The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Where Has the Youth Unemployment Money Been Going and Has it Done Any Good?

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ROBERT MACNEIL: Good evening.

After week`s of gloomy economic statistic and gloomier predictions of slowdown or recession, the government was able to produce a glimmer of optimism today. The latest figures show that employment grew during February by 345 thousand new jobs, and the overall unemployment rate fell slightly to its lowest figure in 4 1/2 years. The rate of jobless dropped from 5.8 percent to 5.7 percent, and it hasn`t been that low since before the `74/`75 recession.

However the number of jobless rose for one significant group: the teenagers. Among all teenagers it rose from 15.7 percent to 16.1 percent.

For blacks and other minority teenagers the jobless rate rose from 32.7 percent to 35.5 percent.

Early in his administration President Carter made youth unemployment one of his top priorities. Today`s figures would seem to show that all the money and effort expended so far has not made a real dent in this chronic problem. And in fact, the government is proposing to cut back the efforts somewhat next year.

Tonight: Where has the youth unemployment money been going, and has it done any good.

Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Robin, there are six federal programs aimed directly at doing something about this unemployment. They all emanate from something called the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, CETA, and add up to $1.75 billion dollars a year. Two of the six have been around a while, the Job Corps at $300 million dollars, it`s one of the few war on poverty outfits still in operation. It takes disadvantaged youngsters, 60 thousand this year, and moves them to special camps or residences for intensive training and counseling.

Another $740 million dollars goes to the Summer Jobs Program which finances some 1 million jobs when school is out.

Then the four new ones, set up in 1977 by the Carter administration, the $500 million dollar a year Youth Employment and Training Program, it provides training and counseling for 150 thousand young people between the ages of 14 and 21.

The Youth Adult Conservation Corps, a $217 million dollar a year remodeling of the depression CCC. This one finances the employment of young people in all kinds of state and federal conservation work.

The other two are considered experimental. The Youth Community and Conservation Improvement Project, $107 million dollars a year to hire out of school young people to work on local community projects.

And the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Project, a $107 million dollar operation of demonstration projects in 17 different cities across the country. Their purpose is to keep 16 to 19 year olds in school by guaranteeing them year-round jobs.

The CETA money and all of these projects is funneled through what is called "prime sponsors", a state, county or city government entity, it`s administered from Washington by the U.S. Department of Labor under the supervision of Ernest Green, assistant secretary of labor for employment and training.

Mr. Green, do today`s unemployment figures and that $1.75 billion dollars and those six programs add up to failure at this point?

ERNEST GREEN: I think quite the opposite. A lot of the things (GARBLED) on black youth and non-white youth unemployment is that the participation rate, those coming back into the work force has increased. Those working overall has increased also. So that part of the phenomena is attributable to the participation rate of black youngsters coming back into the work force, their rate being lower in the past, historically lower, than white youngsters.

And secondly that the impact of the programs is telling us a lot what we need to know to resolve the question of youth unemployment.

The other issues that this legislation, passed by the congress and submitted by the administration, has a 2 year life. We will be going back to congress, next year, 1980 to propose learning experience, things that we think will resolve in some finality, the issues of unemployment.

LEHRER: Well, in simplest terms then, what have we gotten thus far out of this $1.75 billion dollars?

GREEN: Of the participants, you`ve gotten a mix of programs as you said earlier. Some are part time, summer employment programs, the summer youth employment program is, some are residential. The job corps, the young adult conservation camp, the entitlement ideas, the demonstration process that saturates community, guarantees jobs to 16/19 year olds who are disadvantaged. The community improvement program. You have a mix of programs.

LEHRER: Uh-Hmm.

GREEN: Precisely what we and Congress thought the approach needed to be tried.

LEHRER: Well, I hate to be overly simplistic about this, if these programs are working, then why is the unemployment rate among those that these are designed to help continuing to go up?

GREEN: Well, one issue is the difference between non-white youngsters and white youngsters happens to be their color. Race still plays an important part in dislocating and providing less jobs for blacks than for whites. Employment discrimination is the key.

LEHRER: But aren`t these federal programs designed primarily for minority youngsters?

GREEN: No, no. The programs have an income limit. The -and one program, the young adult conservation corps, there is no income limit, so that the participation of youngsters there is predominantly white. And that is what the legislation mandated, so that they all are not targeted. I think that`s the misunderstanding on the part of the general public.

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LEHRER: I know that it is in mine.

GREEN: All of the youth dollars are targeted to non-white youth, no.

LEHRER: (STARTS TO SPEAK)

GREEN: Quite the contrary.

LEHRER: You said a moment ago that as a result of these programs you have learned a lot about how to solve this problem. What have you learned?

GREEN: I think one issue is the one we just talked about, that the problems of youth unemployment vary, but the ones most severe, for black youngsters. And part of the issue we had on CETA on the last round was to try and target that chopper(?). The budget issue raises some of those...

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LEHRER: And three of these six that I just went through, there are proposed cuts in them, are they not?

GREEN: There`s proposed cuts in the summer youth program, the entitlement, and in the young adult conservation corps.

LEHRER: Well why are you cutting those programs?

GREEN: Well, as I said the young adult conversation corps is one that`s not targeted. The administration thinks that that could be better spent by targeting on disadvantaged youngsters.

Overall the budget for youth employment is $2 billion. As you indicated in your tape(?) this year is $1.7.

LEHRER: Uh-hmm.

GREEN: So there`s an increase. There`s also a shifting. of emphasis. One is to go to more year round programs rather thane the short term. Secondly is to target those, and the experience we`ve learned from the formula funded ones(?) and from the community improvement programs is that those are more targeted than nonwhite 5-disadvantaged youngsters.

LEHRER: In a word Mr. Green, are you depressed with the results you`ve gotten so far with your programs?

GREEN: Quite the contrary. As I`ve said, this represents this effort, first time this year and last year, that we have put these sorts of resources to youth unemployment. So quite the contrary, I`m not depressed by the result.

LEHRER: All right, thank you.

Robin.

MACNEIL: There are 450 prime sponsors parceling out that $1.7 billion dollars, and one of them is the city of Berkeley, California. Producer Ken Whitty and reporter Carol Bucklin went to Berkeley to see where the money is going at a local level, and what it accomplishes.

Berkeley is just across the bay from San Francisco. It`s a city of just over 100 thousand people, best known as the Berkeley Campus of the University of California.

It`s a college town in some ways, but is has its share of big city problems, including an unemployment rate of 9 percent. Among teenagers, unemployment approaches 30 percent, double the national average. And for teenagers who are not white, the rate is even higher, 2 out of 5.

BARBARA YODER: Berkeley is very similar to every other single, major metropolitan area. It is a central city, it has the problems of poverty and unemployment, of minorities, of education of economically disadvantaged. Berkeley is a mainline, United States city, and has those problems, in fact, in excess.

MACNEIL: Barbara Yoder is in charge of Berkeley`s office of employment in community programs. Her office overseas federal money that comes to Berkeley for youth employment programs.

That federal money from Washington first comes here, to Berkeley City Hall, a total of nearly $3 million dollars. Most of it goes to 3 year-round job programs for teenagers.

The Berkeley Youth Recycling Center gets $200 That money pays the salaries of 24 teenagers and 3 thousand. staff members

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The project is funded under the Youth Employment and Training Programs, the major thrust of the CETA youth effort.

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REPORTER: What are trying to do here at the Berkeley Youth Recycling center?

WOMAN: What we`re primarily trying to do is to provide youths a job skills. We`re also focusing in on the possibility of a youth operated project, which means that we train the youths to run the recycling center. And one thing is we`re trying to have a viable business run by youths.

REPORTER: What sort of young people work for the recycling center?

WOMAN: Youth that are disadvantaged, high school -- some high school dropouts, and kids that have had some problems in terms of home, and getting along with their (UNCLEAR OVER BACKGROUND NOISE) that have been problem children.

REPORTER: How does the money get from Washington, D.C., to the Berkeley Youth Recycling Center?

WOMAN: The money comes from Washington, from the Department of Labor, then it goes to the regional office in San Francisco. From there it goes to the prime sponsor, the CETA sponsor here in Berkeley, then it goes to Berkeley youth alternatives, and from Berkeley youth alternatives it goes to Berkeley youth recycling center.

REPORTER: It sounds kind of complicated.

WOMAN: It`s a very complicated process, it`s a very, very complicated process.

REPORTER: Does that complexity cause problems for you and the program? WOMAN: Well, just the amount of paper work that s needed. And the evaluation and that information -- the money especially comes out of our total $200 thousand dollar budget. And the money could be used for youth salaries, some of that money could be used for youth salaries.

MACNEIL: Projects like this one employs some 700 Berkeley young people, either part time or full time. That equals more than 10 percent of the city`s teenage population. The great majority of them are enrolled in an experiment that provides low income students with part-time jobs, as long as they stay in school.

The aim is to teach poor kids how to do a job, while improving their academic skills. All under the close supervision of counselors. In the lingo of the federal government, the program is called "youth entitlement".

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Along with tutors and jobs the programs pays for things like a career center, featuring computers. A computer program guides kids to a range of job choices, and helps them define their likes and abilities vis-a-vis the working world.

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The management costs for counselors, administrators, office and equipment and so forth, are high. Nearly half the $2 million dollar budget. But Berkeley feels that it`s money well spent.

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YODER: The philosophy is that we can intervene into the young people`s lives before they become an unemployment statistic, and a 23 year old applicant for regular CETA services, that we`ve essentially offset a future problem. So that the policymakers in the city of Berkeley have long been concerned about this problem, so it was natural for us to put a good number of resources into it.

MACNEIL: Cora Sue Harrison is 16, and an entitlement student. She works 20 hours a week at the minimum wage, assisting a reading specialist at Berkeley High School. Among her tasks, filing test scores, answering the phone and administering reading exams. It costs about $1 thousand dollars a year to employ Cora Sue and other entitlement participants.

REPORTER: What does the entitlement program mean to you?

CORA SUE HARRISON: Well, to me means having a job, a nice job in learning, so when I get out of high school I`ll know what I want to do, and how to do it.

REPORTER: What effect does the youth entitlement program have on kids in school? How does it (GARBLED) your grades and their attendance.

HARRISON: If they come into the program with below a C average, it makes them get a C average. If they don`t maintain a C average, you know, they don`t stay in the program.

REPORTER: How about the attendance side?

HARRISON: Well, if you`re absent 3 times, 3 unexcused absences, your advisor finds out and talks to you about it. To get your head straight, you either leave or you do better. And they always do better.

MACNEIL: There`s another experimental federally funded youth program in Berkeley, this one for kids out of school. The idea here, employ young people and help the community.

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Those who get help in this weatherizing(?) project are low income homeowners, many of them elderly. It`s a joint venture of the departments of labor and energy, and the community services administration. Each agency contributes a portion of the $125 thousand dollar budget. The labor department`s share, about $60 thousand goes towards the salaries of 7 teenagers, and their 3 supervisors.

Dickson Schwartzbach is one of the supervisors.

REPORTER: What`s the aim of this project?

DICKSON SCHWARTZBACH: Well, it`s several-fold. One is to help the nation in conserving energy, knowing that, you know, the resources are running out. The other is to help out senior citizens who are unable to help themselves more than other people, especially when they`re on fixed incomes, and the other is to provide skills and educational experience for youth. It`s trying to match different needs that are, you know, in the community.

REPORTER How are the kids in the program working out so far?

SCHWARTZBACH: They`re doing a good job, we`re really proud of them. It`s difficult. The difficulties have been working with people without skills, and not knowing how to keep a job, how to act with the boss. They`re in problems with drugs, problems with -- just smart ass (LAUGHS), the type of behavior which does not go with keeping a job and being responsible. And there`s -it`s difficult to deal with.

REPORTER: How do you deal with those difficulties, though?

SCHWARTZBACH: Well, we talk them out. Lay the cards on the table.

REPORTER: After the project is over, what sort of expectations do you have for these kids? Where do you see them going from here?

SCHWARTZBACH: We`re trying to prepare them in this program for future jobs, so that we`ll be bringing in people who would be possible employers for the future, and having them learn how to write a resume, fill out an application, (GARBLED) interviews, that type of thing. Plus giving them the skills, and they`re not just learning how to weatherize. They`re doing things like getting drivers licenses and getting first aid education, as many skills as we can get in.

REPORTER: Well, what is having this job mean to you?

MAN: A lot. It`s what I`m depending on. This job.

MACNEIL: The youth unemployment problem has been so baffling for so long that a lot of people are watching the current experimental very carefully.

Among them is Gregory Wurtzburg, executive director of the National Council on Employment Policies.

Mr. Wurtzburg, you`ve been evaluating some of these programs, especially the experimental ones. Do you feel they`re working?

GREGORY WURTZBURG: It`s a little too early to tell whether or not they`re working. The programs -- the entire YEDPRO(?) was established as an experimental effort, and although it was authorized...

MACNEIL: ...Now which -- just a moment, we`re not familiar with the acronyms, which one is that?

WURTZBURG: All 4 programs.

MACNEIL: All 4. Okay.

WURTZBURG: Not including job corps, not including the summer programs...

MACNEIL: ...Okay.

WURTZBURG: They were established as -- initially for just a year, but the expectation was that they would run for two years at least, and at the end of that time we would have some ideas on what was working and what`s not working. It`s a little too early to talk about impact now. We can look at the implementation and draw from conclusions about that. All we can really say right now is that they`re going to need, probably at least, 2 years for the prime sponsors to work out the bugs of implementation and get the pieces that are supposed to be in place, in place.

MACNEIL: Could you say this, that to the taxpayer who is often --finds his attention attracted by criticisms in the CETA programs that so far they are getting some value for money on these things?

WURTZBURG: Yeah. They`re getting value for money, I -- for their money. But there`s got to be more patience, I think with the programs, because we`re not going to really see reliable or conclusive results for probably another two years.

And for example, when you`re looking at the unemployment rates for youth, I don`t think you can really look there for an impact on the -- you can`t see the unemployment rate going down because of the youth programs, not now.

MACNEIL: From your knowledge, is Berkeley an unusually rosy example, or is it typical, or what?

WURTZBURG: It`s -- from what I`ve seen here, it looks typical of what we`re seeing in other prime sponsors of that size. There seemed to be two ways of categorizing prime sponsors, maybe three ways to categorize prime sponsors. The very large cities, and then smaller cities, something on the order of Berkeley. The experience there seems to be that they`ve in fact, got the programs in place, they haven`t had the resistance that many sponsors have had in areas like New York City...

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MACNEIL: Resistance, why?

WURTZBURG: The established interests. There haven`t been service deliverers that have been in place delivering certain programs for a long period of time. There hasn`t been the schools that have had their turf all set out with summer programs, for example.

MACNEIL: I see.

Could I ask you this. Do you think it`s too early to evaluate, in your view, is it also too early to cut, as the government is proposing to do one of these programs, the incentive entitlement program. For instance, that girl in the film, the one who was working in the reading center, that program is going to be phased out next year under the proposals.

WURTZBURG: Right. The original plan for that was to run it just as a temporary demonstration and I think it is too early to phase it out because I don`t think they`ll really have gotten the complete program in place that they wanted to get in place, and I don`t think they`ll have any kinds of reliable results. There`s still too many uncertainties in implementation.

And I would think that before you could get any kind of reliable results, you`d have to wait at least until 1982.

MACNEIL: Well, thank you.

Jim.

LEHRER: Mr. Green how about that. You heard what Mr. Wurtzburg says, it`s too early for you all to be proposing to cut these programs.

GREEN: I think we have to distinguish between all of the programs and what it is that the budget cuts impact on. You know, this is a period of time in which there are many other considerations and the department...

LEHRER: ...Excuse me. What considerations...

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GREEN: And the issue of trying to reduce the federal deficit, and concern with inflation. But as I said earlier, the amount of resources going to youth unemployment, under the act now will be over $2 billion dollars. The budget cut will not allow any new youngsters to enroll in entitlement, but those that are presently on, will be able to continue, so that it is not cutting out entitlement but it is not enrolling new youngsters into entitlement.

LEHRER: (GARBLED)

GREEN: The other thing is that there is an increase in both the community improvement program,the- one that you saw on the weatherization, and there is an extension and an increase in the formula funded program, under VEDA.

LEHRER: You satisfied, Mr. Wurtzburg?

WURTZBURG: Sort of. The young adult conservation corps is a program that ought to be cut because it`s not targeted and for the taxpayers, they certainly aren`t getting their moneys worth on that. It`s going to youths who probably could do just as well without the program.

For the entitlement I still think that the plan now is to terminate the entitlement program next June, June 1980...

GREEN:`81, it would be terminated, they`re still enrolling.

LEHRER: Yeah, go ahead.

WURTZBURG: Okay.

LEHRER: Well, let`s broaden this a moment. Is it -- do both of you all agree that this problem of youth unemployment is a problem that can never be solved by the private sector. That there will never be jobs for these young people, the targeted young people, primarily minority young people in the private sector, and it will always be the government`s responsibility to do these programs or something like it?

GREEN: Well, I don`t take the view that they will never be absorbed by the private sector. Certainly dislocation problems of jobs not existing in urban areas do pose that all these youngsters will not be picked up in the private sector. But two issues that we have, that aren`t in the youth package, one is the targeted jobs tax credit, that`s the refocusing of tax credit law we had that was passed in January...

LEHRER: ...You`ll have to explain that. I`m not familiar with it.

GREEN: We previously had in the tax code a tax credit for people hired, just anyway. It was untargeted, unspecified. The administration went back on the targeted job tax credit and said only would firms be given credit if you`re hiring disadvantaged youths between 18 and 24, Vietnam veterans and -- there are 8 groups specified -- specifically. This allows private firms, private employers to receive up to $3 thousand dollars the first year, $1500 the second year as a tax credit against their business tax. Tax that they found(?).

LEHRER: Yeah.

GREEN: The second one is the increase and funding in our on the job training activity and that`s again another private sector activity.

LEHRER: Let me ask you Mr. Wurtzburg, do you think the answers lies in the private sector only?

WURTZBURG: No, I don`t think so. What little experience we`ve had with the private sector under the entitlement program, which provides 100 percent subsidy for any youths placed in a private job, it`s been very good. The work experience seems to be better, the quality of supervision tends to be better, the whole atmosphere tends to be. better than the job the kids can get in the public sector.

MACNEIL: (UNCLEAR)

WURTZBURG: But there`s -- there`s a very difficult time in developing those jobs, and even with the 100 percent wage subsidy under the entitlement program only about 10 percent of the job are in the private sector.

GREEN: But we also have an experience though, when you look at Mississippi, the...

LEHRER: ...We`ll have to save Mississippi for another night.

GREEN: Okay.

LEHRER: Another time.

Robin.

MACNEIL: Yes. Thanks both very much for joining us.

Good night Jim.

LEHRER: Good night Robin.

MACNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back on Monday night.

I`m Robert MacNeil, good night.

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