Teenage Orphans of the Job Boom

By Stephen Koepp

Since its beginning in 1982, the U.S. economic recovery has been something of a big, boisterous back-to-work bash. The growth binge has provided more than 4 million new jobs. But one group, minority teenagers, has found the door to the party all but slammed in its face. The chronic inability of these young people to get jobs, even during a boom time, has become one of the most painful and persistent economic problems facing the U.S. Says Robert Coard, executive director of Action for Boston Community Development: "This syndrome is having a terrible impact on the morale of the minority community and this city in general."

All teenagers, not just minority youths, tend to have more trouble than adults finding work. But black and Hispanic youngsters have the worst trouble of all. Many lack the reading and speaking skills to handle today's service- industry jobs or the connections to find them. Even geography has become a barrier. Reason: inner-city neighborhoods offer relatively few openings compared with the suburbs, where jobs have been sprouting like dandelions. Frustration has caused a lot of minority youngsters to quit looking. Says Marcia Saunders, director of the Dade County, Fla., affirmative action program: "There's a tremendous number of kids with no hope in the job market. And in this community, drugs are claiming a lot of them. It's just a horror."

The Labor Department reported last week that the general unemployment rate in April was 7.3%, the same as in March. Of more than 8.4 million Americans out of work, white 16- to 19-year-olds account for 1 million and ^ black youths for 360,000. But while the ranks of unemployed white youths are large, they have a relatively better chance of finding work. The white youth jobless rate in April was 14.9%, compared with 39% for black teenagers.

Any weakness in the economy would make the plight of minority youths even worse. The Commerce Department reported last week that the index of leading economic indicators, a gauge that attempts to predict future business trends, dropped .2% in March, portending sluggishness for the rest of the year.

President Reagan has called black teenage joblessness "a national tragedy," and in March he sent Congress a bill that would allow employers to pay youngsters a summer wage of $2.50 an hour instead of the regular $3.35 minimum wage. In his first major speech as Labor Secretary, William Brock last week promoted the President's plan for a summer-long subminimum wage for young people. The Administration claims that it would reduce costs for businessmen and inspire them to hire some 400,000 more workers.

The Reagan proposal has garnered support from several influential groups, notably the National Conference of Black Mayors. Says Elijah Anderson, associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania: "The stakes are so high, we can't afford not to try it." The F.W. Woolworth chain, which now employs upwards of 2,500 teens as custodians, cashiers and stock clerks, says it could add more workers if labor costs were lower. Remarks Audrey Freedman, a labor economist for the Conference Board, a Manhattan research group: "Maybe we'll see young theater ushers showing us to our seats again, or supermarket baggers who will carry groceries to our cars."

Opposition to the plan is strong, however, and Congress in the past two years has twice rejected similar Reagan proposals. The AFL-CIO argues that a subminimum wage would cause adults to lose jobs to youngsters, though the Reagan bill provides heavy penalties for employers who substitute youths for current employees. The notion of a $2.50 wage also angers youngsters lucky enough to have jobs. Says Eva Silva, 17, a Houston honor student who works part time at an amusement park and helps support her family: "That would be terrible for me. I'd like to see who wants to lower the minimum wage. I don't think they know what it's like to struggle."

One of the most perplexing aspects of minority teenage unemployment is that it is occurring at a time when some employers are desperate to hire new workers. At San Mateo High School, outside San Francisco, a bulletin board is plastered with colored index cards advertising at least 60 local openings. Fast-food restaurants in suburban Atlanta have so much difficulty finding people that some are offering as much as $7 an hour.

The seeming paradox of youth unemployment and job shortages is partly a result of what sociologists in their inimitable jargon call spatial mismatch. Inner-city neighborhoods lost most of their low-skilled work when firms moved outside cities. Job-hungry enterprises ranging from new high-tech firms to taco stands are now often in the suburbs. The minority youths, though, still live downtown. They often have trouble commuting to suburban jobs because cities like Atlanta and Dallas offer poor mass transit. In at least one city, Boston, an industry council has responded by starting a bus service that hauls urban youngsters to the high-tech area along Route 128, where they find work running word processors and entering data into computers.

In addition to the problem of job location, minority teenagers are frequently not being prepared by schools for modern, service-industry work. Even when they have the ability to handle a job, minority youths may lack the social skills to land it. Says Dade County's Saunders: "If someone isn't presentable or doesn't speak well, employers can't be bothered." And while suburban youths often get jobs through parents or family friends, that is usually impossible for urban youngsters who live among the unemployed.

Some minority youths who cannot find work turn to the underground economy to earn money. That may mean illegal occupations; an estimated 25% of black teenage income in urban areas comes from crime. But other youngsters apply conspicuous creativity to their plight, setting up sidewalk businesses that range from break-dancing shows to the sale of batteries and blank cassette tapes. In Baltimore, unemployed youths known as Squeegee Kids began washing auto windshields at stoplights in exchange for tips. The city council created a furor in the black community last month when it outlawed the practice, calling it dangerous for the youths and an intimidating nuisance for motorists.

Nearly everyone agrees that training is the long-term answer to minority youth joblessness, but there is a disagreement over who should provide it. The Reagan Administration has cut back sharply on the federal employment programs and wants to trim them still more. In its proposed budget for fiscal 1986, the Administration wiped out the Job Corps, a $600 million-a-year program designed to help the hard-core unemployed.

The Administration prefers a federal program called the Job Training Partnership Act, which gives grants to state and community agencies so that they can tailor the training to local needs. Some municipal governments have made it a top priority. Washington Mayor Marion Barry last month guaranteed a summer job to every 14- to 18-year-old who wants one. The District of Columbia, which expects to employ 23,000 youths this season, up about 9% from last year, will have to add another $1 million to its $6 million summer-jobs budget in order to fulfill the mayor's pledge. In Chicago, youngsters lined up by the thousands last week as officials began taking applications for 23,600 summer jobs the city will offer. An estimated 200,000 disadvantaged Chicago youths, however, are expected to be looking for work this season.

As federal money for job programs dries up, local officials will be asking corporations to carry more of the burden. Says Jesse Rhone, an office manager for the Texas employment commission: "Until the private sector assumes greater responsibility to employ these youths, the problem is not going to go away." Chicago Mayor Harold Washington will soon appear in local TV and radio ads in which he implores businessmen to "hire the future." In New York City, Metropolitan Life Insurance has taken charge of a proj-ect in which companies will employ 30,000 youths this summer in exchange for federal income tax credits.

Two decades ago, when America's inner cities were ravaged by riots, public interest was riveted on joblessness as a prime problem of the black community. But after the cities cooled down, attention waned, even though unemployment remains high. Since blacks have gained more political power in major cities, the danger posed by youth unemployment today does not seem to be mass violence. The peril is rather that thousands of young people are drifting into a netherworld of unemployment, welfare and crime from which they will not escape. Says Frank Slobig, director of the Roosevelt Centennial Youth Project, a Washington-based group: "We are creating a permanent class of young adults who may never overcome the system's neglect."

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With reporting by Gisela Bolte/Washington and Thomas McCarroll/New York, with other bureaus