Tax Extenders Act of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise this morning because I am offering an amendment on youth summer jobs that will build on and extend the extremely successful summer jobs program we included in last year's Recovery Act. Last summer's program put over 313,000 young people to work and provided a much needed shot in the arm to them, their families, and businesses and communities around the country. I have personally heard stories from young men and women who participated in the program who told me how much it changed their lives and gave them the skills and the experience they know they need to exceed in school and in the workforce. That is why, while we are focusing on legislation that will support unemployed Americans and help workers get back on the job, we should also continue investing in a successful program that helps our young people get to work.

The amendment I am offering today will provide $1.5 billion through the Workforce Investment Act to create 500,000 temporary jobs for young people across the country. It will invest in critically needed employment and learning programs that will help stimulate our local economies while providing meaningful short-term work and learning experiences for the young people who really need it the most.

In addition to the summer jobs program, this amendment also supports year-round employment and longer term efforts to help our young people obtain a postsecondary degree or credential.

Growing up, I had every different kind of summer job you can ever imagine. I started out working in my father's five-and-ten-cent store on Main Street in Bothell, and, along with my brothers and sisters, I did everything from stocking the shelves, to working the cash register, to sweeping the floor. Later on, I worked at a summer job at Sacajawea State Park in Pasco, where I did weeding, kept the restrooms clean, and helped make the park presentable. One summer, I answered phones at a glass company in my hometown of Bothell. I also, one summer, worked at a psychiatric ward at the VA during a summer in college.

Looking back, I can tell that each one of those jobs I held as a young person helped me in a very unique way. Each one of them taught me skills and lessons I have been able to use throughout my life.

Those jobs taught me everything from the value of hard work to the daily challenges of running a small business, how to dress and act in a professional work setting, but, most of all, those jobs helped me be exposed to new experiences and new people and new challenges. In fact, my time working at the Seattle VA that summer gave me an appreciation of our veterans and health care workers that has driven me to fight for them every single day I am in the Senate now.

It is not just me. Summer jobs have been proven to teach skills and life lessons for everyone. Studies have shown that people who get early work experience as teenagers make more money as adults. In fact, early work experience has been shown to raise earnings 10 to 20 percent over a lifetime.

However, as we all know, today teens are finding it especially difficult to find a job. Over the past 2 years, the number of employed teens in the United States has declined by nearly 25 percent, and their overall employment rate fell to a new post-World War II low of 25 percent by the end of last year, more than 18 percentage points below the rate in 2000. In fact, the total proportion of young people who were employed last July, the traditional peak time for youth jobs, was only 51.4 percent. That is the lowest July rate on record.

Today, with families who are cutting their spending so they can pay their bills and businesses having to freeze hirings so they can pay theirs, that means even fewer jobs for young people today.

I don't think we should forget teen jobs will help stimulate our local economies because, as anybody who has had a teenager at home knows, young people are a lot more likely to spend their paychecks in their communities than pocket them. When a young person does, in fact, save their wages, oftentimes they are saving for college or making a critical contribution to their families in this very difficult time.

Sometimes I hear people talk about these big national programs and too often forget there are real people being impacted, real families being helped, and real young people being offered such an important helping hand. I wished to share with everyone a story about what this funding meant for a program in King County, WA, last year for a young man who had the opportunity to participate because of the funding we provided last year.

Back in 2007, King County was able to provide 200 local youth jobs for that year. They were able to provide about the same number--200 or so--in 2008. Then, last summer, with the funding we secured for them in the Recovery Act and under the leadership of a great CEO, Marlena Sessions, they were able to provide 900 young people with summer work experience. Nine hundred young people in King County last summer had the opportunity to productively engage in their community and avoid that high risk in criminal activity we worry about and, importantly, learn the 21st century skills employers value, such as critical thinking and teamwork and problem solving and communication.

One of those participants in King County was a young man named Ryan. He spent his summer last year working at a maritime supply company in Seattle, a company called Washington Chain. Ryan had gotten into a lot of trouble in his life in the past. He was actually on work release from prison. He didn't have many of the skills employers are looking for in employees, so he went out and applied for job after job, fast food restaurants and more of the same. He actually put out 200 applications in total without a single one willing to take a chance on him after they found out about his record.

Well, Ryan heard about the Seattle King County Summer Jobs program, and you know what. It changed his life. Ryan was accepted into a program that was a partnership between a youth service provider and a community college. He spent 3 weeks in class, followed by 3 weeks in a paid internship at Washington Chain. The company wasn't planning on hiring any new full-time employees, but at the end of last summer, this experience changed Ryan so much and they were so impressed with Ryan and his work capability that the company found a full-time job for him. It was a real job for Ryan, with a decent salary and good benefits and a future. For the first time in his life, Ryan was able to take pride in his work and finally support himself and his young children.

After the program was over, Ryan said the program was ``one of the best things that ever happened to me.'' His boss at Washington Chain said the company was lucky to find Ryan. He said Ryan had been ``willing to do just about everything we have asked him.''

The summer jobs program we passed last year gave Ryan and many more like him an opportunity they would not otherwise have had. It is a new lease on life for him, and doors opened to him that had always been closed to him. Ryan is far from alone. There are hundreds of thousands of young people around the country whose lives were changed by the experiences they had last summer.

So if this amendment I am offering today passes, there will be 500,000 more by this time next year. Five hundred thousand young people will be providing much needed services in hospitals and daycare centers, in senior centers, in parks, in public and in private organizations, staying off the streets, helping their communities, gaining the skills and the experiences they need to put them on a better path to success in school and life. Yes, by the way, they will be spending those paychecks and contributing to our economic recovery.

I urge our colleagues to support this amendment. The underlying bill we are considering today is going to help millions of families across the country who need some help right now getting back on their feet. This amendment will help young people across this country start their professional lives by firmly planting them on moving toward a successful, productive, and fulfilling career. I hope all our colleagues take the time to think back and think about what happened to them and people they know in their lives, where they had a summer job experience that helped set them on a path they may have never thought available to them and that it is our responsibility, in this Chamber, to now provide that same opportunity for young people who are following in our footsteps.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

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