Fuel for the Field

By Carla I. Javits, REDF President
From REDF’s June 2010 eNewsletter

With unemployment in California stuck around 12%, prospects for increased employment of individuals with significant barriers might seem dimmer than ever. Putting a fine point on it, “I think the unemployment rate will be permanently higher,” noted Mark Sandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, “or at least higher for the foreseeable future.” The Congressional Joint Economic Committee just reported that the unemployment rate for youth between age 16 and 24 is—at close to 20%—the highest since it began tracking the data in 1947.

It is hard not to consider whether REDF’s relentless focus on bringing those with significant barriers into the workforce is still relevant in this context. And maybe that’s why I particularly noted the words of actress, performance artist and playwright Anna Deveare Smith who entranced attendees at the “Gathering of Leaders” hosted by New Profit earlier this year.

To paraphrase, she said that those with “optimism” are busy looking for signs of falling unemployment and people heading out to the mall to shop. Those with “hope” have the imagination to look out beyond the evidence of static unemployment to create new possibilities that become contagious against all the odds— innovating despite the present realities, inventing new technologies, and starting businesses that eventually employ hundreds of thousands.

Although we do not know that it will turn out well, people with hope create job opportunities for those with unemployment rates five times as high as others, even when unemployment is sky high. And men and women with hope seek jobs and work hard to retain them when they get them, despite the competition they face from others carrying less baggage.

Few things are as bad for us as being involuntarily out of work, and most people know it.

What is not so clear is why our country has put up with disproportionately high unemployment rates for significant swaths of the US population for decades, especially when the related costs of recidivism to jail and prison, homelessness, youth violence, and family dysfunction have been breaking the bank.

Decades of experience have demonstrated that people with the most daunting challenges are fully capable of moving into the workforce when offered paid work experience and targeted services that connect them to basic education and certified training.

It’s high time to stop talking and start doing. REDF’s 2011-2015 strategy, to be unveiled at our 2nd annual benefit in San Francisco on September 30, is all about making good on our longstanding slogan “investing in employment and hope.” We’ll be taking our job-creation effort statewide in California, with ambitious goals for the numbers employed. We’re going to work with local partners to develop a tier of social enterprises that is a model of jobs plus services. Our aim is that every individual who wants to will have the chance to get on that first rung of the employment ladder and start to move up. Our contribution will be a powerful model that every community can and should be able to develop and rely upon as an on ramp into the workforce.

The reality is that a thriving US economy and society depends on a well-prepared workforce contributing all of their diverse talents and skills.

Accelerating the growth and productivity of the entire economy will require some of us with imagination and hope to fuel business and job growth, so that men and women who have had the most limited opportunities in the past participate in building a better future.