of all adults in the labor force say they have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers since the Great Recession began 30 months ago.

2010 Ohio Budget Planning and Management Commission

*Figures 1-3 from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Ohio will be facing a budget deficit of approximately $6-8 billion dollars in the next biennium.

In order to begin exploring ways to address the shortfall, the Ohio General Assembly has appointed a group of legislators to serve on a Budget Planning and Management Commission.

The work of the commission will be to identify a menu of options to address the big picture structural changes that must occur in the budget in order to achieve long-term sustainability.

The commission met for the first time on Tuesday and began with a presentation from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission (LSC) that provided legislators with a big picture overview of key revenue and expenditure data.

To view the LSC power point, please visit: www.lsc.state.oh.us/research/bpmc062910.pdf

Last month, the Center for Community Solutions released a report entitled, Thinking the Unthinkable, Finding Common Ground for Resolving Ohio’s Fiscal Crisis.

It explores a host of very difficult options in order to address Ohio’s impending budget shortfall, including a model which contains a possible 10%-20% reduction in most human services in the next biennium:

http://www.communitysolutions.com/assets/1/AssetManager/Thinking_the_Unthinkable_Begala_WEB.pdf

Economic Prospects for Young Adults During the Recession

Findings by the Economic Policy Institute, published in their May 2010 Briefing Paper:

• Since the start of the recession, an additional 1.2 million 16-24-year-olds have become disconnected from both formal schooling and work. 
• The class of 2010 will be entering a labor market with the highest rates of unemployment in at least a generation.
• Unemployment rates for both college graduates and non-graduates younger than 25 are nearly double their pre-recession levels.

Recessions Can Scar Children's Futures

I agree with Katie Couric that one story that hasn't been told is the impact of the recession on children and youth -- not just current struggles, but implications for the future.

Research by the Economic Policy Institute indicates the recessions create long-term hardships for children and families, putting children's futures at great risk.

Economic crisis is unraveling social safety nets across the nation

The National Council of Nonprofits recently released a report titled: A Respectful Warning Call to Our Partners in Government: The Economic Crisis Is Unraveling the Social Safety Net Faster Than Most Realize.

The report indicates that nonprofit organizations throughout the nation are struggling to meet growing demand for services at the same time that their operating costs are rising and their revenues falling.

Tim Delaney, President and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits explains that, "The economic threats to nonprofits and the communities we serve are real and dire. It is both unrealistic and unsafe to those depending on services to simply assume that nonprofits will somehow be able to continue to deliver more services that cost more with declining revenues. The math just doesn't work."

This report encapsulates data from GuideStar, the Listening Post Project at Johns Hopkins University, the Bridgespan Group, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund, as well as state non-profit associations in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey.

Rather than asking for additional funding from the federal and state governments, the report calls on government officials and nonprofit leaders to collaborate more effectively to meet growing community needs.

Impact of Recession on Children

The Foundation for Child Development has released a report on the impact of the current economic recession on children.

They project that the percentage of children living in poverty is expected to reach 21 percent by 2010, and that many gains in family economic well-being since 1975 will be eliminated.

Graph from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Meanwhile, First Focus reports that, for the past five years, only one penny of every new, real non-defense dollar spent by the federal government has gone to children and children’s programs.