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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, The U.S. economy is experiencing the worst
3 slow-down in the past 30 years and is facing a severe
4 recession; and
 
5     WHEREAS, The U.S. economy has shed more than 1 million
6 payroll jobs in the 10 months of 2008 and now has on average
7 2.8 million more unemployed persons than one year ago; and
 
8     WHEREAS, At 33%, this was the worst summer teen (16 to 19)
9 employment rate in post-World War II history, and this national
10 employment crisis is crippling the teen job market, with Black
11 and Latino youth the hardest-hit groups; and
 
12     WHEREAS, In the summer of 2008, more than 2 million
13 low-income youth were out of work and on the streets; and
 
14     WHEREAS, In October 2008, 68% of teens were jobless and
15 there were 500,000 fewer teens employed than in October 2007,
16 and the nation's teen employment rate fell by three percentage
17 points over the past 12 months; and
 
18     WHEREAS, Youth, particularly Black and Hispanic, are
19 living in a "Depression" with very high jobless rates - 77% of
20 Black youth and 69% of Hispanic youth across the country; and
 

 

 

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1     WHEREAS, President Obama and the Congress are now proposing
2 a very large stimulus to restart the U.S. economy; and
 
3     WHEREAS, From 1964 until 2000, there was a separate summer
4 youth employment program for over 750,000 low-income youth, and
5 these jobs were often the first jobs for low-income youth,
6 giving them a chance to work and gain experience to later find
7 a job on their own; and
 
8     WHEREAS, The summer youth employment program was
9 eliminated when the youth employment and training program was
10 revamped in 2000; and
 
11     WHEREAS, Teen employment has a variety of long-term
12 benefits for youth as well as the short-term improvement in
13 their earnings and income; the more teens work when they are 16
14 and 17, the more likely they are to work when they are 18 and
15 19, and then they are more likely to work when they are 20 and
16 21; teen employment raises earnings of youth when they reach
17 25; and
 
18     WHEREAS, Teens who work are more likely to get trained by
19 their employers via formal apprenticeship training, and
20 low-income youth who work more in high school, especially
21 males, are less likely to drop out of high school, and female

 

 

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1 teens who work more are less likely to get pregnant; and
 
2     WHEREAS, Illinois has demonstrated this past summer how to
3 quickly and successfully implement a broad-based summer youth
4 employment program that employed nearly 10,000 youth across the
5 State; therefore, be it
 
6     RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
7 NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
8 the Illinois State House of Representatives urges President
9 Obama and the Congress to allocate $2 billion of the next
10 proposed economic stimulus to create an employment program
11 throughout the year, and with a particular emphasis on the
12 summer, for 1 million youth (13 to 21 years old), combining
13 education and productive work in their neighborhoods; teens
14 would earn money while they are producing meaningful work, and
15 they will spend this money immediately providing a direct
16 economic stimulus to the U.S. economy; and be it further
 
17     RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be
18 delivered to President Obama and each member of the Illinois
19 Congressional delegation.