But that’s not stopping thousands of 14-24 year olds from
participating in the District’s 2017 Marion S. Barry Summer
Youth Employment Program.
Summer jobs have been a hot topic on the national scene this
year, as research shows that they are in sharp decline. According to a
recent piece in the Atlantic by
Derek Thompson, “In the summer of 1978, 60 percent of teens were working or
looking for work. Last summer, just 35 percent were.” Thompson quickly debunks
a knee-jerk explanation: “kids are lazier these days!” In fact, data shows the
number of youth in the US who are disconnected from education, employment or
training has remained remarkably flat—meaning through one or more of these
activities, youth are keeping busy. More likely (and obvious to those familiar
with youth development) is a confluence of factors including increasing
competition for entry-level and lower-skill work, greater pressure for youth to
utilize summer months to get ahead or keep pace in their studies, the heavy
reliance on unpaid internships for early work experience, and a national
decline in federally funded summer jobs.
