Posted Date: June 25, 2008

Black Caucus Asks Bush To Keep Urban Youth Program

By Hazel Trice Edney
NNPA Editor-in-Chief

   WASHINGTON (NNPA)—The Congressional Black Caucus has appealed to President George W. Bush on behalf of the National Urban League’s Urban Youth Empowerment Program set to be slashed from the budget of the Department of Laboron next week.
   “It is our understanding that the funding, which enables the program to provide much-needed services to young people to reduce recidivism, to complete their high school education and to find jobs is to be terminated on June 30, 2008. We urge you not to end this vital program,” states a letter to Bush, signed by 37 members of the CBC and released exclusively to the NNPA News Service. “Now is not the time for the Department of Labor to turn its back on young people who are trying to turn their lives around. These young people will be kicked out of the program unless you intervene.”
    The letter asks that the federal government at least allocate $4 million to allow 800 youth enrollees to complete the training that they have already begun through 2008.
   “At a time when incarceration rates are at an all-time high in the nation, and unemployment among young people is steadily increasing, the program serves as a valuable resource to underserved communities around the country,” the letter states. “The program has a demonstrated record of effectiveness in assisting at-risk youth in educational opportunities, job training and placement, and the support needed to make a successful transition into the workplace.”
    CBC Executive Director Joe Leonard confirmed Monday morning that the Caucus had not yet gotten a White House response to the letter.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Black teens ages 16-19 is 32.3 percent, twice the rate of the 16.4 percent of White teens in the same age group; and nearly twice the rate of Latino teens, 17.5 percent.

 

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