Monday, October 1, 2012
By Bill Stanczykiewicz, President
and CEO of Indiana Youth Institute
Child poverty in Indiana is up, but so is opportunity for
low-income high school students in a successful statewide program. More
opportunity today can mean less poverty in the future.
According to new federal data, 23 percent of Indiana children are
poor, a 38 percent increase since 2005.
Indiana’s child poverty rate now exceeds the national average, and
a big reason is the Great Recession. Research from Northwestern University
reveals that for every one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate,
poverty increases by .5 percent. Thus, poverty has increased significantly as
Indiana’s unemployment rate rose from less than 5 percent in 2007 to today’s
elevated rate above 8 percent.
Education also matters. People with higher levels of education,
especially a postsecondary degree or credential, enjoy higher wages and lower
levels of unemployment. National data reveal that the unemployment rate for
people with a bachelor’s degree is less than 5 percent, and the average wage
for this cohort is $55,000.
For people who have dropped out of high school, the unemployment
rate tops 15 percent with wages averaging $23,000.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs are
available. Since January of 2010, 1.8 million jobs have been created requiring
a postsecondary degree or credential, while 128,000 jobs have been lost
requiring a high school diploma or less – a swing of nearly two million jobs.
Ivy Tech Community College estimates that 40,000 to 50,000
manufacturing jobs in Indiana currently are unfilled due to a lack of qualified
applicants with training certificates, credentials or associate degrees that
require just six months to two years of additional education after high school.
Another factor associated with poverty is family structure.
Children in single-parent families are five times more likely to live in
poverty, and the increase in Indiana’s child poverty rate has coincided with an
increase in the state’s nonmarital birth rate which has risen from 35 percent
in 2000 to 44 percent in 2009.
In, “Creating an Opportunity Society,” Ron Haskins and Isabel
Sawhill examine the combined influence of education, employment and family
structure on poverty. Sawhill is a Democrat who worked in the White House for Bill
Clinton at the same time that Haskins, a Republican, was working in the
Congress for Newt Gingrich. Now they both work at the Brookings Institute
where they have discovered that despite their many disagreements, they also have
discovered much common ground.
In
the book, Haskins and Sawhill note, “Those who finish high school, work full
time, and marry before having children are virtually guaranteed a place in the
middle class.”
The authors identify this formula as the “success sequence”:
finish high school and attain a postsecondary degree or credential, work
full-time and marry before becoming a parent. Follow the sequence and you have
just a 2 percent chance of ever living in poverty. Don’t follow the sequence,
and your odds of poverty increase to 75 percent.
For people living in poverty, Haskins and Sawhill acknowledge that
the success sequence is not as simple as it sounds. The causes of poverty, they
argue, include many factors related to personal behavior, economic structures
and social influences. But one factor stands out above the rest:
“Hopelessness – a sense of passivity or fatalism in the face of limited
opportunity.”
They quote researcher Jason DeParle who reported on teens living
in poverty, “The real theme of their early lives was profound alienation – not
of hopes discarded but of hopes that never took shape.”
In effect, growing up poor often means believing that success is
for someone else, that effort does not matter, so why even try?
An effective statewide program, run by Indiana’s Department of
Workforce Development, is providing an inspiring answer to that demoralizing
question. Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG) identifies low-income high school
students who are at risk of dropping out. The students receive focused
attention through tutoring, study skills, life skills training and exposure to
postsecondary education. The program also partners with employers to offer
jobs, internships and workforce readiness skills.
Over the last five years, JAG has served nearly 2,500 low-income
students across the state with 90 percent graduating from high school. Among
the graduates, 45 percent enter postsecondary education and 55 percent gain
full-time employment.
Most importantly, JAG is breaking through the hopelessness that
plagues children in poverty. According to Julie Puttmann, who leads the JAG
program in Sullivan High School in west central Indiana, “The biggest change
that happens to our students is they realize they don’t have to accept
everything as they’ve always seen things their entire lives. They can do
something else. They learn that they have value and that there is value
and reward in trying.
“Our students realize for the first time that they can make it.”
More poverty means more adults and children who have immediate
needs that can be met through private charity and the public safety net.
However, the increase in poverty also calls attention to longer-term solutions
based on family structure, education and work.
And the success of Jobs for America’s Graduates highlights the
opportunities that are available to youth in poverty through school, business
and community partnerships.
